Ok, so this is the deal. I bought a ThinkPad T14 gen 1 with an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U back in November of 2020. When I made the purchase the setup made sense for my workflow: I eventually run virtualized operating systems, compile code, a bunch of web browser tabs, sometimes video encoding. The core count is ideal for me. It came with 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB Samsung NVME drive. I changed the NVME drive with a 1TB Samsung 970 Pro drive and added a 32 GB 3200 MT/s RAM stick. I was very happy for awhile, until I started having problems, first with the display, then there was a keyboard issue, then a motherboard problem, then speakers stopped working and now one of the USB ports is failing. Fortunately I payed for the most complete warranty available for this unit, which covered the replacement of all failing parts. Since I had a lot of problems, I claimed for a unit replacement, but there is a severe scarcity of units; there are no other T14 available units, so they are offering me a ThinkPad T15p gen 1 with an Intel Core i7-10750H (6 cores, 12 threads), a GeForce GTX 1050 with 3 GB or VRAM, 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB NVME disk, or the possibility of replacing all failing parts until my unit is completely fixed. I know they are completly different types of devices, and I really really like the size and portability of the T14, but I am tempted with the extra GPU power of the other unit. I’ve read the review in notebookcheck.com for the T15p and they say that the casing feels cheap compared to other ThinkPads (which, presumably, they are referring to the T14). So I don’t know if it would be better for me to keep my unit and accept the parts replacement instead of moving to the bulkier and noisier T15p. I am worried that the quality of this unit is not as “good” as my current T14.
I appeal to the community knowledge and thoughts about what it would be better for me.
I’m looking forward to reading your opinions.
Best regards,
Mark
If your work flow is not architecture depended then go with the Intel. You will get better battery life and some more GPU muscle at least.
I am an AMD shill but if you had this many issues with you laptop, I would not chance to replacing all of those things because there may be new failures down the road. The worst machine is one that you cannot use.
But why are they trying to bump you up to an Intel T15 instead of an AMD T15? Also, there are newer 5xxxU T14s or even a 4xxx Pro T14. Are they just on back order for all AMD stuff because the Intel stuff is not selling?
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They have no availability of other units. They offered me an Intel T14 (gen1) with a 4 core Intel Core i7 CPU, I did not see that as a convenient solution because it’s half the amount of CPU core counts. I don’t know, it looked more like a downgrade to me than anything else.
Personally I’d stay clear of the NVIDIA optimus debacle if you intend to run Linux on it. I always find something to be annoyed about with regard to this.
I’d have the failing parts replaced to buy some time, Lenovo usually has three year warranty on the T-series so I guess your extended warranty is also for three years and if things fail again you can probably get a replacement unit based on that.
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That is a tough call. If you need it now go Intel. If you can wait then have them repair, but I have never had any vendor (HP, Dell, post-IBM Lenovo) make good on this in the past. Things may be different now but I would imagine worse since everything is integrated and surface mount.
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For those who read my post, I finally got my T14 gen 1 AMD Ryzen 7 4750U replaced with a P15v (Intel Xeon W-10855M 6 cores 12 threads, 32 GB DDR4 2933 MTs and a gorgeous IPS 4K, HDR 400, 600 nits display with a handful of calibration profiles for different jobs. I forgot to mention an NVIDIA Quadro P620 GPU. It really a nice looking computer, has an even better keyboard compared to the T14 gen 1, but it has a mayor problem, battery life is terrible and it has some serious over heating problems, to a point that if I’m running some GPU or CPU intensive tasks for a few minutes the keyboard gets really hot and uncomfortable to touch. I am trying to get Lenovo replace me this unit with an 8 cores/16 threads unit (maybe a P15v with a Xeon W-10885M), but I really don’t know if it is the best choice for me. Don’t get me wrong, this computer is really good, especially for the incredible display, but it is too heavy and not really portable with a 1 hour battery life. At this point I don’t know if I’m better off with a T14 gen 2 AMD or even a MacBook Air with an M1 chip.
Just curious to know your opinions.
I would hate to say it but probably a M1 MacBook.
Xeon in laptop form is not ideal unless you need a workstation replacement but still need it to be mobile, but Intel has been having issues with throttling on all of their mobile chips. Let alone all the vulnerabilities and mitigations that keep coming out that cripple any real advantage that Intel has had over AMD.
If you need AMD64, then I would go with Ryzen. If you embrace alternative architectures then the MacBook is the only thing out there that sort of competes with AMD64. You biggest issue is that if you run VMs and those OSes do not support AARCH64, then you have to stick with AMD64. Have you looked at possibly getting a full refund and going with a DELL XPS or HP Elite laptop. They come in Intel and AMD flavors (HP only at this time).