Lenovo's ThinkPad T16 Gen 4 AMD offers plenty of room for improvements
Cost is a major factor for business laptops and manufacturers try to use the same parts for multiple laptops, so they can reduce development as well as productions costs. This is also the case for the recently reviewed business laptop ThinkPad T16 Gen 4, because the same mainboard is also used for the ThinkPad P16s Gen 4, but also the smaller variants ThinkPad T14 Gen 6 as well as the ThinkPad P14s Gen 6.
This also means that there is unused space in the larger models, which is also easy to see when you look at the internal layout of the ThinkPad T16 Gen 4. There is plenty of unused space directly next to the fan. The overall set of features of the ThinkPad T16 Gen 4 is very good overall (WWAN-ready, 2x SO-DIMM, 1x SSD), but with a corresponding mainboard for the 16-inch chassis, there would be room for a second SSD slot as well as a second fan. This would increase the CPU performance and at the same time reduce the fan noise as well as the surface temperatures, which can reach more than 50 °C at the hot spot on the bottom panel.
Another aspect we want to talk about is the quality of the keyboard, especially considering the large and comparatively thick base unit. It is no secret that the quality of Lenovo keyboards dropped over the couple of years due to slimmer constructions. The typing experience of the T16 benefits from the sturdy base unit and the overall typing experience is comfortable, but if we compare it directly with our own (and much slimmer) ThinkPad X1 Carbon G6 from 2018, which still used 1.8 mm keyboard travel, the typing experience is just not as good. The keyboards are also standardized parts and the current T16 uses 1.5 mm travel with flat key caps. We can only hope that Lenovo will use better keyboards for upcoming products.
We have already talked about the topic of the display and it is unfortunate that there is no high-resolution option with a frequency of 120 Hz. Please see our comprehensive review including our calibrated display profile for more information about the ThinkPad T16 Gen 4 AMD.
