Lenovo ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 Review: A mixed bag

Design and Keyboard

• Robust, quality construction
• Fantastic port selection
• Comfortable keyboard, and it has a Trackpoint!

The ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 doesn’t deviate from Lenovo’s tried-and-tested fit and finish of modern ThinkPads, offering a chassis that feels durable alongside a professional aesthetic. It’s comprised of a combination of aluminium and magnesium to help a solid feel in hand, while the 360-degree hinge is well-engineered and robust.

At 1.4kg, though, it’s quite hefty for a compact laptop and means it’s not as portable as other convertible laptops out there. Likewise, it’s possible to get more conventional 16-inch laptops that tip the scales at less than this ThinkPad weighs. Nonetheless, a compact frame means it is still easy to put into a bag.

Ports-wise, the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 features a pair of Thunderbolt 4-capable USB-C ports, a 3.5mm audio jack and an HDMI port on the left, with the right side adding a pair of USB-A ports and a Kensington security lock. It provides decent functionality, although if I’m being picky, an SD card slot of some form would have been a pleasant addition for the price.

With this as a more compact option against some of the larger ThinkPads available, this 14-inch model comes with a smaller 75 percent keyboard complete with a convenient function row, navigation keys in the top corner, and arrow keys in the bottom right. The keys are well-spaced across the deck and feel especially comfortable to use in day-to-day work.

The ThinkPad keyboards I’ve used have a distinctive tactility and dampened feel, which describes the one on the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 to a tee. It seems as if Lenovo has used the same style of keyboard on this line of laptops since 2012, which is quite the commitment. It also comes with a reasonably bright white backlight that makes this ThinkPad well-suited to after-dark work.

This laptop also comes with the same quirks and features as its long line of predecessors, sporting a decent-sized trackpad with dedicated mouse buttons above it, along with the signature red Trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard. If you’re unaware, the Trackpoint is a small pointing stick that can be used as a mouse without taking your hands off the keyboard.

It’s been a feature of ThinkPads since 1992, when these laptops were made by IBM, and carried through when Lenovo purchased IBM’s PC business in 2005. Since the patent expired in 1997, other laptop manufacturers have utilised it on ThinkPad rivals, such as Dell and Toshiba, and it has even made its way into standalone keyboards like the HHKB Studio in recent years.

Personally, I like that Lenovo has kept what is almost a legacy feature by this point, given that the Trackpoint is actually older than me. It has some utility, too, and works well if you keep your fingers on the home row when using the Trackpoint.

Display and Sound

• Meagre IPS panel
• Middling black level, contrast and colour accuracy
• Surprisingly capable speakers

The big thing with the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 over other ThinkPad T-series laptops Lenovo has made before is the fact that it’s a 2-in-1 and has a touchscreen. Therefore, I had quite high hopes from the outset, although I was disappointed when I saw the spec sheet.

As opposed to offering a dazzling OLED screen like a lot of its contemporaries, Lenovo has given this laptop a more basic 1920×1200 resolution 60Hz IPS panel. It’s fine for basic productivity tasks, though I think it lacks the depth and detail you’d expect for a more creative-oriented business laptop.

A lot of this is down to the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1’s meagre colour accuracy, with my colorimeter measuring just 61% of the mainstream sRGB gamut, plus just 46% of the more specialist DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB spaces. That means this laptop isn’t best suited for creative workloads, and I found its general image quality to feel a little washed out.

A peak brightness of 419.6 nits is strong, although the shortcomings of IPS against its OLED rivals are laid bare with the 0.24 black level and 1040:1 contrast ratio. It’s fine, but disappointing for a laptop at this price, especially since OLED provides much deeper blacks and a wider dynamic range on other laptops at this higher-end price point. The 6700K colour temperature is solid, though.

The pair of upwards-firing, Dolby Atmos-capable speakers on the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 are surprisingly capable, with a decent amount of detail, depth and a solid low-end for a set of laptop units. They’re altogether more impressive than the touchscreen display.

Performance

• Decently potent U-suffixed Intel chip
• Middling 3D performance
• Solid RAM and okay SSD speed and capacity

The processor that this ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 features is a different one from other laptops I’ve tested, with it shipping with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U – a 12-core (split between two Performance cores, eight Efficiency cores and two Low Power Efficiency cores) and 14-thread chip with a boost clock of up to 5.2GHz.

The interesting thing is the -U suffix that it has, as I’m more used to Intel’s -V and sometimes -H suffixed chips coming in laptops like this one. It seems the -U suffix denotes a chip that’s designed for efficiency rather than outright grunt, with it meaning ‘Ultra Low Power’. By contrast, the -H suffix refers to ‘highest performance’, for instance.

With this in mind, the synthetic benchmark scores that this ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 achieved aren’t too different to the other chips in Intel’s lineup, with them being only a couple of hundred points different in single and multi-core testing in Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23.

Another key difference with the Core Ultra 7 255U against Intel’s other laptop chips is that it only comes with the basic Intel Arc graphics, rather than the Arc 140V or 140T. This means 3D performance is middling, especially for a laptop at this price, and you’ll be better off spending out on a laptop with beefier integrated graphics if that intensive work is your bread and butter.

My configuration of the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 came with 32GB of RAM to provide some sensible headroom for multi-tasking or more intensive loads, and an okay capacity 512GB SSD. Its speeds are reasonable, if not class-leading, too, with 5058.20 MB/s reads and 4407.09 MB/s writes. You can spec this laptop with up to a 1TB drive if you need more capacity, though.

Software

• Very clean Windows 11 Pro install
• One piece of Lenovo software installed
• Not enough AI horsepower to be a Copilot+ PC

The ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 comes with a clean install of Windows 11 Pro with little in the way of additional software. The only Lenovo-branded software that shipped with my sample was Lenovo Commercial Vantage, which allows you to do everything from check on system utilisation to fiddling with power and battery settings. It’s a handy catch-all app.

There is also a small menu that can be accessed by double-tapping the Trackpoint. This menu brings up quick options for choosing everything from the spatial audio settings of the onboard microphone to system volume and a battery charging threshold to keep the internal cell in as good condition as possible for as long as possible.

As much as this laptop has a Copilot key for calling on the baked-in AI assistant in Windows, that’s as far as it goes, as this ThinkPad doesn’t have enough AI horsepower from the Core Ultra 7 255U chip to fall into Microsoft’s classification as a Copilot+ PC.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 13 hours 59 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting between one and two working days

The ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 comes with a modest 58Whr capacity cell, although Lenovo doesn’t provide any hard estimate for its longevity, unlike the non-convertible model. It rated that option to last for around 17 hours on a charge, which seems like a good target to aim for.

In running the PCMark 10 Modern Office battery test at the requisite 150 nits of brightness, this convertible business laptop lasted for 13 hours and 59 minutes before conking out. That’s enough for it to get through nearly two working days and beats our 10-hour target, and means it’ll last longer than other ThinkPads I’ve tested. However, it sits in the shadow of the nearly 23 hours achieved by the Dell Pro 14 Premium.

Lenovo bundles the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Gen 1 with a small 65W USB-C charging brick, although its speeds are quite middling for getting juice back into the laptop. It took 40 minutes to get it back to 50%, while a full charge took 85 minutes.

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Should you buy it?