Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 review: A business laptop that shines where it matters

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is the definition of a business laptop, but not in a bad way.

It excels in a few key ways that matter most to professionals, despite a few drawbacks. While it might not have a fancy design, the ThinkPad T14s is surprisingly lightweight, features a comfy keyboard, offers strong overall performance, and boasts over 20 hours of battery life. In fact, it’s the longest-lasting laptop we’ve tested at the time of writing. Those are the makings of a great business laptop.

Unlike its predecessors, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 features a Qualcomm processor. It’s one of a growing list of Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs. Is the switch from Intel to Qualcomm a wise move for the ThinkPad? Can it keep up with its Intel-powered rivals and deliver the performance professionals need?

Let’s deep dive into how the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 performed in our testing and what you should know before buying one.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Specs (as reviewed)

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Price and configurations

Our review model cost $1,475 and featured a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, a 14-inch WUXGA 1920 x 1080 IPS display, and Windows 11 Pro.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 starts at $1,036, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 processor, 16GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD storage, a 14-inch WUXGA 1920 x 1080 IPS display, and Windows 11 Home.

There are several upgrades available. You can max it out with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 processor, up to 64GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, Windows 11 Pro, and an OLED display. Of course, all of these increase the price of your configuration. The configuration with every upgrade available costs $2,022.

If you’re customizing your own ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, I would strongly recommend increasing your storage to at least 512GB and opting for the Snapdragon X Elite processor. The base 256GB of storage offers barely any space for apps and files and the Snapdragon X Elite CPU will offer far better performance than the more budget-oriented Snapdragon X Plus option. However, we cannot vouch for benchmarks like battery life, since we didn’t test that model.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Design

If there’s one word that describes the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6’s design, it’s “utilitarian.” This is a business laptop first and foremost and it looks the part. It features the plain black plastic chassis ThinkPads are known for, complete with the red rubber track point in the center of the keyboard.

Beyond the undeniably business-centric design, there are a few features worth noting, like the top-firing speakers along the edges of the keyboard deck. I love to see these on laptops since they usually offer far better audio quality than bottom-firing speakers, which are easily muffled.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is also much lighter than it looks. I was surprised when I picked it up for the first time. It weighs just 2.72 pounds, making it effortless to carry around this laptop in the office, on your commute, or on long treks through the airport. The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is pretty compact, too, measuring 12.35 x 8.64 x 0.67 inches.

While some of the ThinkPad T14s’s competitors are thinner, none of them are lighter. The Asus ExpertBook P5 comes close at 2.84 pounds, though:

• Acer Swift 14 AI: 3.2 pounds, 12.7 x 9.0 x 0.72 inches
• Asus ExpertBook P5 (P5405): 2.84 pounds, 12.3 x 8.8 x 0.59 inches
• HP Elite x360 1040 G11: 3.3 pounds, 12.36 x 8.66 x 0.58 inches

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Ports

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The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 has a generous selection of ports, especially for a 14-inch laptop.

On the left there are two USB Type-C ports, an HDMI port, and a headphone jack. On the right there are two USB Type-A ports.

That was plenty for me, but if you need more ports, you can always plug in a USB Type-C hub or connect the ThinkPad T14s to one of the best docking stations.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Security and durability

Good security features are crucial for any business laptop, especially if you often work with sensitive data. Luckily, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is equipped with enterprise-level cybersecurity through Lenovo ThinkShield, which provides threat scanning and risk monitoring features at every level, from your data to the operating system to the cloud.

In addition to the software protections from ThinkShield, you also get the physical security of biometric sign-in. There is a fingerprint reader embedded in the power button and you can also use the IR camera for facial recognition sign-on, both of which are powered by Windows Hello. You can even use a physical security key to sign into specific apps.

If you’re concerned about security, I also recommend activating “dynamic lock” in your sign-in settings. This feature will automatically lock the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 when it detects that you are away from your computer.

You won’t have to worry about accidental drops and bumps, either, since the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is certified for the MIL-STD-810H durability standards. That means this laptop is built for military-grade durability tests, so it’s definitely tough enough to stand up to everyday use in the office or on your commute.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Display

Display quality is one area where the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 falls behind. It had a disappointing score on our color gamut test, even for a business laptop. However, despite its poor color gamut performance, I did like that the ThinkPad’s display has an anti-glare coating on it. This is great for preventing distracting reflections from obscuring your display in brightly lit areas.

Lenovo also offers an option to upgrade to an OLED display for $315 if you otherwise like the ThinkPad T14s but wish it had a better display.

The ThinkPad T14s gets fairly bright at an average of 451.8 nits, but it reproduced just 70.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. That’s a low score even for a business laptop. All of the ThinkPad’s rivals scored at least 5 points higher.

I watched some YouTube videos on the ThinkPad T14s, including the trailer for Netflix’s “Man on the Inside,” and everything was clear, albeit, not as crisp as it would be on a higher resolution display. The resolution and color quality of the IPS display is plenty good enough for enjoying an episode of your favorite streaming show on your lunch break or everyday tasks like web browsing.

While panel quality is important for some types of work-related tasks, it may not be a top priority for everyone. For instance, if you’re a creative professional or often use your work laptop to edit photos or videos, a vibrant, bright display is crucial. However, it’s not as important for things like word processing or data entry.

So, depending on the tasks you use your work laptop for, the ThinkPad’s low color accuracy score might not be a deal breaker. Even so, it’s disappointing to see a score in the low 70s.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Keyboard and touchpad

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 features the standard keyboard found on ThinkPads through the ages, complete with the rubber track point in the center. This keyboard design may be dated, but if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. This is a very snappy, tactile keyboard and I really enjoyed typing on it during my testing.

On the Monkeytype typing test, I scored 94 words per minute with 95% accuracy. That’s lower than what I scored on some other Lenovo laptops but still relatively good. While the track point is a staple of the ThinkPad line, it reduced my accuracy while typing quickly because my fingers would occasionally run into moving to or from the G and H keys. Personally, I’d prefer a keyboard deck without the track point since I also didn’t find it particularly useful compared to the regular touchpad.

Similarly, I could do without the large plastic buttons along the top of the touchpad. The touchpad is clickable, which makes these buttons redundant. I would prefer to have more space on the touchpad than have the physical buttons, especially since the touchpad itself is smooth and responsive.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Audio

I always prefer laptops with top-firing speakers because they usually offer a much better audio experience than bottom-firing speakers. The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is no exception. The speakers can get seriously loud and feature clear, well-balanced audio quality. I never had to turn the volume up past 30 to clearly hear music or videos.

Snail Mail’s indie single “The 2nd Most Beautiful Girl in the World” sounded crisp and punchy on the ThinkPad with clear mids and just the right amount of bass. I also watched trailers for Netflix’s “Spellbound” and “Buy Now” and found the dialogue, soundtracks, and background ambiance all well-balanced and clear throughout.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Performance

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 fared well on our overall performance tests with its Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 processor. It scored 2,459 on the Geekbench 6 single-core test and 14,486 on the multi-core test. It also completed the HandBrake video transcoding test in 5 minutes and 34 seconds, which is fairly quick.

The Asus ExpertBook P5 (Intel Core Ultra 7 258V) had the highest single-core score but it fell far behind the ThinkPad T14s on the multi-core benchmark and the HandBrake test. In fact, the only rival laptop that outscored the ThinkPad on the multi-core benchmark was the Acer Swift 14 AI (Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100) and even then it won by less than 100 points.

Despite a slight advantage for the Acer Swift 14 AI, the ThinkPad T14s offers more than enough power for everyday tasks like word processing or working in productivity apps like Microsoft Excel or Slack. The high multi-core score indicates that the ThinkPad T14s can also keep up with more demanding apps like Photoshop or on-device AI. So, no matter what kind of work you need to get done, the ThinkPad T14s is up to the task.

The only area where the ThinkPad T14s really lags is file transfer speed. This is an indicator of how fast a laptop's SSD reads and writes data. A faster SSD speed means you won't have to wait as long for a file to copy or download, for example. The ThinkPad T14s barely passed 1,000 MBps in this test, which is a let down considering it performed fairly well otherwise.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Gaming and graphics

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is not a gaming laptop. If anything, it’s exactly the opposite. However, graphics performance is still an important metric to analyze because it’s important for video editing or graphic design.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 struggled with our graphics benchmarks tests. It scored 5,987 on the 3DMark Fire Strike test and averaged just 21 frames per second in Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm. The only laptop that scored lower was the Acer Swift 14 AI (Qualcomm Adreno integrated graphics), but the Asus ExpertBook P5 (Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics) and the HP Elite x360 1040 G11 (Intel Arc integrated graphics) demolished the ThinkPad’s scores:

The Acer Swift 14 AI scored nearly identical to the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 on both tests, which isn’t a coincidence. Both laptops are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 with Qualcomm Adreno integrated graphics.

In comparison, the Asus ExpertBook P5 and the HP Elite x360 1040 G11 have Intel processors with integrated graphics and both scored similarly, as well. So, these results appear to indicate stronger graphics performance overall on Intel processors than on Snapdragon processors. If graphics-intensive tasks are a top priority for you, you would be better off choosing an Intel-powered laptop or even one of the best gaming laptops.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Battery life

Battery life is one area where the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 really shines. It lasted 21 hours and 3 minutes in our battery test, longer than any of its rivals — longer than any laptop we’ve ever tested. The only one that came even remotely close was the Acer Swift AI 14 with a time of 17 hours and 30 minutes.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 has enough battery life to easily get you through a full day of work, maybe even two. This category is critical for a business laptop since you don’t want your laptop dying on you when you have work to get done, whether in the office, at an airport, or even at home.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Webcam

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 includes a 1080p FHD webcam with support for Microsoft Studio Effects, such as “portrait lighting” or “automatic framing.” The video quality is alright for a laptop webcam. It’s fairly clear, but leans dark, so you’ll need a well-lit space for the best image quality. However, I like that the webcam has a built-in privacy shutter.

The built-in microphone is surprisingly good. My voice sounded perfectly clear in my test video. Overall, the webcam and mic combined are plenty good enough for everyday video meetings and Zoom calls, although you can always add an external webcam if you want better video quality.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Heat

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 handled heat relatively well overall in our thermal tests, but it did exceed our 95-degree comfort threshold with a peak temperature of 107.6 degrees in the center of the underside of the keyboard deck.

The underside of the ThinkPad was the warmest in general, as well, with an average temperature of 92 degrees. However, the touchpad stayed cool at 76 degrees and the center of the keyboard deck averaged 88.9 degrees. I never felt it get uncomfortably hot during my testing and only noticed it warming up while charging.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6: Software and warranty

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 includes Lenovo’s standard one-year warranty, which you can extend or upgrade through Lenovo Premium Care Plus. It comes ready to go with either Windows 11 Home or Windows 11 Pro along with a suite of basic apps including Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Copilot, the Xbox app, and Lenovo Commercial Vantage. This is the business version of the Lenovo Vantage app, which acts as a hub for changing system settings, accessing troubleshooting tips, and viewing your warranty info.

Bottom line

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is in many ways the perfect business laptop, despite a few flaws. It offers strong overall performance, incredible battery life, and a lightweight design, the three traits that are arguably the most important for professionals. This laptop is light enough to bring on your commute with ease and has the power and battery life to keep up with everyday work tasks without needing a charger during your lunch break.

Of course, the ThinkPad T14s isn’t perfect and its flaws could be deal breakers. For instance, it had very weak graphics performance in our benchmark tests. Its Snapdragon processor may also face compatibility issues with certain apps and games. The ThinkPad T14s also had a low color accuracy score in our tests, which may be a major factor for creative professionals. If that’s the case for you, visit our guide to the best business laptops for more top-rated options.

Despite its drawbacks, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 has a lot to offer and excels in the ways that matter most. If you’re a professional looking for a lightweight laptop that can keep up with your workflows, from AI tasks to word processing, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is definitely worth considering.