Lenovo ThinkPad T16 G1 Intel: Much is new in the 16 incher with long battery runtimes

With its ThinkPad T16 G1, Lenovo is offering a redesign of the largest ThinkPad of the T-series. We very much welcome the 16:10 display, which has been enlarged to 16-inches with a low-power option, as well as the battery, which can be optionally upgraded from 57 Wh to 86 Wh. The combination of this and a fairly efficient Core i5-1240P results in very good battery runtimes of 14 hours in our WLAN test.

The robust ThinkPad offers many equipment options and a wide range of connections with 2x Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.0b, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 and a GBit LAN port. However, the SD card reader has been omitted. The option for a 4K display with 100% DCI-P3 has also been dropped, but the built-in low-power panel is bright at 390 nits, covering 80.5% of the Adobe RGB color space.

16 GB of soldered DDR4-3200 RAM runs in single-channel mode in our model, but the system performance and that of the integrated Intel iGPU can be increased by inserting a RAM module in the unoccupied SODIMM. The processor handles tasks that require short turbo very quickly, such as web surfing, but Lenovo permanently limits the CPU at 20 watts, which is unnecessary given the low temperatures. Not so well tempered is Samsung's 512 GB PCIe 4.0 SSD, despite the heat spreader. The read rate collapses after a short time, but is still a fast SSD. 

The soldered WLAN chip (Intel AX 211) is very fast, WWAN is available (an antenna cable is on board), the 1080P webcam is acceptable, and the case is very stable. One downside is the keyboard, of which the travel has been reduced to 1.5 mm, but otherwise offers a good pressure point and balanced resistance. Compared to the predecessor, a lot has changed and the mostly silent ThinkPad is not only an ideal companion for business customers.

A large number of configurations are available, which themselves vary from country to country. In the US, for example, the most basic configuration starts at $1,099.50. Alternatively, AMD variants, available for the first time for the largest ThinkPad in the T series, can also be ordered.

Many more details and in-depth analyses can be found in our comprehensive review of the Lenovo ThinkPad T16 G1 Intel.