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Lenovo ThinkPad T14, T14s & X13: AMD Ryzen 4000 versions do not feature Thunderbolt after all

Lenovo ThinkPad T14, T14s & X13: AMD Ryzen 4000 versions do not feature Thunderbolt after all
Lenovo ThinkPad T14, T14s & X13: AMD Ryzen 4000 versions do not feature Thunderbolt after all
When Lenovo announced the new 2020 ThinkPad lineup in late February, the addition of Thunderbolt 3 to the AMD versions of the new ThinkPad T14, ThinkPad T14s and ThinkPad X13 was big news. Two months later and close to the release of the new devices, it turns out that the initial spec-sheet was wrong: Thunderbolt remains Intel-exclusive.

Thunderbolt has been a major advantage of laptops with Intel processors. After all, this feature enables advanced accessories like external GPUs and since it was developed by Intel, the standard was not available on AMD laptops.

With this in mind, the announcement of the new AMD ThinkPads from Lenovo was big news. The AMD Ryzen 4000 versions of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14, ThinkPad T14s and ThinkPad X13 had Thunderbolt 3 listed in their data-sheet, a first for any ThinkPad laptop with AMD CPUs.

Unfortunately, the specification sheet that Lenovo gave the press in February turned out to be wrong in some details, like the allegedly missing RJ45 Ethernet port on the AMD version of the ThinkPad T14.

As it turns out, the presence of a Thunderbolt 3 port on the AMD Renoir equipped versions of the ThinkPad T14, ThinkPad X13 and ThinkPad T14s is another such error. We found seemingly updated data-sheets of the T14 and T14s online and they list USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C instead of Thunderbolt 3. Lenovo confirmed that the first spec-sheets were wrong here too when we asked them.

Lenovo simply released data-sheets that were wrong. A disappointing and embarrassing situation not only for Lenovo, but also for us – after all, we misinformed people, based on the wrong information that we were  given.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2020 04 > Lenovo ThinkPad T14, T14s & X13: AMD Ryzen 4000 versions do not feature Thunderbolt after all
Benjamin Herzig, 2020-04- 9 (Update: 2020-04- 9)