Lenovo offers the ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 with modern Intel CPUs, but only old AMD CPUs

The ThinkPad E14 is an interesting office laptop with a good price-performance ratio. However, looking at all the available SKUs, it is not easy to find the right device for you. Lenovo offers three base models: Two of them are based on Intel CPUs (Arrow Lake & Lunar Lake), but our review showed that the Lunar Lake chips are not automatically the better choice. The optional 120 Hz screen of the Intel models is definitely a recommendation though. However, our two review units were also quite expensive at around €1,200 and definitely at the upper end of the price range for the ThinkPad E14.

Modern AMD Zen 5 processors are not available for the ThinkPad E14, only rebranded Zen 4 chips. The display is also an area where the AMD model falls behind, because you can only get it with a matte 1080p screen, a brightness of 300 nits and low color gamut. If you primarily use your ThinkPad E14 attached to an external screen, then this might be tolerable, but the quality is just so much worse compared to the optional 120 Hz screen of the Intel SKUs. We think this is a big issue, especially for the more expensive AMD versions of the ThinkPad E14 with prices around €1,000.

The cheapest Intel SKU right now (with the Core Ultra 5 210H) can simply be equipped with the better IPS screen for an additional price of just €60, which brings the total cost to €750 right now. Considering the low additional price, the 400-nit screen with 120 Hz is pretty much a must-have option. Please see our review of the ThinkPad E14 for more information about the current models.