Best ThinkPad | Laptop Mag

The best ThinkPads attract many business users and corporate IT departments thanks to their strong build quality, industry-leading keyboards, hyper-accurate pointing sticks, and simple black aesthetic. The Lenovo ThinkPad line has a number of mainstays that Lenovo fans won’t do without, which is why the best ThinkPads are considered the best laptops around.

Even if you’ve already got your heart (and budget) committed to a ThinkPad, you’ve got a lot of options to choose from. Lenovo currently sells over a dozen ThinkPad models across several different lines. The laptops all have the same basic aesthetic but vary greatly when it comes to size, price, screen quality, performance, and battery life. Some even have snappier keyboards than others. There are models meant for the average business user, artists who need a professional tablet, or even power users who need a beast of a workstation. 

With recent updates in styling, the ThinkPad lineup adds some chic to its legendary performance. 

Once you’ve made a decision, check out our roundup of the best ThinkPad accessories to bolster your productivity, but if you’re more interested in the best Lenovo laptops in general, we have a page for that, too.

The Quick List

Best Overall

Pros: Lenovo took the best business laptop and beefed it up with 13th Gen Intel CPUs. You still get the ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s attractive, slim and durable chassis. Business users who travel frequently will appreciate the 13+ hours of battery life offered by the 1200p version. What surprised us about the Carbon Gen 11 is that, despite its thickness, it’s much lighter than I expected it to be with dimensions of 12.4 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches and a weight of 2.5 pounds. The Lenovo notebook lasted 13 hours and 45 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which consists of surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. This runtime is actually pretty damn good, beating the average premium laptop (10 hours and 30 minutes). It’s easily at the top of the best ThinkPads.

Cons: The keyboard is mid — it’s not worth the hype, but it’s not awful either. The performance is OK, but there are competitors on the market that deliver longer runtimes and more CPU “oomph” for your money. 

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) review.

Best Multimedia ThinkPad

Lenovo couldn’t have picked a better name for the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 — extreme is the operative word here. When I think of “extreme,” phrases like “to the max,” “out of hand” and “exorbitant” come to mind, which perfectly describe this 16-inch monster. The price tag is definitely extreme with a shocking starting price of $2,951. Whew! This 16-inch laptop, packed with extreme internals such as a top-of-the-line 11th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and powerful Nvidia 30-series graphics, was built to make its rivals sweat. Someone check on the Dell XPS 15!

This Lenovo laptop is a major improvement from the last ThinkPad X1 Extreme we reviewed (Gen 2). It’s got more battery life, a brighter display and zippier chips. But of course, every monster has its kryptonite. The ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 is no different, especially since it’s up against some fierce competitors.

Still, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 is ideal for handling extreme workloads for professionals, whether you’re a creator, architect or engineer. As a cherry on top, they can relax and play their favorite graphics-intensive games after a long day of productivity.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 review.

Most Affordable ThinkPad

Pros: Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 is a refinement of the best 2-in-1 laptop for business users. Taking a page from the X1 Carbon, the newest Yoga now flaunts a 14-inch display with a taller 16:10 aspect ratio for more vertical screen space — a boon for enterprise users. Also improving productivity are a wider touchpad and a human presence detection sensor for convenient login and enhanced security.  Swapping the engine for 11th Gen Intel chips adds considerably faster performance, but the battery life upgrade is even more enticing; the Gen 6 model lasts for nearly 15 hours on a charge. These perks are packaged in a sleek aluminum chassis with a convenient 2-in-1 design and a handy stylus slot. 

Cons: It may not be as lightweight as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon or as alluring as the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga. There’s no SD card and it’s hella expensive, so you have to decide whether or not you can bite the bullet that is its $2,000+ price.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga (Gen 6) review.

Best Ultraportable Laptop

The Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 taught me that small things are capable of greatness.

There comes a point in diminishing laptop dimensions where it becomes a no brainer to throw it into whatever size bag you have and take it with you. However, this comes with compromises to power and battery life.

Bafflingly, Lenovo seems to have thrown up a one-finger salute to this convention, and provided us a super luxurious ultraportable with enough power for key tasks — even some Photoshop work — with a mightily impressive battery life to boot.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 review.

Best RTX A5000 Laptop

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 improves on what was already a winning formula with the original ThinkPad P15 with upgraded performance and stellar battery life for the 1080p model.

The laptop’s 11th Gen Intel Core i9-11950H CPU, Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU and 32GB of RAM make it an absolute workhorse of a workstation. If raw performance is your goal, it will be hard to beat the ThinkPad P15 Gen 2. The one concern for creatives will be the display, but if that’s crucial for you consider the OLED panel option or perhaps an external display.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review.

Best Battery Life

Thanks to its 15 plus hours of battery life, excellent ergonomics and Qualcomm’s potent Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 CPU, the laptop can handle a bit of overtime and then some. The notebook earned its place on our best business laptops page. But the X13s does have a few caveats to consider.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X13s Gen 1 I tested ($2,169.00) has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 CPU, integrated Qualcomm Adreno 690 Graphics, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 13.3-inch and a 1920 x 1200-pixel touchscreen display.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X13s Gen 1 review.

Best Workstation

I love playing with expensive toys, but who the heck is the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 1 really for? Not the budget-friendly professional nor up-and-coming businesses — it’s for the highly paid professional or Fortune 500 companies. So unless you can afford $4,663, look away now.

Okay, big spenders. The Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 1 will net you a beautiful 16-inch, 4K display, a comfortable keyboard, a great pair of speakers, and a powerful Core i9-12950HX vPro processor and Nvidia RTX A5500 GPU. However, despite its ridiculous price and boring design, it has a short battery life, so you’re going to have to stay plugged in the majority of the time.

This is one of the best ThinkPads I’ve reviewed — I’m just a tad salty about the battery life.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 1 review.

Best Business Machine

I’ve been on the hunt for a really good business laptop, and with the ThinkPad Z16 in my hands, I can finally end my search. It’s got a slick, dual-tone design: silver on the outside and dusky on the inside. And to Lenovo loyalists’ delight, the keyboard features the beloved, striking-red TrackPoint that will catch your eye every time you open the lid.

It’s also the perfect size for a business laptop. It’s not too small (like the compact machines on our best 13-inch laptops page), but it’s not ridiculously unwieldy like the 18-inch laptops that are gaining popularity nowadays — it’s juuuust right. 

However, I will admit that the ThinkPad Z16 is a bit heavier than I expected. But to be fair, Lenovo never marketed this laptop as a thin-and-light ultraportable. It’s a business laptop, which means it will likely be sitting on a desk for hours on end before it’s picked up and thrown inside a laptop bag.

The ThinkPad Z16 definitely earned a spot on our best business laptops page, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 review.

Best 16-inch ThinkPad

If you need a quality productivity laptop that you can bring with you on long trips, the Lenovo Thinkpad T16 Gen 1 will absolutely satisfy you. It lasted 11 hours and 46 minutes on our battery test. Top that longevity off with powerful specs that can get you through most non-intensive workloads.

The ThinkPad T16’s backlit edge-to-edge full keyboard is just the right size, and especially comfortable on the fingers. The design, while muted, is durable, making it ideal for commuting. However, $2,099 is a bit steep for a business laptop. Especially when the display lacks color depth and brightness. And the SSD is a bit sluggish.

But if you’re looking for a quality ThinkPad sized up to 16-inches, it’s hard not to recommend the Lenovo ThinkPad T16.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Gen 1 review.

How to choose the best ThinkPad laptop

Choosing the best ThinkPad for you really depends on your needs. If you’re looking for a vanilla clamshell laptop, you’re more than likely to find everything you want in the Thinkpad X1 Carbon. However, if you’re looking for something more flexible, then the ThinkPad X1 Yoga is the next best bet. 

Artists might want to check out the ThinkPad X1 Tablet, while users who need their laptop to have a little more kick, whether it be for video editing or photo editing, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme is a great choice. If you want to go beyond that, the most powerful ThinkPad you can buy is the Lenovo ThinkPad P1, which is great for all kinds of high taxing work. If you want to prioritize battery life, you could probably find the Lenovo ThinkPad T480 still on sale, but keep in mind that it’s a little old, using an 8th Gen Intel CPU.

How we test the best ThinkPads

We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and heat management.

In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of the laptop’s display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 4.3 and 5.0 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. 

To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Dirt 3 benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution.

We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 10 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise. 

These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop’s materials to the feel of its touchpad.

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Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it. 

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