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日本[Video Review] Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Gen 3 – Deal-maker or a Deal-breaker?
Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Gen 3 (AMD) grondige evaluatie
Lenovo has finally given the ThinkPad L13 series the treatment it deserves. Now, it is smaller than ever and has a screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio. Essentially, the overall shape and design of the product haven't changed a lot, as it still respects its ThinkPad roots.However, we see an interesting choice regarding the processor options. Expectedly, the device is offered with both Intel and AMD CPUs. While Team Blue supplied the 12th Gen Alder Lake options, Team Red only goes for the refreshed Ryzen 5000U devices.This is not necessarily a bad idea. They are less expensive, and some pe[...]
Pros
- No PWM (IVO M133NW4J R4 (LEN41A0))
- Smaller form factor
- Premium build quality
- Great keyboard
- IR face recognition + fingerprint reader
Minpunten
- Soldered RAM
- Covers only 56% of sRGB (IVO M133NW4J R4 (LEN41A0))
- No Thunderbolt (due to AMD limitations) and no SD card slot
Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Gen 3 (AMD) - Specs
- Weergave
- 13.3”, FHD+ (1920 x 1200), IPS
- HDD/SSD
- tot 1000GB SSD
- M.2 sleuf
- 1x 2242 M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 Zie foto
- RAM
- up to 32GB
- OS
- Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11 Home, Windows 10 Pro
- Batterij
- 46Wh
- Lichaamsmateriaal
- Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum, Glass Fiber
- Afmetingen
- 305 x 218 x 17.3 mm (12.01" x 8.58" x 0.68")
- Gewicht
- 1.25 kg (2.8 lbs)
- Poorten en connectiviteit
- 1x USB Type-A
- 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
- 1x USB Type-A
- 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
- 2x USB Type-C
- 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
- HDMI
- 2.0
- Kaartlezer
- Ethernet LAN
- Wi-Fi
- 802.11ax
- Bluetooth
- 5.2
- Audio-aansluiting
- 3.5mm Combo Jack
- Kenmerken
- Vingerafdruk lezer
- optional
- Web camera
- HD / FHD
- Verlicht toetsenbord
- optional
- Microfoon
- Dual Array Microphone, far-field, Dolby Voice
- Sprekers
- 2x 2W Stereo Speakers, Dolby Audio
- Optische drive
- Slot voor veiligheidsslot
- Kensington Lock
Alle Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Gen 3 (AMD) configuraties
[Intro]
Lenovo has fixed all of its flaws with the ThinkPad L13 Gen 3, making the laptop smaller and giving it a 16:10 display. How does that affect the experience? Stay with us to find out.
[Design]
For starters, the ThinkPad brings a plethora of materials for its build, including aluminum alloy for the lid, and a mix of glass fibers and plastic for the base. Metal is metal, so the lid is definitely more rigid. Nevertheless, the laptop has lost some weight, slimming down to 1.25 kg, 140 grams less than the Gen 2 product. It’s also thinner, measuring at just 17.3 mm.
[Input devices]
More importantly, the lid opens with one hand, showing off a well-populated base. The keyboard is islanded, with a fingerprint reader above it, and a touchpad below it. Typing on it is comfortable, mostly thanks to the clicky feedback. The key travel is shorter than we usually like, but the spill-resistance and backlight manage to sway us in its favor. There’s a Red TrackPoint in the middle of it, which works with the physical buttons on top of the touchpad. The pad is covered in Mylar, which comes close to mimicking glass in terms of smoothness.
[Ports]
Moving to the ports, the left side keeps a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port and a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port. The rest is on the right, with an HDMI 2.0 port, as well as one more Type-A and Type-C port. There are some optional ports as well, including a SIM card slot and a SmartCard reader.
[Display]
Looking at the display, it’s surrounded by relatively thin bezels. The top one packs an HD or a Full HD webcam with a privacy shutter. You can also configure the ThinkPad with an IR sensor for Windows Hello. The Full HD+ display is taller than your average panel. It has excellent viewing angles, a peak brightness of 338 nits, and a very high contrast ratio of 1910:1, so blacks should be quite deep. However, if you want to use the laptop as a portable editing studio, we’d have to disappoint you, as the display covers only 56% of the sRGB color gamut. On the other hand, this is a business machine first and foremost, so a color-accurate panel isn’t required. What’s more important is the 0 PWM usage.
Here we have to mention our display profiles, which calibrate the panel to make it better for whatever it is you’re doing. For the ThinkPad L13, we recommend our Office Work profile, which makes texts and tables clearer and more legible. But you should get all three of them, they’re all useful. We’ll have them linked in the description below.
[Sound]
Moving onto the audio, the bottom-firing speaker setup is surprisingly loud, while all frequencies are free of deviations.
[Battery]
What’s very important for business machines is the battery life, as you need your laptop to get you through a whole day’s worth of use while minimizing the time spent plugged into a wall. With a Ryzen 5 Pro 5675U and a 46Wh battery pack, the laptop lasts for 8 hours and 20 minutes of Web browsing, or 8 hours of video playback, which is good, however, the HP EliteBook 640 G9 does generate much higher numbers.
[Performance]
The Ryzen 5 Pro 5675U is a 15W CPU with 6 cores and 12 threads. You can also go for a Ryzen 7 Pro 5875U, which has 2 extra cores. The Ryzen 5 is far from the best performer, and the EliteBook 640 G9 outclasses it again, as its Core i5-1235U is better in both the Cinebench and Photoshop tests.
[Cooling]
Thankfully, the Ryzen 5 doesn’t need a lot, cooling-wise, so a single heat pipe with a fan will do. In the stress test, we see the chip go as high as 30W in the first few seconds, dropping to 25W at the 20-second mark, after which it settles comfortably at 17W in long runs, which means 15 minutes or more. This isn’t the best showing that we’ve seen, as while the Ryzen 5 Pro 5675U is considered to be a new CPU, it’s awfully close to the Ryzen 5 5600U and the Ryzen 5 5625U.
However, raw performance isn’t imperative for an office machine, which is why we’re okay with these results, especially when it means a quiet machine. After 30 mins of high load, the keyboard heats up to 42.2°C, which is totally fine.
[Teardown and upgradeability]
Lastly, we have to take a look inside the device. The ThinkPad L13 Gen 3 offers poor upgradeability, with up to 32GB of soldered DDR4 memory and only one small 42mm M.2 PCIe slot for Gen 4 SSDs.
If you want to know how to disassemble the ThinkPad L13 Gen 3, we’ll leave a link to our teardown video in the description below.
[Verdict]
The Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Gen 3 makes some sacrifices, which might be a deal-breaker for some people. However, these people aren’t the hardcore business audience, which has respect for the ThinkPad brand and will appreciate the security features and the extra portability. On the other hand, the EliteBook 640 G9 is looking really good, so if you can do with a larger 14-inch machine, it only comes with gains.
For a deeper look inside the ThinkPad L13 Gen 3, check our website, where we have a written review with more tests. It’s linked down below.
