Thinkpad T14 Gen 3 Full Review!

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this is my review of the ThinkPad T14

Generation 3 as promised

it's been about one month and I have to

say it right off the bat that it has

been a pleasure owning this device

is meant to be a portable workstation

for me just traveling around and just

doing some basic engineering tasks it's

a secondary device to my desktop PC

which I have at home

so I don't need the absolute most

powerful device to do that but I will

say right off the bat it does everything

well that anythingpad needs to do well

the keyboard is slightly reducing in

travel relative to the last thing pad

I've owned but once I've gotten used to

the lower travel it's amazing they've

kept all of that going great the track

point I still don't really use but

that's okay

the touchpad is incredibly incredibly

accurate very slick very Apple like

and I have zero complaints about the

track pad

would have maybe liked physical left and

right click buttons but that's a minor

issue

and on top of the keyboard deck new for

generation three is the fingerprint

reader that is integrated into the power

button it's very okay it can miss your

fingerprint if you do it slightly off

but most of the time it works just fine

it's very quick

and I have really numb no real

complaints about on the fingerprint

reader this computer is basically

running an AMD ryzen 6650u processor 16

gigs of LP ddr5 Ram clocked at 6400

megahertz it's got a 512 gigabyte PCI

Gen4 SSD

and basically a three cell

39.3 watt hour battery

and a 16 by 10 screen 1920 by 1200

screen that is 300 nits of brightness

now in terms of the screen I have to say

that it's a very decent screen it's not

going to win any awards for colors

because in my last comparison with the

MacBook Air

the M2 version the MacBook wiped the

floor in terms of color reproduction and

black levels compared to this but I kind

of knew I was leaving the display on the

table

but I will say it's a very decent

display there are certain colors it is

lacking in particularly Reds and greens

but it certainly does the job for basic

engineering work if you're into

photography or digital content creation

I would highly recommend that you

upgrade to the HDR 400 screen

with you know the 100 or so our Adobe

RGB color gamut so that's a must but

overall it's an okay screen

decent black levels now let's move on to

the ports

so in terms of ports there's an ethernet

port which I don't use very often this

is a USB

type c 3.2 Port not type 4 Thunderbolt

slash Thunderbolt we're going to get to

that in a second

that one's a regular USB C

3.2 this one has power delivery this one

does not then HDMI just for plugging

into monitors and you know TVs which I

use frequently

One USB type a 3.1 I believe and a

headphone jack with microphone in

now going back to this one of my

subscribers asked me the question does

this support Thunderbolt 4 or USB type

USBC version 4 and it does not for

whatever reason Lenovo thought that they

could get away with just putting in USB

3.2 so if you do want it you're gonna

have to get the ThinkPad T14 s gen 3

to get that and that one's a little bit

lighter you know just a little just a

little bit better in a few ways but

you're going to pay a little bit more

and I don't I did not at all need

Thunderbolt or the ability to plug in an

external GPU but if that is you then you

should absolutely

get the t14s and get the USB type 4.

now over on the other side we have an

empty Smart Car reader you can get this

if you work for corporations or a

government usually

we got an exhaust over here we got USB

type A and one Kensington lock out and

on the very back of it

you basically have a SIM card if you are

you know always in the need of 4G on the

go

the thing I want to say is how thin and

light this machine is at you know 2.65

pounds it's super light and it's

starting to tread on X1 Carbon territory

and apparently X the X1 Carbon is an

Intel only only

models so you're never going to get AMD

ryzen like we have on here

and you know Lenovo also recently

released their z13 and Z16 which is an

interesting new line that's you know

more trendy probably aimed more at

MacBook users but what I don't like

about that and what a lot of business

users Engineers would probably need is

more reports they only really give you

USB type-c ports and headphone jack and

to me that's sort of not acceptable but

if you're totally fine carrying around a

dongle with you you know that's what you

want to do

I also need to mention that the build

quality on this ThinkPad is excellent

there are complaints about gen 1 and Gen

2 of the ThinkPad T14 but I think after

they've gone to this new chassis they've

really ironed out a lot of the build

quality issues the keyboard deck has

like very little Flex even when I press

real down really hard on it they're

definitely using magnesium directly

under the keyboard deck for this entire

area

they've you know just made it easier to

get into the laptop and I will post some

pictures

of what it looks like underneath but you

know generally it's a really well built

well-built laptop and

for the price point it's really hard to

argue because there are not many laptops

built as well I can easily hold the

laptop in one hand and feel zero Flex in

the chassis as I hold it on one of the

corners so I'm really happy with the

build quality

now if there's only one thing I would

change about the build quality reports

it was probably the addition of a

full-size SD card slot on the side but

you know it's fine no laptop is perfect

and this one comes pretty close for me

but

that is one thing it does not have

all right let's talk about the AMD 6650u

processor that is powering this laptop I

have to say this thing is super energy

efficient when you need it to be

and when you need it to also have power

it can really chug out a very serious

amount of power I can put up some

geekbench results and just other

um benchmarks just so that you guys get

a pretty good idea of what that would

look like

but this little laptop has a lot of

power with the CPU but even the new AMD

Navi graphics on board that's the main

reason I really wanted this because the

navi graphics on board are a big

improvement over the Vega Graphics of

the last generation and it basically

Rivals a lot of inter I mean dedicated

graphics for a lot of workstation gpus

entry level workstations

so you're getting the graphical

performance of a lot of entry-level

workstation

graphics cards for not a whole lot of

money and that's very compelling that's

something really to think about

especially for something so thin and

Light for me personally 14 inch is the

ideal 15 is a little bit too big so I

think you know relative to the size the

performance is just really solid and if

I was to step up to the 15.6 inch yes

they would start you know giving more

options for discrete graphics but I

don't want the size and weight penalty

but if you don't mind the size and

weight penalty then by all means buy a

bigger laptop including something from

the P series like the p16 or the p15

either one has more power but it's

thicker another interesting difference

between the AMD and Intel models is that

for whatever reason Lenova decided to

put two heat pipes on this laptop

relative to the Intel model which only

has one heat pipe and I think it might

have to do something to do with the

you know the lp ddr5 Ram being soldered

straight onto the motherboard next to

the CPU I think Under full load Under

full speed it gets really hot so that

and the CPU together need to be cooled

but I will say under full load this

laptop does put out quite a bit of heat

but at the same time the fan noise is

very very low

is actually really amazing how low it is

all right next up is battery life and I

have to say for the 39.3 watt hour

battery that this has it is actually a

very small battery All Things Considered

but I'm still able to get something like

seven hours of run time on average on

power saver mode just doing menial tasks

if we got the four cell you know 51 and

a half watt hour battery it would

probably get up to 10 10 and a half

hours so

I think in the future I am probably

going to manually upgrade to the larger

battery by myself

because right now you know it's just a

piece of plastic with a honeycomb

underneath

and it's okay it saves a little bit of

weight but I think in the future I want

a little more battery so I'm going to

upgrade it myself

and usually on the lower spec versions

of the T14 they don't give you the

option to have that battery unless you

do a custom build now since the battery

is not all that big one constellation is

that it charges really quickly I can go

pretty much from zero to full charge

within an hour which is really quick and

I have to say that the included um

charging brick this one is actually

really small compared to my last one

which was just enormous it's got about

an 8 to 10 foot cable and it basically

allows me to reach anywhere in charge

from from any location without any fuss

so I can't really complain

so between the battery life and the the

chart charging ability to get it charged

up really quickly

I think it'll serve you know most

engineers and students just fine you're

not going to worry about battery all

that much

one other thing to mention is that the

speakers on this laptop are just really

excellent for what they are they just

get ridiculously loud they sound very

good so whatever Lenovo did to tune the

Dolby audio on this they did a really

good job and I really really love the

speakers now on top we have the webcam

with the Privacy shutter on right now

it's actually a new webcam the 1080p

which is becoming the standard for work

from home

and I have to say that the quality is

very solid you won't look bad it'll the

resolution is quite good and you'll

definitely look better in your

presentation so I think Lenovo did a

good job you know upgrading the webcam

here for this new generation now we can

move on to what is not so perfect about

this laptop I really really like this

laptop but there are a couple of things

that could be improved in the future

one thing is um this soft touch finish

it feels amazing it feels really amazing

but it does attract fingerprints quite

easily and I usually have to wipe it

down every now and then but I guess I

could live with it long term I can't

really complain and the other issue is

that there is some sort of weird power

saving wake away from sleep issue when I

basically just close this laptop

and just have it sit there for a while

overnight for some reason it is asleep

but it's also sipping battery

and then when I try to wake it up in the

morning

and I just open it up it is it just

won't wake up

and I've run into that couple times one

time it was just because the battery ran

out fully but the other times was just

because it was just simply unresponsive

so what I realized I had to do was set

it so that if I need to close the lid or

just press the power button it put it

into a hibernate

and which is like a deeper sleep and if

I were to wake it up it would take a

little bit longer to wake up from

hibernate but it would wake up every

time

which is not a workaround that I want to

have to do but I will do it because

everything about this laptop everything

else works out so well for me I hope

Lenovo addresses this in a future

firmware update or AMD the problem is

happening on one of their ends and I

hope it gets resolved sooner than later

alright so overall I have to say that I

would still keep the score for this

laptop at a 9 out of 10. it's really

good but it's not perfect

now if someone has the budget they

should probably you know go to a p

series or consider an X1 Carbon if they

want something more premium that has

Intel

but I have to say that Intel lately

they're more powerful than AMD on their

laptops but it's at the compromise of

power efficiency so they usually have

bigger batteries installed to compensate

and I prefer what AMD is doing for you

know power efficiency now if you're like

a student on a tighter budget I can

highly recommend that you get the

ThinkPad e14 or the E15 or the l14 or

l15 those laptops will do a lot of what

this guy can do but at a cheaper price

with some minor compromises perhaps in

the screen department but if you can't

spend I spent about a grand for this one

it's normally around 12 to 1300

thereabouts if you can't afford to spend

that just go to the E-Series

and if you want something far more

trendy and Sleek looking and still be a

think pad I would go to the new series

especially now that they also have you

know the AMD CPUs and one special AMD

CPU specially made for that laptop all

right now I'm going to address a couple

of FAQs one of them is does this have

replaceable or upgradable Ram it does

not the AMD version comes with faster

lpddr5 Ram that's solder right on so

that does not have upgradable Ram

but the Intel version for whatever

reason has one ram slot that is

upgradable so if you need to be able to

upgrade your RAM you should definitely

go the Intel route for the T14

another user asked me is is 16 gigs of

RAM enough and I think for my purposes

doing some lighter engineering tasks and

some Lighter video editing yes 16

gigabytes is absolutely enough today

will it be tomorrow it might be I don't

think most people right now need 32

gigabytes of RAM but if you can afford

it or if you just want the extra round

then just buy more RAM but I would say

eight gigabytes at this point is cutting

it a little too close so I would

recommend at least people get 16 gigs of

RAM another viewer asked me if you can

do any video editing on this and the

answer is definitely yes I was able to

load in one of my review videos into

DaVinci Resolve on this laptop and I was

able to you know decode the video pretty

smoothly in real time just scrub Through

The DaVinci timeline and also just

really edit quite easily and the export

time was only 30 seconds slower than my

desktop so it's very capable the

integrated Graphics in here really

really help it

perform well and also the CPU is high

performing when you need it to be just

be mindful that it will pump out quite a

bit of heat it's not as good on thermals

as the MacBook Air is

but I don't push it to its limits quite

like this often and I still use my

desktop for editing

all right guys that's the end of the

video thank you guys for watching so

much I notice a lot of you guys are

international and I really appreciate

having such a wide International

audience and I love it so guys if you

have any comments questions please put

it in the comments below and I'll try to

get to every single one of them until

next time thanks