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

[Neenyah]

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).

I mean, as per AMD's own specs, the R7 PRO 7840U has a maximum memory bandwidth of 120.0 GB/s (with 7500). So with 6400 it can only be slower (as you said, 102.4 GB/s).

[NikoB]

In the case of dual-channel mode, it is enough to multiply the effective frequency by 16 to get the memory bandwidth.

And in the case of all AMD chips, the memory controller has terrible efficiency compared to Intel chips, but even those don't even come close to being efficient above 90% of theoretical throughput.

The real efficiency of Apple mem controllers turned out to be even more shameful in practice - only 30-40% of the theoretical one stated in the datasheets.

[AA]

The last week my T14 BSOD'ed twice during normal operation. I decided to return it to the seller for a refund. I'm looking for suggestions for alternatives.

So far, my top choice would be a MacBook Air M2 13" or 15" with at least 16 GBs of RAM. Yes, it's more expensive, but at least I can expect it to work out of the box for a long period of time.

But I also consider other AMD and Intel laptops, especially those offered with a student discount in Germany. What are the best alternatives?

[Neenyah]

The last week my T14 BSOD'ed twice during normal operation. I decided to return it to the seller for a refund. I'm looking for suggestions for alternatives.

So far, my top choice would be a MacBook Air M2 13" or 15" with at least 16 GBs of RAM. Yes, it's more expensive, but at least I can expect it to work out of the box for a long period of time.

• m2 macbook air shutting down without warning (discussions.apple.com)
• Macbook Air M2 random Crashing! possible work around. (discussions.apple.com)
• Unexpected restart of MacBook Air M2 (discussions.apple.com)
• MacBook Air M2 2022 randomly rebooting (discussions.apple.com)
• M2 Macbook Air crashing unexpectedly (discussions.apple.com)
• ...plus about 80 more posts about M2 Air random reboots/shutdowns just on apple.com.

Good luck, I guess 😳

But I also consider other AMD and Intel laptops, especially those offered with a student discount in Germany. What are the best alternatives?

T14s AMD.

[AA]

Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention. I see that the M2 Air isn't perfect either. But in my experience, commonly reported MacBook problems have rarely correlated with the frequency of errors I have had with my MacBook. So I don't think I'm likely to run into the random restart problem if I buy the new Air. And I know - more or less - what other problems MacBooks are likely to have. None of them are worse than having your laptop randomly restart while you are working.

As a side note, my Thinkpad X120e from 2011 was a reliable workhorse, and it BSOD'ed only once or twice in the 5 or 6 years I used it. So I don't have a negative bias against ThinkPads, only a positive one.

Could you explain why do you think the T14s will be more reliable? As far as I know, it is very similar to the T14. Can you recommend models from other manufacturers (that of course do not have the random restart problem)?

[Neenyah]

I understand your points and they are valid. You can always try to find if the BSOD-related issue is coming from faulty hardware or from some weird software glitch like bad driver though. I'm almost positive that it's related to your Windows installation as pure hardware defects and failures are really rare these days with business lines of all OEMs. The T14 is certainly a pretty damn fine device but that doesn't mean it's perfect. That being said there really is no problem-free machine anywhere in existence but it's not like all of them are problematic; some duds will always happen with every OEM and that's what my intention was to show about the M2 Air above. It's a great machine but you can find any single problem with it, you name it, yet it's unlikely to experience the same on your end.

Could you explain why do you think the T14s will be more reliable? As far as I know, it is very similar to the T14. Can you recommend models from other manufacturers (that of course do not have the random restart problem)?

The T14s is as close to the X1 Carbon as it gets - without being the X1 Carbon (and carrying X1 Carbon's price tag with that). It's a more refined and perfected T14 with some downsides when compared with the non-s variant but also with much more pros, significantly better build quality being one of them. So you can expect a better overall quality there.

I am not sure what your exact budget is (because of German student discounts) but one solid non-ThinkPad option would certainly be something like the EliteBook 1040 G10 or also the EliteBook 845 G10 (there is also more powerful model), both from HP, both really good devices with not many cons.

[NikoB]

Lenovo's entire T business series is a priori not designed for long-term heavy loads. Only moderate surfing and similar tasks.

They are not at all reliable in the long term, with fairly intensive use.

It makes sense to take them only if there is a 3-year warranty and use them as much as possible during this period, i.e. they should easily pay for themselves within 3 years.

[Neenyah]

Lenovo's entire T business series is a priori not designed for long-term heavy loads. Only moderate surfing and similar tasks.

🤣

They are not at all reliable in the long term, with fairly intensive use.

😂

It makes sense to take them only if there is a 3-year warranty...

Quite literally every single ThinkPad, apart from the E-series models, has a base warranty of 36 months. Every.

[RobertJasiek]

Quite literally every single ThinkPad, apart from the E-series models, has a base warranty of 36 months. Every.

In which country? In Germany, I have needed less than one minute to find different ThinkPads (other than E) at Lenovo's webpage with 1 or 3 years warranty. Manufacturers and retailers calculate differently because there are also German and EU laws with alternatives to warranties.

[Neenyah]

Quite literally every single ThinkPad, apart from the E-series models, has a base warranty of 36 months. Every.

In which country? In Germany, I have needed less than one minute to find different ThinkPads (other than E) at Lenovo's webpage with 1 or 3 years warranty.

I went to check all current models (sans E) but it would be toooo many screenshots to post so I'll post only for this T14 G4 AMD because it's a topic about it; here is its PSREF.

Filtered for nothing but German market, so models sold in Germany.

Every single of 264 possible options (bottom right, "Loaded 30 rows of total 264 rows") has a base warranty of 3 years, so 36 months, there is no option to choose with less than that (but you can add additional years on top of it up to 6 years total).

I also checked Computerunivese.net, so German store, and out of all 148 new models (there are some refurbs too) 90+ of them are listed with 3 years base, again sans the E series and some L series because I'm not interested in them (all L models have pretty L screens, sadly, and when you spec them up with a really good screen they become more expensive than much better T series). Perhaps the other up to 148 too but I was checking only those with Windows licence (so Windows installed).

[RobertJasiek]

German Lenovo has /de/ in its URL.

[Neenyah]

German Lenovo has /de/ in its URL.

Yes, PSREF is the same for all markets, short for Product Specifications Reference. There is no https://psref.lenovo.com/de/de/ ("404Page Not found") but there is https://www.lenovo.com/de/de/.

PSREF shows detailed specs (and other useful info such as HMM - Hardware Maintenance Manual) for every existing ThinkPad irrelevant of its region/country; it can be sold in Argentina and you will still find it there, just search for it specifically. Lenovo is giving 3 years base warranty to the T14 G4 AMD (and every other existing T14 including those from earlier years, with AMD or Intel), not seller.

-

Edit: I just checked https://www.lenovo.com/de/de/ in detail, and then filtered only for ThinkPads, all but E and L series.

Checked literally every existing model and Garantie : 3 Jahre says for every one of them but those special models or returned/unboxed ones (6 of them in total, out of 25 in the whole offer).

[RobertJasiek]

So apparently different views of Lenovo's page(s) show different warranty periods! (Why am I not surprised?)

[AA]

both from HP, both really good devices with not many cons.

Thanks for these suggestions!

Regarding the cause behind BSODs, I could not figure it out as crash dumps were not created for some reason.

[NikoB]

Quite literally every single ThinkPad, apart from the E-series models, has a base warranty of 36 months. Every.

The bot is lying again.

notebookcheck.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-P16s-G2-AMD-im-Test-Leistung-satt-plus-OLED-im-Workstation-Laptop.787613.0.html

Lenovo bietet ein Jahr Premium-Support, worunter auch Vor-Ort-Reparatur bis zum nächsten Werktag fallen. Eine Erweiterung dieser Garantie gegen Gebühr ist ebenfalls möglich.