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Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

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Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#81

Post by bee_rider »

gramakri2 wrote: post #77
bee_rider wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of programs do you use? I can get ~20 hours on a zenbook flip with OLED, because I use mostly terminal programs (black background, so most of the pixels are off). Have you tried running powertop for a bit? It would be interesting to see if the screen was consuming most of the power, or if the draw can be attributed to a particular device (maybe it is something useless like a Bluetooth radio that you can shu…

Mostly just web development stuff - firefox, terminal, vs code, thundebird, background music etc. I am hardly ever without power so I haven't really spent much time on this. But thanks for the suggestion, will look into powertop. I assume this means that you use linux on zenbook flip ? Which distro do you use? As for resolution, I wanted to try to run it lower res but Ubuntu crashes in lower res :/ Will have more tim…

I use ubuntu. But I’ve switched away from gnome to the i3 window manager (it is my favorite).

Ubuntu was a nice base in that it provided all the drivers and stuff like that built-in (I had a desktops with Arch for about a decade, and my previous memory of laptops was hunting for drivers on Arch in like 2011. It was kind of a pain, so I switched to Ubuntu for this laptop. I’m not sure whether that was the right decision, though).

Good luck with the crash! FWIW, there’s an Xorg and a Wayland version of Ubuntu’s desktop environment, maybe try flipping over to the other one just to see if that does anything.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#82

Post by tivert »

aqfamnzc wrote: post #62
tivert wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How come? Most video being 16:9 means you useball of the screen you have, 16:10 adds bars on one side doesn't it? Do you use your laptop to work, or just watch video all the time? Because if you actually do work, 16:10 or 3:2 is much better.

Having used 16:9 or similar my whole life, I don't get what people hate so much about it. It seems like about the right aspect ratio, when split in half (one window on the left, one on the right). Yes, a single full-screen window has wasted space on the sides usually, but what's the big deal? Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing.

> Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing.

I think that's it.

I've used both, and the switch from 16:9 to 16:10 was a regression. Way too much vertical cramping (and other dumb stuff, like fat bezels). I've switched back to 16:10 to the greatest degree possible.

4:3 to 16:10 was an actual improvement, because it gave more space for sidebar stuff. I'm curious if 3:2 would be a better compromise than 16:10, but I haven't had the chance to use a monitor like that.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#83

Post by user_7832 »

tivert wrote: post #82
aqfamnzc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used 16:9 or similar my whole life, I don't get what people hate so much about it. It seems like about the right aspect ratio, when split in half (one window on the left, one on the right). Yes, a single full-screen window has wasted space on the sides usually, but what's the big deal? Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing.

> Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing. I think that's it. I've used both, and the switch from 16:9 to 16:10 was a regression. Way too much vertical cramping (and other dumb stuff, like fat bezels). I've switched back to 16:10 to the greatest degree possible. 4:3 to 16:10 was an actual improvement, because it gave more space for sidebar stuff. I'm curious if 3:2 would be a better compromise than 16:10, but I haven't…

> I'm curious if 3:2 would be a better compromise than 16:10, but I haven't had the chance to use a monitor like that.

Unfortunately there was only one monitor made by Huawei that appears not in production. Panels still are available on aliexpress iirc.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#84

Post by Const-me »

aitchnyu wrote: post #57
ndiddy wrote: post #24

Frustrating that the laptop has 8 GB of RAM soldered, it means that no matter how much RAM you put in it, you'll only get 16 GB in dual channel.

What are the workloads that become worse with unequal ram modules?

Examples include gaming using the integrated GPU and using software like whisper.cpp / llama.cpp.

They both handle gigabytes of data, and typically bottlenecked with memory throughput.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#85

Post by voidmain0001 »

guappa wrote: post #49
Justin_K wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same problems with Lenovo Intel chips. Constantly getting thermally throttled. Switched to Dell and couldn't be happier.

I hate dells. Not being able to open the screen that much was a major annoyance. I actually refused a new dell to remain with an older thinkpad just because how uncomfortable they are.

Agreed. I prefer the 180 degree hinge provided on the ThinkPad line up.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#86

Post by tivert »

user_7832 wrote: post #83
tivert wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing. I think that's it. I've used both, and the switch from 16:9 to 16:10 was a regression. Way too much vertical cramping (and other dumb stuff, like fat bezels). I've switched back to 16:10 to the greatest degree possible. 4:3 to 16:10 was an actual improvement, because it gave more space for sidebar stuff. I'm curious if 3:2 would be a better compromise than 16:10, but I haven't…

> I'm curious if 3:2 would be a better compromise than 16:10, but I haven't had the chance to use a monitor like that. Unfortunately there was only one monitor made by Huawei that appears not in production. Panels still are available on aliexpress iirc.

There are also some laptops that use that ratio, but I mostly use desktop monitors.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#87

Post by pizza234 »

soziawa wrote: post #12

Can you put linux on one of these without any issues?

Shortly. T14s Gen 4 AMD are certified (you can check on the Canonical website), but (from official sourcec) Lenovo hasn't made available (due to internal testing) the Linux image yet.

How the image relates to upstream... I have no idea.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#88

Post by edwcross »

j7ake wrote: post #27
fweimer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the English (EU) layout close enough? I think it's basically the US layout with a Euro sign somewhere, but the physical key layout should be the same as a regular US keyboard.

Definitely not close enough for a programmer who uses symbols and touch typing. For starters the return key are different widths, which is a deal breaker if you’re a touchtyper used to wider return keys. Programming also uses tilde and other symbols that are different between the two. Overall they’re similar for typing alphabets, but symbols and enter key are different.

The "generic" layout names are ISO (European) versus ANSI (US). The ISO Enter key is two keys tall and narrower. ISO also has a shorter left Shift key, which leaves space for an extra key.

Dell has a few models with keyboards that accept both layouts, but in most laptops the "grid" above the keys prevents switching between them, which makes it really annoying if you ever buy one with an ISO layout, hoping to be able to just buy an ANSI keyboard later to replace it...

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#89

Post by edwcross »

Aardwolf wrote: post #14

Does anyone know if it's possible to buy thinkpads with a US keyboard layout in Europe? Any thinkpad with a layout that's not the non-qwerty local variant of my country takes more than 6 weeks to deliver, and that is to get UK layout, not the US layout with different enter key, which I can't even find available at all

I'd much prefer if companies used the actual technical names for such layouts, i.e. ISO and ANSI. It's always hard to check the layout details to find out if what they call "English" means ANSI (US) or ISO (European).

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G4 review: Business laptop is better with AMD Zen4

#90

Post by karmakaze »

tivert wrote: post #10

Glad to see it has a 16:10 screen. 16:9 is a curse.

Agreed. Even with my 24" a 16:10 is better. At 27"+ doesn't matter as much. Sadly to get high refresh rates I got a 34" 3440x1440 one for gaming and media viewing.

I was almost fooled by their 'Full HD' description, but glad to see 1920x1200 in the specs that followed.

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