Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 review

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Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: 30-second review

With a fewer notable exceptions, nan caller history of laptops has been a two-sided matter betwixt Intel and AMD.

Microsoft did dip its toes into ARM-based machines infamously pinch nan Surface RT, a instrumentality that ran a compiled-for-ARM type of Windows 8.1.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 isn't remotely akin to that device, which couldn't tally Win32 applications. Instead, this is simply a accepted laptop moving Windows 11 Pro 24H2 for ARM.

However, alternatively of an Intel aliases AMD processor, nan silicon astatine nan bosom of this instrumentality is simply a Qualcomm-designed Snapdragon X processor, a spot that evolved from an ARM SoC, for illustration nan ones that powerfulness astir phones and tablets.

Since this isn't a spot based connected X86, emulation allows Win32 autochthonal applications and codification to tally connected nan Qualcomm Snapdragon X1E-78-100 processor. Alongside nan Snapdragon X, nan SoC has a typical Adreno GPU and a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU AI accelerator.

While this mightiness look exotic and unusual, Lenovo's nonsubjective was to present nan classical ThinkPad acquisition while taking advantage of nan powerfulness efficiencies that Snapdragon X offers, and for nan astir part, it succeeds.

Unlike nan Microsoft Surface RT, this is nan afloat Windows acquisition and a remarkably tin solution pinch each nan bells and whistles that laptop owners mightiness want. The characteristic group includes a Nano-SIM paper slot for mobile information services, Thunderbolt 4/ USB 4.0 ports for high-speed peripherals, and nan action for an OLED display, each packaged successful a durable ThinkPad chassis.

The only downside of this creation is that you can't upgrade nan representation aliases retention from that supplied successful nan factory.

That rumor and a existent spat betwixt ARM Holdings and Qualcomm complete ARM exertion licensing mightiness make nan Snapdragon X unavailable successful nan future.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Price and availability

• How overmuch does it cost? From $1180/£1540
• When is it out? Available now
• Where tin you get it? Direct from Lenovo

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is disposable straight from Lenovo, starting astatine £1,538.50 successful nan UK and a much charismatic $1,181.40 successful nan USA. That value is for a instrumentality moving Windows 11 Home pinch a 1920 x 1200 IPS display, 32GB of LPDDR5X representation and 256GB of storage.

You tin downgrade that to nan Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 Processor and prevention $60 successful nan USA, but nan X1E-78-100 is nan only Snapdragon X connected connection successful nan UK and Europe.

Upgrading to nan reappraisal specification pinch Windows 11 Pro, 1TB of retention increases that costs to $1,511.40.

Taking each nan options, including 64GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, a 2.8K OLED screen, and a Quectel RM520N-GL 5G Sub 6 modem, nan US costs is over $2000. The UK balanced of that strategy is £1946.50.

Comparing this to nan Dell 7455, different Snapdragon X creation we'll beryllium reviewing shortly, nan Lenovo ThinkPad hardware is somewhat much expensive. The Dell 7455 starts astatine £1776.06 successful nan UK and conscionable $1499 successful nan USA.

Given nan specifications and newness of nan technology, nan Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is astir apt much costly than it should be, but it's not outrageously costly erstwhile compared pinch immoderate of nan Intel and AMD machines it competes.

• Value: 4 / 5

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Specs

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Design

• ThinkPad quality
• Highly portable
• Thunderbolt
• Zero upgrades

From nan constituent wherever IBM launched nan ThinkPad brand, it stood for a definite level of building quality, and nan Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 doesn't undermine that legacy.

The achromatic decorativeness and reddish trim consciousness assured and robust successful a measurement that different laptops struggle to match.

At 1.24kg (2.72 lbs), this creation isn't nan lightest 14-inch laptop we've ever tested, but it's ray capable to beryllium easy carried done nan time and, critically, almost precisely nan aforesaid weight arsenic nan Apple MacBook Air.

While our reappraisal hardware had a 1080p non-touch screen, getting a exemplary pinch touch and a higher solution OLED sheet (non-touch) is possible. The IPS action we sewage wasn't fantastically bright, but it was crisp and didn't negatively effect artillery life.

As we've travel to expect pinch Lenovo, nan keyboard and touchpad are some of fantabulous value and utilizing this instrumentality to input ample documents isn't impractical.

What we hadn't assumed and were amazed to spot was nan fantabulous action of ports nan ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 offers. Alongside USB, nan inclusion of Thunderbolt 4/USB 4.0 makes this instrumentality cleanable for utilizing a Thunderbolt dock, enabling it to link to peripherals pinch a azygous cablegram and simultaneously complaint nan battery.

Those paying complete $1500 for a laptop should expect Thunderbolt, arsenic it enables galore different useful technologies pinch its inclusion.

The good irony of this functionality is that only 1 institution makes Thunderbolt silicon, Intel. Therefore, while nan header communicative of nan exertion successful this instrumentality is Snapdragon X, it does person immoderate Intel-branded chips alongside that. These see nan Thunderbolt and Wi-Fi technology.

The downside of this level is that nan Lenovo engineers who designed it were instructed not to make it upgrade-friendly. As a result, nan representation is surface-mounted and can't beryllium replaced, and nan NVMe is besides not replaceable.

If you want a circumstantial magnitude of representation aliases storage, it needs to beryllium wished astatine nan constituent of waste since it isn't imaginable to alteration it erstwhile you person nan machine.

• Design: 4 / 5

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Hardware

• Qualcomm Snapdragon X1E-78-100
• Adreno X1-85 iGPU
• Hexagon NPU

Considering wherever ARM originated from and really it dominates nan mobile space, it is somewhat astonishing that nan Snapdragon X Elite has taken truthful agelong to clang nan PC party.

Intel and AMD should some beryllium concerned. This highly businesslike processor creation sports 12 Oryon CPU cores arranged successful 3 halfway clusters moving astatine up to 3.4 GHz. It tin compete pinch nan champion nan bequest spot makers tin offer, moreover successful its X1E-78-100 form. What is astir concerning for Intel and AMD is that nan Snapdragon X Elite X1E 78/100 exemplary is 1 of nan slightest potent options successful this series, and moreover much powerful chips are waiting successful nan wings.

Integrated into nan SoC is nan Adreno X1-85 iGPU, rated astatine 3.8TFLOPS and a dedicated AI neural processor, nan Hexagon NPU, rated astatine 45TOPS. The NPU is much powerful than nan 1 Intel has included successful its second-generation Ultra Core processors, and nan Adreno X1-85 is amended than nan Intel Iris Xe (96 EUs).

What helps nan supporting parts of nan SoC present nan champion capacity is that nan Snapdragon X Elite tin entree faster LPDDR5x-8448 representation technology. As nan CPU, GPU, and NPU dangle connected nan representation velocity for their calculations, nan caller DDR5 representation controller successful nan Snapdragon X Elite is captious to really good this strategy performs.

Intel has been heavy criticised successful immoderate quarters for its NPU because, for AI processing, moreover nan caller Ultra Core chips aren't sufficiently powerful for localised models. Depending connected what archiving you read, nan Hexagon NPU connected this laptop is either 40 aliases 45 TOPS, making it either balanced aliases somewhat amended than nan Intel alternative.

Interestingly, immoderate of nan features of Microsoft Co-pilot that are NPU handled are presently abnormal for Intel NPUs, but they mightiness beryllium progressive for nan Hexagon silicon here.

AI localised processing is successful its infancy, but choosing this architecture doesn't exclude you from immoderate of nan AI functionality starting to invade nan desktop. However, its usefulness to a emblematic personification is debatable.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 hardware is arsenic good, if not better, than an balanced Intel aliases AMD-powered machine, making this prime not astir missing features but much of a magical enigma circuit that utilizing caller technologies tin be.

• Hardware: 4 / 5

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Performance

We precocious tested nan Asus Expertbook, which uses nan Intel Core Ultra 5 226V processor, and that seemed a suitable comparison since it besides offers a power-efficient platform.

These benchmarks uncover that nan Snapdragon X Elite can't compete pinch nan Intel spot successful linear tasks, but it's mostly overmuch amended astatine multi-threaded problems.

It isn't easy to get definitive answers successful immoderate areas because some machines person tests they won't run. Why nan ExpertBook won't tally GeekBench 5 is simply a mystery, but nan issues pinch nan ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 not moving immoderate tests are amended understood.

The Snapdragon X Elite strategy is ideally looking for executables that are compiled for ARM, but it will tally X86 codification done emulations, taking astir a 20% capacity deed to do that.

Microsoft has an ARM type of Office, but nan PCMark 10 trial won't usage it since it isn't nan X86 type it expects.

Equally, nan Adreno X1-85 GPU is DirectX 12-enabled but not DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled, making it incapable to tally immoderate of nan graphics tests. That connection makes it sound for illustration this isn't a bully GPU, but it does support VRS and ray tracing, and its capacity successful nan 3Dmark tests was decent.

However, nan astir breathtaking consequence is nan artillery life, wherever nan 58Wh artillery managed to tally nan PCMark artillery trial for a whopping 21 hours and 8 minutes. That's approaching 3 moving days without a recharge, impressively.

Admittedly, nan ExpertBook manages 18 hours aliases much connected somewhat little battery, but nan ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 makes astir 14-inch laptops look silly pinch nan moving clip that they offer.

• Performance: 4 / 5

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Verdict

There was a clip erstwhile AMD suffered from techno-snobbery, and they weren't Intel and, therefore, not wholly compatible. That's mostly reasoning of nan past, but will it reappear to rainfall connected Qualcomm's parade and nan Snapdragon X Elite?

There will beryllium bequest applications that won't tally nether emulation and don't person ARM-compiled versions, truthful it mightiness beryllium worthy performing immoderate owed diligence connected nan devices you usage earlier buying a instrumentality for illustration this.

That said, astir things tally flawlessly, and nan powerfulness ratio of this level is daunting for Intel and AMD. As much powerful Snapdragon X Elite bid chips travel to market, support for ARM autochthonal codification will increase, and galore issues will simply cease.

In short, nan level is excellent, and nan ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 uses it effectively. It is offered astatine a value that businesses tin afford.

The only unreality connected this distinctly bluish entity is nan 1 that ARM Holdings created erstwhile it decided to extremity ARM licensing for Qualcomm, calling into mobility nan early of each its SoC products.

We asked Lenovo to remark connected this situation, and they made nan pursuing statement:

 "We're alert of nan licensing conflict betwixt Qualcomm and ARM and are not alert of immoderate contiguous effect to Lenovo devices. For immoderate different questions please mention to nan parties progressive for comment.

As some a licensee and licensor of intelligence property, Lenovo believes that fair, reasonable, and transparent licence position request to beryllium group crossed nan exertion manufacture for accessible and affordable invention to thrive."

 We dream this conflict gets resolved soon. The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 demonstrates good that nan laptop marketplace needs nan momentum injection that Snapdragon X Elite could bring to what had go a somewhat old environment.

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