Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G5: A nearly perfect business laptop

What is it that business customers need? The best performance? The brightest screen? The longest battery life? The widest set of connectivity options? The best keyboards?

A simple answer to this question does not exist. Usage models and user needs are simply too different, there is no perfect device that makes everyone happy. To get closer to answering the question though, we could change it a little to: what do most corporate customers need, who give their employees a laptop for work?

In most cases, performance needs are not that high, as the typical office and web browsing tasks do not need a high performance. Battery life is also probably not the biggest priority, except for users who travel a lot, as offices typically have power outlets. For transporting the laptop from the home to the office and back, a small battery is typically enough. Lastly, the quality of the internal screen is often not that important, since a typical usage model is with a dock and a large external monitor.

The aspects just mentioned are among the weaker aspects of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 Intel, which we recently tested. Battery life and screen are good, but not better than average. The performance of the Intel Meteor Lake CPU lags behind recent AMD Ryzen chips.

The strengths of the ThinkPad lie elsewhere: The robust chassis contains comfortable input device and many other functions that business customers value. Apart from security features, one such feature is the RJ45 port, something not many laptops have nowadays, even though it is very useful with legacy infrastructure. Another example is integrated LTE, which the T14 Gen 5 has optionally.  Also part of the package: Two RAM slots, enabling upgradeability to up to 64 GB. Also, Lenovo made changing the battery easier. This step can accelerate the servicing process.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 Intel does not deliver the best performance, but best in class flexibility. For us, it is one of the best business laptops available. And if a better performance and efficiency are needed: Lenovo also offers an AMD variant of this model.