Lenovo T14 AMD Ryzen 5 Pro Review - Tough and reliable work companion

Last year, Lenovo unveiled the ThinkPad T14 Ryzen 5 Pro, It belongs to the premium T series line but at a much affordable price.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Ryzen 5 Pro

To recap, there are two variants for the T14, an intel version and the one we have here is the Ryzen 5 Pro edition. It boasts 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD storage and a large 50WHr battery with a 65W fast charger.

Unboxing/Accessories

Inside the box

Inside the box, you get the normal-looking power brick, power cable, setup guide, and the laptop itself.

Build Quality/Design

Top View of the laptop

Lenovo keeps the same boxy-edgy look in a plastic matte black finish in the T14 which is a trademark from their Thinkpad series. After all, the design portrays what would be a business-class computer "simple yet durable".

Sturdy-looking build

The top cover shows a minimalistic design with the logo of Thinkpad while flipping it downwards you'd find the ventilation grills, four rubber stoppers on the corners for a better grip, and some stickers for barcodes, windows, and labels.

Bottom view of the laptop

The Thinkpad series is known for its reliability and resiliency. According to Lenovo, it underwent 12-grade military requirements and 200 quality checks ensuring that it can handle even the extreme conditions.

While holding it, we can definitely say the laptop looks solid from top to bottom, the plastic used here is sturdy and will give you the assurance that it can last for years.

Having plentiful ports is nice too they consist of 2x USB-C, 2x USB 3.1, microSD slot, 3.5mm, HDMI port, side mechanical dock, Kensington lock slot, and the RJ45 port.

Left side ports

Right side ports

The keyboard is also what made this laptop shines, the typing experience is great where it has provided clicky feedback and made us enjoy typing. The keyboard has a spill-resistant design too which is greatly useful in case an accident happens. It is also a backlit keyboard so you can work during the evening.

Impressive keyboard as usual!

There's also the iconic red-colored trackpad at the center of the keyboard for an additional mouse pointer. The large trackpad performs well, it is responsive to touch and clicks, it will be the same for the three additional buttons as they are clicky and on point when being used.

Lenovo T14's keyboard

The fingerprint scanner which is located below the keyboard works fast and snappy, it was able to read fingerprints quickly upon placing your fingers in it.

Multimedia Experience

Multimedia Experience

Moving on to its display, it uses a 14-inch 1920x1080 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio and up to 250nits for brightness although its bezels for the top and bottom are thick which some may not like considering that laptops today had slimmer bezels.

Good enough display

The screen still does bring a pleasant multimedia experience whether watching your favorite movies or just simply streaming videos on YouTube. 

The viewing angles are good as well as this boasts an IPS panel. The details were clear and the colors looked alright with the display having a 95 percent sRGB color gamut. Just like its siblings, it also has antiglare to minimize fatigue in your eyes during long usage. 

Viewing images is fine at least for indoor usage. But going outside it is quite faint nonetheless, it is meant to be used indoors such as in your house for online schooling or work inside the office. 

The screen is also wide enough to enable better productivity and multitasking which is much helpful when working. 

Front-firing speaker

For audio, the T14 is using a front-firing speaker, it delivered a decent sounding experience when listening to music or watching movies, the details were clear, while the bass does fine as well.

The volume is loud enough to be heard in the whole room but it is not deafeningly noisy.

From a personal experience, the audio gets better when using earphones or headphones as the Dolby Digital audio takes effect where it gives a more immersive listening experience. It isn't that HiFi yet, but it works.

It also uses dual-microphones that performed quite well on Zoom and Skype calls.

Webcam sample shot

Moving on to the webcam, it is located on the top of the screen, we can say that it is usable in properly lit areas.

The picture it produces is not good though, it looks grainy and a little bit blurry but overall it still does its job for video conferencing. This is a common thing for most laptops.

Looking at the bright side, its webcam uses a sliding cover which is called "Think Shutter". 

This will be for your privacy whenever the webcam is not in use. 

Performance

Geekbench 5 score

This laptop uses a 2.1GHz 7nm Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U with built-in Vega 6 graphics paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD storage. It managed to score in Geekbench 5 of 1,046 in single-core, while the multi-score reached 3,783. The processor has also a security feature called the AMD Memory Guard for full memory encryption.

Respectable performance for the price!

The T14 performed pretty well when working with our day-to-day tasks, which includes writing news, opening a dozen of tabs from the Edge browser, minimal photo editing using Adobe Photoshop.

Thanks to its 8GB RAM it was able to handle multiple tabs and software at once and switch easily without encountering any lags. The 256GB storage is just enough for someone who works and saves files on the cloud, but for those who don't, they may need an HDD upgrade or external hard drives for more space to use.

Sample CPU and RAM usage with multiple apps opened

When it comes to gaming, even though this device is meant for work, it is still capable of running today's games such as VALORANT and Genshin Impact. Just don't expect it can do high setting configuration on these games. 

Valorant default settings (1080p)

While testing, we were able to run VALORANT in default settings with 56-72 FPS. The performance is generally acceptable if you're the casual gaming type. You will still be able to keep up when running against enemies, react in time, and beat them.

Valorant sample FPS

For Genshin Impact, we have set it at a very low graphics configuration and 1080p resolution where we got around 40-42 FPS. Surprisingly, the game still looks okay despite having to lower the graphics and still able to run at a playable frame rate.

Genshin Impact lowest settings (1080p)

Genshin Impact sample FPS

Do note that the laptop will get warm when playing and will experience minimal frame drops so it is recommended to use a stand and cooler if possible.

When it comes to connectivity, the WiFi signal is strong while staying on the second floor of our house, it still has full bars even though our router is on the first floor. Bluetooth 5.0 connection works nicely as well when using Bluetooth headphones and mouse, we didn't encounter connection drops and delays while using it on music, videos, and games.

For the battery, the unit we used has a 50WHr battery, it was able to last for around 6 hours when doing work with brightness set at around 30 to 40 percent. It will be shorter when playing video games as it did only reach around 2-3 hours. 

We were able to charge it from 10 percent to 100 percent for around 1 hour and 19 mins with light usage such as browsing Facebook using the 65W charger.

For the operating system, the T14 is running with Windows 10 Pro out of the box.

Pros - Security features, durable and built to last, great performance for work, nice keyboard, good battery life, fast charger

Cons - Thick bezels, storage can be better, not ideal for outdoor use, thermals, webcam

Lenovo T14 AMD Ryzen 5 Pro Specs

Display: 14-inch IPS screen w/ FHD 1920 x 1080 resolution at 157 ppi

CPU: 4.0GHz 7nm Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U 6-core processor

GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics (6-core)

RAM: 8GB DDR4

ROM: 256GB SSD

Selfie Camera: 1MP

Battery: 50WHr w/ 65W charging technology

OS: Windows 10 Pro

Connectivity: WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, 2x USB-C, 1x USB 3.1, 1x HDMI,  3.5mm headphone jack

Others: Power button, fingerprint scanner, backlit keyboard, touchpad, front-firing speaker, Color: Black

Dimensions: 17.9 x 329 x 227 mm

Weight: 1.46 kg

Price: PHP 51,869

Verdict

We think that the Lenovo T14 AMD Ryzen 5 Pro is definitely a tough and reliable business companion.

Priced at just PHP 51,869, it comes with the premium features of the T series line. Note that most T-series products from Lenovo are price way higher.

Overall, this laptop has a sturdy build that can last for a long time, a speedy performance to help you in work or school, and security features for additional protection. Its keyboard and battery did a nice performance too.

On top of that, it can still do some light to moderate gaming which also proves that it isn't only for work.

So if you're looking for a laptop that is durable, has great performance, and has extra protection this is a pretty good one.

Build/Design - 4.5

Multimedia Experience - 4.3 

Performance - 4.5

Average - 4.43