The Lenovo Thinkpad T14 Gen 4 is a mid tier business laptop for the big business customers. These types of laptop buyers value long term stability, security and quality. Of course, aspects like performance, battery life and input devices are not unimportant either, as are the connectivity options.
Lenovo offers the ThinkPad T14 G4 in two variants: Either Intel 13th Gen or AMD Ryzen 7000. We have already tested the Intel model of the T14 G4. Today, the AMD variant gets its turn.
Lenovo uses the design of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 without change. Quality wise, the dark-grey ThinkPad T14 G4 is positioned below the ThinkPad T14s G4, but above the ThinkPad L14 G4. The entire outer casing is made out of plastic with a matte black coating; there is an internal magnesium frame. This makes the ThinkPad laptop tough, but the chassis is less stiff compared with full-metal laptops.
One very annoying facet of this unit: The device creaks a little in the front right corner. The identical build of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 Intel did not exhibit this. Lenovo should be able to control such variances in quality better.
Of high-quality are the drop down hinges with their silver metal caps, they allow no wiggling. Opening the screen with one hand is not possible. Typical for ThinkPads is the maximum opening angle of 180 degrees.
The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 plays in the same weight class as HP’s EliteBook 845 G10. Compared with the Dell Latitude 7440 and the ThinkPad T14s G4, it is slightly heavier. In terms of size, all four business models are comparable, only the Dell is slightly more compact.
One defining feature of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 is the RJ45 Ethernet port, a now rare standard on a laptop. This differentiates this model from the ThinkPad T14s G4 as well. Compared to this line, the ThinkPad T14 G4 AMD only sports a single USB4 port. This is a difference compared with the ThinkPad T14 G4 Intel as well, which has two Thunderbolt 4 ports.
Lenovo uses the Qualcomm WCN685x as the main communication solution of the AMD ThinkPads. This 2×2 module supports the WiFi 6E standard and delivers great transfer rates in the 6 GHz spectrum as well.
As an alternative to WiFi, the Gigabit Ethernet port is available. In addition, the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 is optionally available with 4G LTE. The review unit is WWAN upgradable.
Lenovo has upgraded its webcams from 1080p to a five megapixel resolution. In ideal lighting, the picture is indeed noticeably sharper. Darker lighting quickly deteriorates the quality. Smartphones still have much better cameras.
Enterprise laptops are known for their wide array of security features. The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 is an excellent example for this: Apart from the Kensington lock slot, the review device has a dedicated TPM 2.0 chip as well. For a fast and secure log-in, Lenovo equips its ThinkPad with a fingerprint reader and an IR camera for Windows Hello. In addition, the webcam has a mechanical privacy shutter.
Apart from the 65 W USB C charger, there is no additional equipment in the box.
Business laptops are pretty much always easier to open and repair than other device classes. In total, there are seven Phillips head screws and a few clips at the back and sides. After loosening them, the ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 reveals its innards. Unfortunately, there are not many ways to upgrade this model. The RAM of the AMD model is always soldered down, as opposed to the Intel model. The WiFi chip is on-board, too. Only the SSD is upgradeable and there is an open M.2 2242 slot for the optional WWAN module. The battery is only screwed in and the cooling system can be cleaned easily.
A special feature of this model, which is rarely seen today: A user replaceable keyboard. This is an important difference with other, thinner ThinkPads. The keyboard is an expendable part, so it is very useful that it can be easily changed.
The reviewed laptop is a special model for students which has a three year with on-site service and premier support as well as a longer for the internal battery. The is good for three years, with an optional upgrade to five years possible. On-site service and premier support are only available in Germany for this German model. Internationally, there is bring-in service.
Lenovo did not change the input devices compared to the previous generation. Overall, this means that the chiclet keyboard with 1.5 mm travel and slightly concave keys has the ThinkPad-typical layout with two levels of LED key-lighting. One of the benefits of the layout are the well-spaced arrow keys. A downside on the other hand is the FN/Ctrl arrangement, which will be unusual for many users. The typing feel of the smooth keys is excellent, though not quite as luxurious as it used to be. Still, it is one of the best laptop keyboards on the market.
Like the keyboard, touchpad and TrackPoint are unchanged. The touchpad has a plastic surface with a slightly below average size and an integrated click mechanism, though only the lower half of the clickpad is actually clickable. The touchpad is smooth enough to allow the fingers to effortlessly glide accross, but it is also pretty dirt-susceptible. The subjective quality feeling does not quite measure up to glass touchpads. The click mechanism is great though, there is no wobbling. Equally high-quality is the red TrackPoint, which can be used together with the dedicated mouse keys above the touchpad. Users control the mouse with easy by putting pressure on the rubber cap and the dedicated buttons are both quiet and smooth. All on all, these are great input devices that make working a pleasant experience.
Buyers get plenty of choice when it comes to the screen options of ThinkPad laptops. This is true for the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 AMD as well, there are six different panels on offer. All share the screen size of 14 inches and the 16:10 format.
- WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200), IPS, 300 cd/m², 45 % NTSC, matte
- WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200), IPS, 300 cd/m², 45 % NTSC, matte, On-Cell Touch
- WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200), IPS, 400 cd/m², 72 % NTSC, matte, Low Power
- WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200), IPS, 500 cd/m², 72 % NTSC, matte, On-Cell Touch, Privacy guard
- 2.2K (2,240 x 1,400), IPS, 300 cd/m², 72 % NTSC, matte
- 2.8K (2,880 x 1,800), OLED, 400 cd/m², 100 % DCI P3, semi glossy, Dolby Vision
For individual customers, the low power panel that we review is probably the most popular and well rounded choice. The panel misses the 400 cd/m² target only barely, with an average of 379 cd/m². The maximum brightness of 398 cd/m² is almost on point. When compared with the other business laptops, only the Dell Latitude 7440 with its WQXGA screen is able to deliver a much higher screen brightness.
Ex-factory, we measure a low Colorchecker deltaE of 1.3, which signals a high color accuracy of this panel. When calibrated with the X-Rite i1 Pro 3 and the X-Rite i1 Profiler, we were only able to decrease it slightly to 1.2, as our Calman measurements show.
The low power panel of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 covers the sRGB color gamut almost completely, making it suitable for simple photo editing.
Outdoors, the screen of the Lenovo laptop is well usable. The matte screen surface minimizes reflections. Combined with the good screen brightness, users can make out the content displayed even in bright environments. Only direct sunlight exposure might be a challenge.
Lenovo offers the ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 AMD with two different CPU options: The AMD Ryzen Pro 5 7540U and the Ryzen Pro 7 7840U. Depending on the chosen CPU, the GPU is either the AMD Radeon 740M or the Radeon 780M.
The RAM of this ThinkPad model is always soldered down. Lenovo puts 8 GB LPDDR5-6400 or 16 to 32 GB LPDDRX-6400 on the board. For the single M.2 2280 SSD slot, the biggest capacity ex-factory is 2 TB.
As always with ThinkPads, Lenovo uses the built-in Windows Power Management solution to regulate the energy settings. These settings influence the performance, power consumption and aspects like fan-noise and temperatures, as they set the power limits. Those are the consumption limits of the CPU. The Power Limit 1 (PL1) stands for the power consumption under sustained load, with the Power Limit 2 (PL2) describing the maximum consumption for short-term boost performance.
- Best battery life: PL1 12 Watt / PL2 12 Watt
- Balanced: PL1 24 Watt / PL2 26,5 Watt
- Best performance: PL1 27,5 Watt / PL2 32,5 Watt
The AMD Ryzen Pro 7 7840U is a processor of AMD’s 2023 generation Zen 4 with the codename Phoenix. This Ryzen chip has eight cores and a maximum of 16 threads, with clock-rates between 3.3 and 5.1 GHz. For extensive comparisons with other CPUs, we provide our CPU list.
The direct comparison with the predecessor Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 AMD shows a clear improvement of roughly 20 percent. The thinner ThinkPad T14s G4 does not quite measure up to the T14 G4 AMD, but the difference is also not huge with four percent less performance for the slim-model. The HP EliteBook 845 G10 is on par with our review laptop. The Intel absed models are far behind in terms of multicore performance and only competitive when it comes to single core performance.
In battery mode, the CPU is able to deliver its full performance potential without any artificial throttling.
Taking the top position in our system performance comparison is the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 AMD. There are no complaints about everyday performance either.
The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 AMD has some DPC latency problems, but they are less pronounced than for the Intel variant of the same model. For live audio/video editing, this can be a problem nonetheless. However, this situation can change at any time due to BIOS updates.
The SSD performance of the Samsung PM9A1a used here is excellent. The M.2 2280 SSD has a capacity of 1 TB, which is connected via the fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe standard.
The AMD Radeon 780M is one of the fastest iGPU solutions in the Windows world. The difference to the older iGPU from Intel, the Xe GPU, is clear: The Dell Latitude 7440 achieves a 46 percent lower score in the 3DMark benchmarks. This is mirrored in the gaming benchmarks. It should be noted though that the older Radeon 680M of the Ryzen 6000 generation is barely any slower, only roughly four to five percent.
The ThinkPad laptop stays quiet when idling. Under load, it also stays quieter than the ThinkPad T14 G4 Intel. This is not enough to win this category, as the even quieter HP EliteBook 845 G10 takes the lead.
There was no coil whine and the fan did not run high-pitched.
While the ThinkPad does run slightly louder than the EliteBook, temperatures under load stay lower. We measure a maximum of 47.5 degrees Celsius / 117 F at a hotspot on the bottom. The front part of the ThinkPad as well as the palmrest stay completely cool.
During stress test with Prime95 and Furmark, there was no throttling even after an hour of running the tools simultaneously.
The upfiring speakers of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 AMD are of similar limited quality as the ones of the HP EliteBook 845 G10. There is one key difference though: The speakers of the ThinkPads, which are placed above the keyboard, are much more quiet.
In terms of power consumption, the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G4 AMD could do better. When idling, it consumes more than the competition, except for the Dell Latitude 7440. This model however has a disadvantage due to its higher-res screen.
The maximum power consumption of 51.8 W is no challenge for the 65 W charger.
Despite the slightly higher idle consumption, the battery life that Lenovo gets out of the internal 52.5 Wh battery of the ThinkPad T14 G4 AMD is good. Just over 12 hours in the WiFi test (150 cd/m²) or 8.5 hours in the same test when running on full brightness make the ThinkPad into a long-lasting everyday companion.
Once again, Lenovo delivers a ThinkPad laptop with the ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 AMD that gets a “very good” mark from us. Overall, it is an excellent tool for working. But it is not quite free of weak points.
One of them: The chassis creaks slightly, which does reduce the subjective quality of the design. This should not happen with an expensive business laptop, even if this one uses more plastic than metal in its build. The soldered RAM is a disadvantage compared with HP’s EliteBook 845 G10, just like the muted speakers.
Apart from that, we like a lot about this laptop. It has many ports, with the inclusion of RJ45-Ethernet as a defining feature. WWAN is upgradable for maximum flexibility and the ThinkPad has many security functions. Working with the ThinkPad input devices is a lot of fun, and Lenovo puts in a serviceable Low Power panel. The AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 7840U delivers a great performance and does not drain the battery fast. Fan noise and temperatures are nothing special, but also far away from bad. With the user replaceable keyboard, the ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 has a special feature rarely present on most modern laptops.
The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 AMD is a great package for corporate users. It does have to fight with a few weak points though.
Especially this feature and the RJ45 port are important differentiators compared to other laptops with this CPU. Competition is stiff: The HP EliteBook 845 G10 has louder speakers, a more premium chassis and RAM slots, but it lacks the user replaceable keyboard and RJ45. Similarily, the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 AMD lacks those features, but it has a more lightweight, premium design.
The reviewed version 21K4S02000 is a special deal only available for students as part of the German Lenovo Campus program. It costs €1,300 with the education rebate. Amazon.com offers the ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 AMD for roughly $1,270 with a different configuration.
Allow 48h for review and removal.