Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 review - Lunar Lake delivers longer battery life but brings trade-offs

It’s notable that Lenovo chose to release the ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 with both Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors. The Lunar Lake version with the Core Ultra 5 228V consumes less power and delivers longer battery life, but its CPU performance is lower and its maintenance options are noticeably worse. The lack of RAM upgradeability on Lunar Lake systems is already known (and it’s a clear drawback compared to the two RAM slots in the Arrow Lake model), but Lenovo’s decision to remove the second SSD slot and leave the space unused is especially hard to justify.

In the remaining areas, our conclusions from the Arrow Lake-based ThinkPad E14 still apply. This compact office notebook offers a solid chassis, a good selection of ports (including Thunderbolt 4), a comfortable keyboard, and a quality matte IPS display. Beyond its high resolution, the 120 Hz refresh rate sets it apart from other office laptops in this price range.

Your choice between the two models ultimately comes down to more than just price. It depends on whether you value the Arrow Lake version’s superior maintenance and upgrade options or prefer the longer battery life provided by the Lunar Lake configuration.

The ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 test device is available at Campuspoint for 1,199 euros (or 1,109 euros for the campus version). The Lunar Lake model can be configured from 1,029 euros at Lenovo itself.

We previously reviewed the affordable ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 equipped with an Intel Arrow Lake processor, but Lenovo also offers a Lunar Lake configuration. This review covers the model featuring the Core Ultra 5 228V, 32 GB of RAM, Arc Graphics 130V, and the familiar 120 Hz display. It is priced at €1,199, or roughly €1,100 through the Campus program. Since the chassis, input devices, and display are identical to the Arrow Lake version, this review focuses on performance and emissions.

• Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 Core Ultra 7 255H review

Even though the Lunar Lake version looks identical to the Arrow Lake model from the outside, Lenovo has made major changes internally. Because the RAM is now integrated into the Lunar Lake processor, the two SO-DIMM slots have been removed and the CPU occupies their former position. The extra internal space is left unused, and the second SSD slot has also been eliminated, despite the clearly visible area for it to the right of the battery.

Lenovo’s power profiles on ThinkPads are tied directly to the Windows energy settings. All benchmarks were performed in Best Performance mode.

The Lunar Lake–based Core Ultra 5 228V comes with 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 RAM and an 8-core design (4 Performance cores and 4 Efficiency cores). Power consumption can briefly peak at 37 watts before settling at 28 watts under sustained load, which matches the Arrow Lake model. However, the Core Ultra 5 228V delivers noticeably lower multi-core performance and reduced single-core performance. Although this compares a Core Ultra 7 with a Core Ultra 5, both configurations are priced similarly, making the comparison appropriate. Performance remains stable on battery power.

The system feels fast in everyday use, with no issues in typical workloads. In synthetic benchmarks, however, its scores once again fall short of the Arrow Lake model.

As noted earlier, the Lunar Lake version of the ThinkPad E14 includes only a single M.2-2280 slot, which comes populated with a compact M.2-2242 SSD. The 1 TB Samsung PM9C1b (878 GB usable) offers solid, stable transfer speeds.