Lenovo is one of leading world computer producers. Company has got good reputation and for example continues lines of products created earlier by IBM (including Thinkpad laptops with iconic keyboard, trackball and red dot in the name). Different people suspect it for close cooperation with Chinese government, but I don’t want to go into this and prefer to concentrate on the technical details only (BTW, which big company is fully separated from the situation on the world?)

I have seen used Thinkpads in the past and had for some time new Thinkpad X1 Carbon (it was ca. 2015). They were actually not so bad, unfortunately didn’t made any special feelings in my head.

In 2026 I was searching for some addition to the used Polish Hyperbook L14 (Clevo L140MU). This is difficult time because of RAM / SSD prices and LCD screens (models with Variable Ratio Rate are going to the market this year and it makes more sense to wait some time). I made some research and even prepared document Modern laptop design guidelines describing some typical design flaws in modern laptops (I’m using such devices for years).

It’s of course natural, that my first choice should be Macbook Air with M4 or M5 chip, but… my eyes don’t tolerate very well their screens (they’re using different form of picture blinking to save energy or showing bigger amount of colors). I was thinking about latest Clevo iteration, but haven’t found any configuration with clear screen information (it cannot blink for me and it’s not possible to find any review for Tianma TM140VDHP21). In the game there was HP (but they have ridiculous sales strategy and support a lot of things, but outside US sell only some very specific configurations and of course none of them was OK for me). I was thinking about Dell (unfortunately I had medium experience with their batteries and many users are complaining about current quality + I don’t like lattice-free keyboards and fact, that in every review Dell laptops going into emergency thermal throttling). With Asus I had small, but rather medium experience with device noise (+ according to the many reviews they use liquid metal or have weak hinges). There was also considered Acer (but here I was disappointed with selling support and providing just specific configurations) and others (like Fujitsu), but they’re simply unavailable.

Returning to Lenovo – some videos are saying about their thin motherboard laminat, using glue and weak USB-C ports (they lost mechanical connection and don’t work). I considered Carbon X1 with Lunar Lake (various sources were saying about rather poor battery life) and T14s gen6 with Lunar Lake. The last one had few design problems and I was convinced, that it makes sence to wait for T14s gen7 or maybe some other upcoming models, but after seeing gen7 prices and lack of low power non-touch screen I returned to gen6.

Review from notebookcheck for this model was clear. Let’s summarize some weak points (changed in gen7):

1. USB-C just on one side
2. RAM together with CPU (problems with fixing or replacement in the future)
3. USB-C connected directly to the mainboard (generates costs, when something will fail) - use USB-A when possible
4. lack of modularity (cannot easy replace keyboard, etc.)

Price especially now is acceptable and advantages bigger than disadvantages and currently I’m writing this text mainly from this machine.

Let’s look on hardware (comparing it mainly to my old Clevo from 2021).

Some links:

1. VIA 14 similar to my Clevo, just other color and more RAM
2. T14s gen6 Intel

Case

In Thinkpad it's black, with some plastic and iconing red elements. With ca. 1,3kg looks solid and strong, unfortunately I have to compare it to the brick especially because of big island above screen – there is no style visible like in Clevo (which is like man with big muscules and full testosterone and has got height 1kg, because it’s done more from metal/carbon).

When we add white LED next to power button and red LED in the iconic logo (very annoying in the night) and feet made from plastic (device can be too easy moved on the desk and opening it with one hand doesn’t have any sense), we see, that Lenovo needs maybe some changes (it’s currently not bad, but also not perfect).

1:0 for Clevo (definitely)

Keyboard

Thinkpad has good layout (big arrows, Fn+Left simulating Home, Fn+Right simulating End, etc.) and generally perfect typing feeling (it’s maybe not the best on the world, but OK).

Clevo keyboard… works.

1:0 for Thinkpad

Touchpad

Lenovo is funny - touchpad is too sensitive in UEFI and it’s difficult to press mouse key without making cursor move… but in Linux everything is OK.

My Clevo has got often touchpad buttons problem and this is annoying.

1:0 for Thinkpad.

CPU

Panther Lake gives me very mixed feeling comparing to Lunar Lake, when I compare number of cores, default TDP, etc. for lowest models. Typical user normally doesn’t need power from highest SKU (or their price doesn’t recompensate performance boost), I will say even more – majority of laptops from last 10 years could be still enough for user and Macbook Neo / Lake confirms it very well.

Lenovo has got Intel 228V and Clevo Intel 11 gen.

1:0 for Lenovo.

Memory

32GB LPDDR5X-8555 (8 RAM chips from Samsung) vs 8GB LPDDR4-3200.

1:0 for Thinkpad, altought RAM problem could mean replacing CPU.

Screen

Too early to say anything – for me different setup and trying all options sometimes need even few weeks or so.

I ordered Low Power anti-glare screen and received in screen lottery MNE007JA1-3 (tested here), Lenovo was putting there also B140UAN02.7 (see review)

In old Clevo I have B140HAN06.2.

No winner in this moment (old screen seems to be of course better now, but we will see after complete setup).

Disk

I don’t like SSD sold with laptops – normally they don’t have any firmware updates and you don’t even see TBW parameter (which can suggest, if disk can survive intensive usage or not). Notebookcheck received with their laptop Hynix PCB01, I won in this lottery Kioxia KBG6AZNV256G and it has got at least information about 150TB TBW (and now good question: should I cry, that haven’t ordered bigger version or should be happy, that 256GB seems to be more power efficient than 512GB?)

Lenovo is supporting one disk, Clevo two (I bought it without and put Samsung 980). I don’t see clear winner in this category - disk can be replaced and testing speed or similar things doesn't have sence.

Fan

Thinkpad even with full fan speed is much more quiet than Clevo, additionally with Clevo for support for all elements you need to install extra kernel modules from Tuxedo (Thhinkpad from Lenovo/IBM is more popular and has got everything in popular Linux distributions).

What is good with both machines – after correct configuring fan doesn’t work at all (it’s saving energy and ears).

1:0 for Thinkpad (although I totally don’t like fan holes on the bottom, which could allow for taking dust and liquid inside)

Firmware

I like very much UEFI simulator on the Lenovo wepbage – you can see, what options you have in concrete models.

General UEFI structure in Thinkpad is clear, but:

1. I had more problems with setting up Secure Boot than in other devices (it required some reading and more understanding the whole process)
2. laptop disabled once and was not able to boot after disabling Thunderbolt option (I had to use reset pin on the bottom).
3. about sensitive touchpad I have already written (shame)
4. Thinkpad UEFI is reporting only three power levels, which is rudicolous (the same you see with Clevo with Lunar Lake, in opposite side there is my Clevo from 2021 showing all ten C-states)
5. Lenovo almost made me hearth attack, when I was upgrading UEFI to version 1.14 – in some moment laptop disabled screen, started blinking power LED and in the end turned off. In theory all was good, but one second earlier there was message “please don’t power off your device” (I say it from memory). In my opinion upgrade procedure needs polishing (good thing is, that Lenovo has got UEFI backup)
6. Linux kernel 6.8 + acpi_osi kernel option allows for freezing mouse in UEFI after full device reboot
7. no option for disconnecting battery after every power off (you can do it only once)

One thing, which surprised me in very positive way, was disabling USB/Thundebrolt ports:

1. these on the right (USB-A) you can disable pernamently in UEFI (they can only charge external devices)
2. these on the left (USB-C) you can disable pernamently or temporary (temporary with keyboard sequence and it’s called “USB-C Restricted Mode Security feature” – laptop can be charged, but data cannot be transfered)

Note: after disabling everything you have two USB controllers, hub USB and touchpad device.

With Clevo – generally no updates and minimum set of options.

I could say here – no clear winner here, but I give 0,25 point to the Clevo because at least don’t hide power details from the user and it’s possible to comfort work with the touchpad in the UEFI.

Power efficiency

I will use here very simple test, which of course is not very good (we compare different OS).

In the Clevo from 2021 with Gnome Ubuntu 22.04, limited power levels, my comfortable brightness, disabled wifi and other possible elements (I wrote series of articles in Polish language about it) I was able to get minimally 1.83W in powertop in idle in desktop (brightness 15,6%).

Thinkpad with disabled Wifi and all possible devices showed me in Plasma 6 NixOS minimally 1.20W (brightness 20% = in theory ca. 100 nits) or 1.04W (brightness 10%) and for notebookcheck similar device (theoretically screen from the same class+other disk) achieved 21h in their Wifi test.

Note: if you want to read few words more about my experience with Linux on the device, jump to another article.

New generation is better in idle and of course eating battery quite fast, when you do hard work (in many cases ARM is better than X86).

In both devices I see problem with LEDs – in Clevo it’s green and on the left side (happily user doesn’t see it), in Thinkpad they’re next to keyboard and on the screen cover (in Linux user can disable them during normal work, but cannot do anything in standby mode).

Now let’s speak about standby – Clevo is eating ca. 5% over 9h (0,55%/h), Lenovo ca. 3% over 6h (0,5%/h). In this point I really see problem – we have better and better RAM, but devices are still using in standby a lot of energy (the root-cause could be for example Embedded Controller or ability of returning from standby by using keyboard/touchpad).

What about off state? ca. 3% during 18h with Thinkpad (in the same time device has option for disconnecting battery in UEFI and I would like to see the same with every disabling).

1:0 definitely for Thinkpad (although I don’t like some solutions)

Battery

73Wh (Clevo) vs 58Wh (Lenovo). Nothing to say.

1:0 for Clevo

Summary

6 points for Thinkpad, 2,25 for Clevo.

T14s gen 6 comes in my case with 3 years of door to door warranty. With current market price-quality-performance ratio it's totally OK, unfortunately device didn’t do “wow effect” for me – it’s just another laptop, making good impression, but without putting me in full excitement.

Should you buy it?

It depends on three factors:

1. if you trust computers designed in China (this is important thing in today world)
2. if you need urgently something new with 32GB RAM in fair price
3. if you could pay in the future for possible repairs

As alternative you could maybe consider Macbook (for example Neo will be enough for banking, Air could be used for creating videos, etc.) or modular Framework (they should send first batches of 13 Pro in June) or some business HP.

When you can wait, there will be this/next year many configs with VRR screens or Snapdragon X2 / Nvidia ARM chips (eventually Intel Wildcat Lake).

I agree, that majority will come just with 8 or 16GB RAM, but… do you really need something else in laptop? This is portable device by definition (and for many heavy tasks even Macbook Mini is more than enough).