Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 7 2024, Snapdragon X2 Elite X2E-80-100, 32GB, 1TB SSD, Eclipse Black

A featherweight ARM ThinkPad with marathon battery life and a compatibility asterisk. Great for road warriors, wrong for gamers or anyone tied to legacy software.

The Snapdragon X2 Elite surprised us. It lands in the 82nd percentile for CPU performance, which means it'll chew through everyday work, browser tabs, and even some light dev tasks without breaking a sweat. The 32GB of RAM sits near the top of the charts, so multitasking is a non-issue. But the integrated GPU is a weak spot, 14th percentile, so don't expect to do anything beyond casual gaming or basic photo edits. The 58Wh battery paired with this ARM chip is where the magic happens, this thing just keeps going.

Against the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition, the ThinkPad wins on ports and that legendary keyboard, but the Surface has a better display and more mature ARM software support. The Apple MacBook Pro M4 Max is in a completely different performance league, but it's also heavier and pricier. If you want a thin Windows machine with all-day battery, the T14s is a strong pick. If you need real GPU power, look at the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 instead.

Pricing is all over the place in Germany, from EUR 1,702 up to EUR 2,909 depending on the vendor. If you're buying, hunt for the lower end of that spread, because at EUR 2,909 you're paying MacBook Pro money for a machine with a mediocre screen and no discrete GPU. At the lower price, it's a compelling ultraportable. At the top, it's a hard pass.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 7 is Lenovo betting big on ARM, and honestly, it mostly pays off. You get a 12-core Snapdragon X2 Elite, 32GB of LPDDR5X, and a 1TB SSD in a 1.21kg chassis that feels like it could survive a backpack tumble down a flight of stairs. The one thing to know: battery life is the star here, but you're making a real compatibility trade-off for it.

If you're a gamer, video editor, or anyone who needs a discrete GPU, this isn't it. Go get an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 or a MacBook Pro instead. Also skip it if your job depends on specific x86-only software that hasn't been ported to ARM yet.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 7 is a fantastic travel companion for writers, students, and business folks who live in a browser and Office apps. The battery life alone might sell you. But if your workflow includes anything that needs a real GPU or niche x86 software, this isn't your laptop. Buy it for the endurance, not the versatility.