Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 AMD Laptop Review: Ryzen power in the compact ThinkPad

[A]

the way to achieve 7500 speed is to use HDI technology in the PCB

And here comes on-die memory hehe.

[Neenyah]

the way to achieve 7500 speed is to use HDI technology in the PCB

And here comes on-die memory hehe.

Pretty much as the cheapest solution now, yep.

[AA]

I have been using this machine for over a month. Overall, it is a decent laptop, but I believe I received a faulty unit and I am considering returning it.

The main issue is a graphics glitch that occurs a few times a day, which looks exactly like the one shown on this video (watch?v=axPJNTE6lBw) (although the video is for the Gen3 model running Fedora, not Gen4 with Win 10 as in my case).

There are also occasional instances where a keystroke is not registered, indicating a potential issue with the keyboard.

There was also random switching between open windows, possibly a software problem.

Coming from a 2015 MacBook Pro, which was not perfect either, I am a bit disappointed with my purchase and I have doubts about the longevity of this machine.

Has anyone else encountered similar issues with this model or its predecessor? What would be your advice?

[RobertJasiek]

Recently, I purchased and returned a keyboard with two keys not registering every key stroke (and then purchased from another seller without the problem). Have no tolerance with such things - return the product immediately! Otherwise, you will regret it every day.

[Neenyah]

return the product immediately! Otherwise, you will regret it every day.

Yeah, this here. It's under warranty, you will get a new unit. Duds happen everywhere with every OEM and the more units they make and ship the more issues is going to happen (not in %, just as total problematic units) simply because of numbers. Lenovo is great with ThinkPads about that matter so a new unit will arrive in no time.

[NikoB]

I never make such purchases in online stores, only in local ones with quality checks right there on the spot.

For mice and keyboards, I carry a laptop with me so I can easily connect it and immediately check the operation. Laptops need to be checked carefully when purchased. And it is especially important to check the HDD.

If someone wants to play roulette with online stores, that's his problem.

It is better to spend time on an offline purchase with quality check at the time of purchase (if this is possible in your place of residence) than to deal with returns and waste your personal time. Most often, saving due to a lower price in online stores results in an attempt to sell you an opened package of goods (used/repackaged) or problems with warranty service later.

[AA]

Thank you for your replies. I guess I will return it or try to exchange it.

This model is not available in offline stores where I live, so purchasing online is the only option. And I trust the seller.

[RobertJasiek]

NikoB, yours is a reasonable approach but, in the EU, online purchases involve the possibility of returns within 14 days so can also be a reasonable approach.

[Ideal Approach]

NikoB, yours is a reasonable approach but, in the EU, online purchases involve the possibility of returns within 14 days so can also be a reasonable approach.

To add on to what Robert said, I think the best way to do it is wait until a product is widely available / in stock in local retail stores and then just order online to actually test it carefully. The reason for this is, companies that offer their products in local retail stores tend to be more confident about their products and have gone through more thorough stringent testing processes / less likely to have as many defects (relative to a product that's only sold online). Not to mention physical stores exist to make money too. They're not gonna keep a product in stock (or reorder more) that has terrible quality control / high defect rate and are more likely to check to inspect products before they even agree to place them in their stores to ensure they meet a minimum level of quality. Often times you can't really test a product properly in store and you're not always able to return items purchased from physical stores but are guarantied a legal right to return for any online purchase if within 14 days even without disclosing a reason. (at least this is how it is in UK)

[NikoB]

NikoB, yours is a reasonable approach but, in the EU, online purchases involve the possibility of returns within 14 days so can also be a reasonable approach.

In my country there is an absolute refund within 7 days. But this does not stop unscrupulous sellers from selling counterfeits and simply goods that do not correspond to the description - they can easily send a completely different model, knowing in advance that it will be returned to them. I don't know what they hope for, but these are the facts. Apparently they are complete idiot buyers, of whom (judging by the comments and reviews that are obvious fakes or obvious inconsistencies in the description of the product), the majority of the population. Alas, nothing can be done about this herd - just improve the general education of the population, but the powers that be in recent decades in all countries have clearly taken a course towards the opposite process - idiocracy, the maximum dullness of the population in all countries of the world. It's just easier to rule and it's easier to sell garbage...

I myself have encountered more than once, in online stores, on large marketplaces, that they send 100% fakes (with declarations of the original) or a complete discrepancy with the description. And that's why I try to buy offline, if possible. But the trends are negative.

Often wasted time is the most critical thing for a buyer. And there will be no compensation for this, and it is unlikely that anyone will go to court for relatively cheap goods in order to punish scoundrels and marketplace owners (who are most often directly connected with the powerful stratum and easily evade real, effective responsibility in most countries of the world).

There are a minority of people on the planet who think critically (and therefore "democracy", in practice, is demagoguery) and this minority is rapidly decreasing, this is sad, but no one can change this, especially through their own private efforts, except for the effect of a real global catastrophe , which will immediately sober up the surviving population at least for a while.

[NikoB]

They're not gonna keep a product in stock (or reorder more) that has terrible quality control / high defect rate and are more likely to check to inspect products before they even agree to place them in their stores to ensure they meet a minimum level of quality.

Your statement is true, provided there is sufficient competition in the offline segment in your place of residence. Most often this is not the case. So hoping for it doesn't work. How do offline stores win? The product is available faster (but not always) and it can be checked before payment (but not always) - otherwise there is no difference with online stores and there is no point in buying offline. On online marketplaces, small retailers and fly-by-night companies often trade, who, having sold a batch of low-quality goods to a bunch of naive fools (reviews are often simply faked), immediately disappear from the market, opening another store, with a different legal entity and name, without any liability for warranty obligations. In the Western world, consumers do not understand the problems of the Third World countries, where in 99% of cases, Western (or other) manufacturers simply do not open an official local representative office and, accordingly, evade direct legal responsibility for the goods they produce in the event of defects or outright forgery with them real characteristics.
Most often, this is possible in countries with maximum corruption and nepotism and/or where large distributors (importers) of foreign goods are not interested in foreign manufacturers trading directly and having official representative offices accredited by government agencies (direct legal requirements) - because then these large importers (whose owners most often sit in local legislative chambers) will be forced to curtail their activities and lose a lot of money. And they feed on this. Their interests directly contradict the interests of the majority of consumers - but who cares, in a country where the elections are fake, a priori?

Therefore, an ordinary buyer in such a country (and this is most countries in the world outside of "Western" countries) needs to choose a seller (and manufacturer) extremely carefully, assessing in advance the risks of warranty and post-warranty service. Otherwise, saving money when purchasing online may later turn into a complete fiasco with the product and a complete loss of money much earlier than he dreamed. Not to mention the wasted (often critical) time and a lot of wasted effort afterwards.

In this hellish mess of unscrupulous marketplaces and tens-hundreds of thousands of small sellers, it is easy for an ordinary person who does not have developed critical thinking (or is in life's time pressure) to make the wrong choice and lose money, at best, important time for something even more important. And the less trust in the authorities and the judicial system, the more consumer hell there is in practice.

[Maksym]

To AA

Observed the same from time to time, maybe once or two times a day. Doesn't bother me at all.
It seems it stopped to happen when I disconnected USB-C Hub (HP USB-C Dock G4, the glitchy thing) and connected power and monitor directly to the laptop.

[Maksym]

I have been using this machine for over a month. Overall, it is a decent laptop, but I believe I received a faulty unit and I am considering returning it.

The main issue is a graphics glitch that occurs a few times a day, which looks exactly like the one shown on this video (watch?v=axPJNTE6lBw) (although the video is for the Gen3 model running Fedora, not Gen4 with Win 10 as in my case).

There are also occasional instances where a keystroke is not registered, indicating a potential issue with the keyboard.

There was also random switching between open windows, possibly a software problem.

Coming from a 2015 MacBook Pro, which was not perfect either, I am a bit disappointed with my purchase and I have doubts about the longevity of this machine.

Has anyone else encountered similar issues with this model or its predecessor? What would be your advice?

Replied above

[AA]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Maksym.

I use a bluetooth mouse, so maybe the presence of a USB dongle leads to this glitch. I'll try to disconnect it and see how it goes.

Besides, I've observed another problem: wireless networks are not discoverable after wake up from sleep. The only solution is a reboot.

[H:S]

While calling the LPDDR5x-6400 memory quad-channel is technically correct (the best kind of correct), I think it is also highly misleading, and inconsistent with other reviews, which usually refer to the 4x32-bit channel configuration on DDR5 as dual-channel.

Especially when I saw the combination of Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U and quad-channel memory, I became really excited, because I thought that the PRO means a workstation CPU variant that supports "real quad channel memory". But both the specs on AMD website and the hwinfo screenshots make it clear that this is not the case and the laptop only has a standard "consumer" 128-bit memory bus.

It would be nice to standardize the terminology throughout the site, so that these "fake quad channel" laptops do not stand out in comparison tables for no reason. Or even better, use bandwidth in GB/s instead of the ambiguous channel count. In this case it would be 6.4 * (128 / 8) = 102.4 GB/s (and not 204.8 GB/s, as I thought before becoming extremely disappointed).