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Lenovo ThinkPad T14 AMD Review: Best Business Laptop you can buy?

Started by Redaktion, November 17, 2020, 23:30:44

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Redaktion

The ThinkPad T14 is the entry-level model for Lenovo's expensive ThinkPad T-series and customers can choose between Intel and AMD models. The Ryzen APUs have an advantage in terms of performance, but what about the efficiency and the features?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T14-AMD-Review-Best-Business-Laptop-you-can-buy.504298.0.html

PatrickL

There is also a Thinkpad P14s AMD model that has the same size, weight, battery capacity, memory, storage, screen options and port selection as the T14 AMD according to psref. The price may be lower or higher than the T14 based on the specific configuration. Do you know if that model will have any benefits or drawbacks compared to the T14?

heffeque

For work I still find the Huawei MateBook 14 2020 AMD a much better option: great 3:2 aspect ratio 2K 100% sRGB screen, great performance, great build quality and even better price.

gantagavin

Quote from: heffeque on November 18, 2020, 00:51:01
For work I still find the Huawei MateBook 14 2020 AMD a much better option: great 3:2 aspect ratio 2K 100% sRGB screen, great performance, great build quality and even better price.

But does it have better keyboard?

vertigo

I actually tried, unsuccessfully, to buy this last night. After wasting ~3 hours and getting extremely frustrated with their customer "support," I finally gave up. First, one of the discounts I was supposed to get wasn't what it should have been (turns out they had inaccurate info on their site, shocker) and it wouldn't log me in to ShopRunner, despite being able to do so on the SR site. Then, when I came back later to try again, that worked, but when I went to place the order, it declined the payment. I called my card company and they said they weren't even seeing the charge, so Lenovo wasn't even attempting it, but then their crappy system tried to blame the issue on the bank, saying it was denied and I should call the bank. I chatted with three different reps and called and spoke with one, and only in the final chat (4th rep) did I make any progress, though at that point I was getting sick of everything and couldn't spend any more time on it.

The first rep told me to call an 855 # and use option 1 (which is tech support), and refused to actually look into the problem or inform a supervisor of the issue or connect me to one, and instead, after several minutes of back-and-forth, asked me if she could help me with anything, to which I replied yes, she could figure out what the ordering problem is, since that was my entire reason for contacting support, and after a bit more chatting she simply said "Have a great day!" and disconnected the chat.

The second rep told me to call the same #, and when I told her that option is tech support, she replied a couple minutes later that it's actually option 3, that it had changed. So two reps that don't even know their own phone options.

So I called the number, which was actually the second number I tried calling, but the first one, the one listed at the top of the checkout page, just told me they were too busy and hung up on me. The rep I spoke with kept either cutting in and out or trailing off, making a conversation next to impossible, and she didn't seem to care. I asked several times to speak with a supervisor but she refused, and I asked for her rep ID, which she also refused to provide, stating she couldn't for security reasons, which is a bunch of crap, since every single other rep I've spoke with has always given it, usually without even being asked.

The last person I spoke with actually seemed to care and like he was trying to help, but after chatting for almost exactly an hour and not actually having anything accomplished, I finally gave up. The only useful info I got over those couple hours was from him, where he provided me with a number to call to speak with their credit card services to see what the problem is. But not once in all this time was I able to speak with a supervisor, I was hung up on (chat disconnected), had another rep simply be completely useless and refuse to even provide her ID, and was left with yet another terrible experience dealing with Lenovo. And I told the last rep that I expected to hear from a supervisor via phone or email by end of business today or I would take the issue to social media and Lenovo execs, and of course I have heard nothing back.

This company simply doesn't care at all about the customers or, apparently, making sales. Frankly, even if I could get the purchase to go through, I'm not sure if I'd want to, since if their pre-sales support is this bad, I can't even imagine what it would be like if I ever needed post-sales support. Not to mention them doing things like not offering support for some of their products (Flex 5 14). And after seeing the dismal battery life in this review, perhaps I dodged a bullet. This level of incompetence just amazes me, though. I get that the vast majority of their business is with corporate customers, but how the handle consumer sales is just abysmal. I've had my fair share of frustrating dealings with companies, but Lenovo is definitely one of the worst, and people need to keep it in mind when considering buying a computer from them. The only reason I even consider Lenovo anymore after previous dealings is because of the TrackPoint and, to a lesser extent, the keyboard. If not for that, or if other OEMs would implement a (good) pointing stick and improve their keyboards, there would be absolutely no reason to give Lenovo a second look. And anybody looking for a computer that doesn't care about or like the TrackPoint and is fine with other keyboards should completely skip Lenovo over.

And as a said, I've had issues with them before, too, yet, despite my better judgment, I decided to try again. My first attempt, out of three, and the only successful one, was about 10 years ago, and was also a major PITA, though at least I was successful, though the computer (X220) ended up being a major disappointment (poor battery life, even with the slice battery, poor durability (frame cracked from a ~2.5' fall), and poor quality (charging port stopped working)). I tried almost exactly a year ago to order one, and placed my order three times, each time being canceled within hours with no reason given, either with the cancellation or when contacting them about it. The third, and last, attempt, I spoke with a rep before placing it, letting them know it had been canceled twice already, and they assured me they would watch it and make sure it was processed (actually, IIRC, the second one did too, but the third one gave me extra reassurance, saying they were amazing and that I was in very good hands or something along those lines), yet, unsurprisingly, not only was it canceled, but I never even heard from them about it.

So now I'm looking at the Schenker VIA 14, which unforunately is Intel, but it's the only one that has a modern processor in a compact form factor, and the keyboard looks better than the ones on other OEMs and it actually has a reasonably-sized (actually quite large) battery, not to mention two M.2 slots. If they would just put a pointing stick on it and use a brighter display, it would be near perfect.

Jane

In terms of Lenovo I personally will not buy one for one thing is that the laptop does not work well   with Windows 10.  Granted the Lenovo Ideapad is 7 years old this computer acts it is I. DSL or dialup.

fatpolomanjr

I'm a little surprised at the surface temperatures of the T14 AMD with 4650u compared to the review you did earlier with the T14s 4750u model. Was the fan in Quiet Mode? I'm guessing you had it in Performance Mode (Windows 10 Battery slider all the way to the right and plugged in), since it reached a sustained TDP of 23W. I was expected the extra heat pipe to help a bit more with cooling compared to the T14s, but apparently the higher TDP of the T14 makes it run hotter.


Anonymous

Very similar laptop to HP Elitebook 845 G7, but which would you pick? T14 seems to have better CPU temps under stress test

Anacrust

Good luck trying to get one. I've repeatedly tried ordering one and the shipping date is usually late December to late January.

vertigo

Quote from: Anonymous on November 19, 2020, 17:41:45
Very similar laptop to HP Elitebook 845 G7, but which would you pick? T14 seems to have better CPU temps under stress test

Nobody knows what you want, what's important to you, what's not. Both laptops are thoroughly reviewed, so you should just compare them based on that, and other reviews, and decide for yourself which best suits your needs. If you have specific questions, or can clearly state what your priorities are, what you need it for, etc, then maybe somebody can offer some advice.

What I can say is that I personally like the T14 keyboard better and most people prefer TrackPoints to other OEMs' pointing sticks, plus the HP doesn't have the middle-click/scroll button which is enormously useful. But Lenovo, despite what reviews say here, only offers a 1-year warranty standard, whereas HP may actually offer 3 years, and while my experience with HP support hasn't been great, it's been orders of magnitudes better than Lenovo. The HP's display is much dimmer (edit: apparently, brighter options are available, which the NBC review fails to mention), so it will likely be difficult to use in brightly lit indoor environments and all but impossible to use outdoors, both of which are pretty ridiculous for a "business" laptop, but at least you won't be playing Lenovo's display lottery. However, the HP has better battery life. It's also slightly more upgradeable, with neither memory slot being soldered, whereas the T14 has only one unsoldered.

If either keyboard and pointing stick setup will work fine for you and the dim display won't be an issue (edit: as mentioned earlier, not really an issue since there are brighter options), I'd say the HP is the better choice, assuming you can get it, since every HP laptop I've checked on their site over the past few months has been unavailable or a long wait time, and I've seen comments by people saying they've had those already long wait times pushed back even further after a while. This is because I have less than zero faith that you will be able to have any issues taken care of with Lenovo, considering how bad their "support" is, and they even go so far as to disavow some of their products when it comes time to warranty support (from reviews on the Flex 5 14, which is why I ended up not getting that one). If you decide to go with the Lenovo, all I can say is good luck, both in getting the actual sale to go through and with any issues that may arise. As I said before, the keyboard and TrackPoint are the ONLY reason I will even look at a Lenovo. If other OEMs would just get their heads out of their a**es and start making decent keyboards and implementing (good) pointing sticks, which they have no reason not to do now that the patents are all expired, I would never read another Lenovo review or look at another one of their computers again.

As for the commenter saying that it's no Latitude, I'd say that's a good thing, considering how many reviews, professional and user, I've read about how hot their laptops get, and Dell's response is always that they don't recommend using a LAPTOP on your lap, but rather on a hard surface. Similarly, I've seen them respond to complaints about battery life stating that 1-2 hours is "normal." No thanks.

Quote from: Anacrust on November 19, 2020, 21:02:43
Good luck trying to get one. I've repeatedly tried ordering one and the shipping date is usually late December to late January.

This is an article about a Lenovo and the two posts prior to yours are referring to a Dell and an HP, so it's unclear which one you're referencing.

vertigo

Quote from: Jane on November 18, 2020, 06:40:44
In terms of Lenovo I personally will not buy one for one thing is that the laptop does not work well   with Windows 10.  Granted the Lenovo Ideapad is 7 years old this computer acts it is I. DSL or dialup.

At the risk of defending a company I despise and possibly changing your mind, you should know that's very unlikely any fault of Lenovo's. It's more due to Microsoft doing a poor job with W10, making it resource-intensive (though, to be fair, it's not as bad as XP to Vista/7 was, and that's just how things go with software, especially operating systems, e.g. newer versions of Android and iOS running poorly on older phones) and Intel, which is probably the biggest factor. Your several-year-old IdeaPad almost certainly has an Intel CPU, probably somewhere around an i5/i7-3xxx, give or take, which means that between when you bought it and now, there have been numerous security flaws discovered with it that have required patches, and each one of those has resulted in a performance decrease, sometimes as much as ~7-10%. Just the Spectre and Meltdown patches alone essentially make your computer perform as if you'd bought it 2-3 years earlier. Combine that with Win10's higher requirements and higher requirements of various software you use, and it's no surprise the computer run slow.

So really, there's plenty of blame to go around, but it's likely Intel you should be thanking the most, for having you pay a premium for their product and it's supposedly superior performance, only to result in much lower performance than you paid for because they were sloppy.

Dorby

"Very similar laptop to HP Elitebook 845 G7, but which would you pick? T14 seems to have better CPU temps under stress test"

845 G7 has two ram sockets allowing up to 64GB of dual-channel ddr4, whereas the T14 is limited to single-channel when going over 16GB.

Also the 845 is quieter and has a slightly longer battery life but T14 is considerably cheaper with a discount from Lenovo, especially during the ongoing Black Friday season.

vertigo

Quote from: Dorby on November 22, 2020, 01:54:47
"Very similar laptop to HP Elitebook 845 G7, but which would you pick? T14 seems to have better CPU temps under stress test"

845 G7 has two ram sockets allowing up to 64GB of dual-channel ddr4, whereas the T14 is limited to single-channel when going over 16GB.

Also the 845 is quieter and has a slightly longer battery life but T14 is considerably cheaper with a discount from Lenovo, especially during the ongoing Black Friday season.

Only the RAM >16GB will be single-channel. The first 16GB (8x2) will run dual-channel, and should be automatically used for applications that require more memory bandwidth, like gaming. Anything running in the >16GB single-channel space shouldn't be affected very much by the slower speeds and will likely not even be noticed.

ChinaLiedPeopleDied

Where is the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme or at least T15p with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS (35Watt) and RTX 3060 Max-Q?

There's plenty of room in this chassis, and the Asus G14 showed it works with decent thermals.

We cannot see yet another 14nm+++++++++++++ recycle bin CPU with half the per watt performance of AMD.

The Legion 5/7's keyboards are trash compared to a ThinkPad if you need to type all day.

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