Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 review: A very business-like laptop

If you’re looking for a 14-inch laptop, which is perhaps the most popular form factor around today, there are certain brands you might gravitate toward. Dell’s XPS lineup, HP’s OmniBook, and Lenovo’s Yoga come to mind. Another is the ThinkPad, an iconic brand that goes way back and is instantly recognizable. The ThinkPad has a loyal fan base, but it also tends to appeal to one of two kinds of users.

I recently reviewed the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13, a ThinkPad that’s aimed at a wide consumer market. The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is similar in design, and it’s aimed more at commercial customers. It’s a very nice laptop, held back only by battery life that doesn’t keep up with the competition.

Specs and configuration

The ThinkPad T14s has a configuration currently priced at $1,506 (on sale from $2,739) for an AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 chipset, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 14.0-inch FHD+ IPS display. The Lenovo web store sometimes has strange pricing, and this is one such case, where that configuration is less expensive than you’ll be able to configure. One option, for example, is to upgrade to 64GB of RAM for an extra $337.

However, most people will buy the laptop through Lenovo’s corporate purchasing program and won’t pay whatever’s the list price. That means prices will vary based on the number of units purchased, which is difficult to reflect here. Suffice it to say that you can get similar components for less with a consumer-focused laptop.

Design

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 looks a lot like the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 that I recently reviewed. In fact, although I don’t have them sitting side by side, I’m fairly certain that they would be difficult to tell apart even up close. They both have the same all-black ThinkPad aesthetic with several red accents — the red LED “i” on the logo on the lid, the TrackPoint nubbin in the middle of the keyboard, and a few others — that make it instantly recognizable as a member of the old-school ThinkPad lineup. ThinkPad fans will love it, and it’s attractive enough that most laptop buyers will probably like it. The ThinkPad Z13, for example, shows off Lenovo’s movement toward a more “modern” design, but there’s nothing wrong with the ThinkPad T14s’s design.

In terms of its build quality, Lenovo used its combination of aluminum and carbon fiber that results in a reasonably robust construction with just the slightest bit of bending in the lid and keyboard deck. I’ve used laptops that are more solid, including the HP EliteBook X G1a that has zero bending, flexing, or twisting. That puts the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 a very slight step behind, but still quite good. The hinge requires two hands to open the lid, but it’s certainly nothing to complain too much about.

The top and bottom bezels are a little thick, compared to the slim side bezels, and that’s even with Lenovo’s reverse notch at the top of the display that houses the webcam and other electronics. The bezels are plastic, too, which I always find detracts from a high-quality look. Even so, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is reasonably sized in width and depth, and it’s quite portable without winning any awards in thickness or weight. The Apple MacBook Air 15, for example, is a lot thinner at just 0.45 inches.

Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard is the usual old-school ThinkPad version with highly sculpted keycaps and lots of key spacing. Unlike some I’ve used in the past, the switches on this one don’t require too much pressure but are light and snappy. That makes for a very confident feel that’s different from Apple’s Magic Keyboard with its shallow travel, which is my usual favorite, but just as good.

The touchpad is a mechanical version that’s fine, although the two buttons supporting the TrackPoint nubbin controller in the middle of the keyboard takes up a bit of space. That makes the touchpad a bit too small, and while Lenovo might offer an option for a haptic version (I’m not sure if they do or will), this is a little bit of a disappointment.

Connectivity and webcam

Connectivity is a mix of modern and legacy ports. Unusually, there are two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4; most AMD-based laptops use USB4 rather than Intel’s standard. Wireless connectivity is fully up-to-date, and there’s a nano-SIM slot for optional always-connected internet connectivity.

The webcam is a high-resolution 5MP model that matches up well with the fast Neural Processing Unit (NPU) running at 45 tera operations per second (TOPS), exceeding Microsoft’s 40 TOPS requirement for its Copilot+ PC AI initiative. That means it supports the enhanced videoconferencing features of Copilot+, along with other AI features coming down the road, with fast and efficient on-device processing.

Performance

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 uses an AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 chipset, which uas eight cores and 16 threads, running at up to 5GHz. It uses 28 watts of power that can ramp up to 54 watts, meaning it’s aimed more at performance than efficiency compared to some other new chipsets. It’s fast at CPU tasks, as we can see in our benchmarks, keeping up with all but the the fastest Qualcomm Snapdragon X chipsets and beating out Intel Lunar Lake.

The AMD PRO features mean the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 can plug into advanced enterprise security and management environments. That makes the ThinkPad a great option for large companies that need to manage lots of machines.

As you can see, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is very fast for demanding productivity workflows, but its Radon 880M integrated graphics don’t do a lot for games or creativity apps that can use the GPU. It’s around the same CPU speed as Apple’s M3 chipset, but the M3’s GPU cores are considerably faster. Overall, the ThinkPad is a speedy

Battery life

The AMD chipset is aimed at performance rather than efficiency, which is different from Intel Lunar Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon X, both of which are highly focused on increasing battery life. That doesn’t mean it can’t squeeze out some longevity, as demonstrated by the Acer Swift 14 AI with the Ryzen AI 9 365.

However, for some reason, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 didn’t do very well. It couldn’t make it to eight hours in our web browsing test or even nine hours in our video looping test. That’s a lot shorter than every other laptop in the comparison group, and a lot more like older Windows laptops. Apple’s MacBook Air M3 remains the best overall performer.

Display and audio

There’s just two display options with the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6. Both are 14.0-inch 16:10 FHD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS panels, one touch-enabled and one non-touch. Personally, I think FHD+ isn’t quite sharp enough with 14-inch displays because I stare at words all day and hate pixellated text, but most people are likely okay with it. And IPS helps with battery life over OLED.

This is a very good IPS display, in line with what most manufacturers have used for the last several years. The display is bright at 396 nits, well above the 300-nit baseline that’s been our standard for years now and probably should be adjusted. Contrast is excellent at 1,510:1, above our 1,000:1 threshold but not as good as the inky blacks OLED provides. Colors were wide enough at 100% of sRGB, 76% of AdobeRGB, and 76% of DCI-P3, again not as dynamic as OLED and not great for creators, but very good for productivity use. And color accuracy was good at 1.52 (less than 2.0 is more than adequate).

Ultimately, this is a very good IPS display that will please the laptop’s commercial users. Creators will want to look elsewhere, but the laptop isn’t meant for that kind of work in any event. Audio is just okay, with two downward-firing speakers that are good enough for typical use. Headphones are recommended for anything else.

Best for business users who love ThinkPads

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is a very nice laptop with one glaring flaw. It’s built well, looks good, has a great keyboard and strong performance, and it’s perfect for large companies with a lot of laptops to manage.

At the same time, its battery life isn’t great. And, it’s a bit expensive, although large commercial customers who buy it will do so at better group purchase prices. So it’s an easy laptop to recommend for commercial buyers but not as easy for mainstream users.