[Video Review] Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 4 – Has a few misses, but we’re happy nonetheless



Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 4 (Intel) in-depth review

The ThinkPad E-series is Lenovo's cleanest business notebook. It has a no-nonsense design and has all of the necessary features you need - nothing too fancy, nor too complicated.Since mobile computing has gone a long way, whatever configuration you pick, you will receive a lot of power. There is the AMD option, which features last year's updated processors. Also, you can get the Intel model - the one we got. It can be equipped with either Alder Lake-U or Alder Lake-P CPUs, depending on the amount of raw horsepower you need.In addition to the decent performance, you can expect a great [...]

Pros

  • Its keyboard is backlit, spill-resistant, and great for typing
  • Optional fingerprint reader and IR face recognition
  • Good contrast ratio and comfortable viewing angles (Innolux N140HCA-EAE)
  • Supports dual PCIe x4 SSDs, and some models feature a WiFi 6 card
  • Doesn't use PWM (Innolux N140HCA-EAE)
  • Charges via Thunderbolt 4
  • Great performance

Cons

  • Covers only 53% of sRGB (Innolux N140HCA-EAE)
  • Lacks an SD card reader

Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 4 (Intel) - Specs

  • Innolux N140HCA-EAE
  • Color accuracy  7.5  3.6
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 1000GB SSD
  • M.2 Slot
  • 1x 2242 M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 + 1x 2242 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4  See photo
  • RAM
  • up to 40GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Home, No OS
  • Battery
  • 45Wh, 45Wh, 3-cell, 57Wh
  • Body material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
  • Dimensions
  • 324 x 220.7 x 17.9 - 18.9 mm (12.76" x 8.69" x 0.70")
  • Weight
  • 1.59 kg (3.5 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 2.0
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 4.0, Thunderbolt 4, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • HDMI
  • 2.0
  • Card reader
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.2
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD, FHD, IR
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Dual Array Microphone, near-field
  • Speakers
  • 2x 2W Stereo Speakers, Dolby Atmos, Harman Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot
  • Kensington Lock

All Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 4 (Intel) configurations

#CommissionsEarned

The ThinkPad E14 is a purebred business laptop with no gimmicks and a no-nonsense approach to office computing. To appeal to more consumers, the device is offered with both AMD and Intel hardware. For this review, we purchased the Intel option. It features a CPU from either the P-series or the U-series of the Alder Lake family. Which one did we get? Stay tuned to find out!

[Intro]

This device is equipped with an aluminum lid and either plastic or aluminum for the base and bottom panel. The all-metal version is a bit heavier, but thinner at the same time. The notebook hovers around 1.60 kg in terms of weight and 18 to 19 mm in regards of thickness. The ThinkPad E14 is really solid, while its industrial-looking body makes it hard to miss your professionalism.

[Input devices]

The lid can’t be opened with one hand. However, it does go the full 180 degrees. Thankfully, the base has a lot of stuff, including the keyboard, touchpad, TrackPoint, and power button. The keyboard is comfortable for typing, as any ThinkPad unit should be, while the touchpad is smooth thanks to the Mylar surface.

[Ports]

Here, the port selection is quite scarce, as the left side has one Thunderbolt 4 port, one 5-gigabit full-sized USB port, an HDMI port, and an audio jack. On the right, there’s a LAN port and a USB 2.0 port.

[Display]

The ThinkPad E14 comes with both TN and IPS panels. However, we would strongly recommend choosing an IPS option. While not made for Creator work, the 1080p IPS unit in our configuration is good for an office setting, with comfortable viewing angles, 298 nits of max brightness, and a contrast ratio of 1620:1. It covers only about 53% of the sRGB color gamut. As for accuracy, our Design and Gaming profile lowers the dE value to 3.6, which is still off the standards for professional work.

While you probably won’t make good use of our Design and Gaming profile or our Health-Guard profile, the Office Work profile will come in handy. Its strength is making text and tables more readable. We’ll leave a purchasing link in the description.

[Battery]

With a 57Wh battery pack and a Core i5-1235U, the laptop lasts for 9 hours and 52 minutes of Web browsing, or 7 hours and 51 minutes of video playback.

[Performance]

The Core i5 performs quite well inside this chassis, matching a lot of its competitors, like the MSI Prestige 14, the Acer Aspire Vero, and the Dell Latitude 5430. We see good scores in both 3D and 2D Rendering.

[Cooling]

The laptop is cooled by two heat pipes and one fan. With that setup, the Core i5-1235U maintains a constant 28W TDP, even going above 40W in the first few seconds. As for temperatures, the CPU runs at 77°C in long runs, which is totally fine.

In terms of comfort, the laptop remains cool and quiet under full load, reaching a temperature of only 40.6°C.

[Teardown and upgradeability]

On the inside, the laptop carries up to 8GB of soldered DDR4 RAM, along with one SODIMM slot. For storage, there are two M.2 slots, but only one supports Gen 4 SSDs.

We’ll link our teardown video in the description below, where you can see how to get to the RAM and storage slots.

[Verdict]

The ThinkPad E14 might feel a bit old school, but the reliability and performance that it provides will never go out of style. On the other hand, extra ports on the sides would have been great, as the left and right look very bare. Still, the device brings extra security, a fantastic keyboard, and a screen that will get you by 99% of the time. This makes it a top choice for your next business laptop.

For a deeper look at the Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 4, we’ll leave a link to our website.

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