From e15 Gen 2 AMD;

I have been using Thinkpad e15 gen 2 AMD with Windows installed since I had been discharged from military service August 2020. I have been with this laptop for almost 5 years and been loving it but it also had many unacceptable problems.

First of all I had been suffered from sleep issues, BSOD (blue screen of death) issues related to AMD Ryzen from the very beginning. I even made a journal on this; the problems had appeared frequently for a year, and did all to fix the issues, reinstalling drivers, reinstalling Windows, and stop using suspend mode.
Back then suspend issues on AMD laptops were infamous. Some of vendors were quick to fix the issues, but not Lenovo.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-11e-Windows-13-E-and-Edge-series-Laptops/E15-Gen-2-Cannot-wake-from-sleep/m-p/5039906?page=1#5190296

After few years suspend and BSOD issues went okay and suddenly the keyboard began misbehaving a year ago. At first keys on the same column (e.g. i, j, k) would become unresponsive and return to normal repeatedly; it became more frequent and not-working keys started to change. I fixed it by disassembling the keyboard and wiping the connector with alcohols for a while, but it went back and wiping did not work anymore. Since then I have been using the laptop with a bluetooth keyboard.

Recently it began to be unstable like to flicker or stutter on external monitors like it's 30hz.

Nevertheless with so many issues for more than 4 years overall I am satisfactory with the laptop.

• Satisfactory from Thinkpad keyboard
  • Dedicated Home, End, Insert, Delete PgUp/Dn key. no Fn key needed.
  • ㅗ shaped arrow keys. Same sized arrow keys matter to me.
  • deep-pressing keyboard. My fingers hurt when I used Mac for the first time.
• Trackpoint (red dot). It feels kind of gimmick though.
• Ryzen 4500u performance. Back then AMD laptops were popular despite the inherent issues because of performance compared to that of Intel.

Above all a MSI laptop with i3, but dual cores which costed just 400,000₩ was the very laptop I had been used before e15 when I entered a university. I thought I did not need a laptop so I purchased it for being low priced. It had decent typing feels but also thick and heavy and slow, I guess I would be pleasant with any laptop but the one.

It's time to change. I thought CPU performance increase would not be so dramatic, but there were many laptop CPUs that showed twice benchmark scores of mine. I was deeply moved with e15 for this laptop which costed less than 1,000,000₩ had hexa cores and this performance; I had no idea I would feel the same again after a few years.

Why I Chose t14s Gen 6 AMD

I chose Thinkpad once again.
The previous Thinkpad I had had so many problems and Lenovo isn't my favorite vendor, But I really liked the trackpoint and the keyboard (broken though) with ㅗ shaped arrow keys and dedicated function keys on Thinkpad. Honestly there are also the Thinkpad vibes. I selected t series to try more upper class.

Why I did not Choose Macbook

When I tried Macbook for the first time when my company gave me an Intel one; 'Can it be this slow and hot', 'This keyboard hurts my fingers', 'I would rather use my laptop' I was like this and I hated the Mac.

However After I replaced it with M1 Macbook in 2022 I could not help but to think Apple is magnificent. The performance and the power efficiency, it was a singularity back then in 2022.

Thus I thought having personal Macbook for myself but, I was reluctant for still unsatisfactory keyboard even though I have been used to it, shortcut keys that are not sufficient enough to fit my needs (e.g. Circle windows multiple monitors) and are not comfortable (e.g. Option + Shift + Fn + F11/F12 is the one I still don't understand), and the weight that is too heavy for the trends and Macbook Air isn't heavy while it only supports two multiple monitors including internal one.

To be honest the biggest is the price. I would certainly buy one if 14 inch Macbook was below 2,000,000₩ but in reality it costs 3,000,000₩ and I don't that much money...

Why I Chose AMD

I excluded Snapdragon from the list thinking it is still premature and it left me only two options; Intel/AMD. If we were to consider only laptop processors I think for some years Intel has been behind AMD for performance, thermal heat, and power efficiency. It holds true that AMDs' are unstable but I thought I can handle that with experiences with e15.

Also I considered Lunar Lake from Intel recently, but there was no Thinkpad with Lunar Lake and it was shame for being obvious that even though it came out it would be expensive.

Why I Chose 14 Inch

I think the bigger a monitor is the better but it was shame that keyboard and trackpad are shifted to the left. And e15 has a display of 16:9 and recent laptops switched to one with 16:10 which is good for productivity. I thought this ratio would offset a bit small display. With 14 inch means lighter weight and I imagined to go out with lighter laptops and study hard and this is one reason I chose 14 inch display.
I use numeric keypad quite a lot but I did not care much since I am used to Macbook without one.

Order and Delivery

Due to the high initial price and KRW/USD, I continued eye-shopping. Finally, on January 28, 2025, I found the price had become slightly cheaper and made the purchase immediately. The specifications are as follows. The purchase price was 1,788,627₩, excluding an additional 36,960₩ for one year of Accidental Damage Protection (ADP).

• Processor: AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360
• Operating System: None
• RAM: 32GB Onboard
• SSD: 256 GB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opal
• Display: 14" WUXGA IPS Anti-Glare Non-touch 100% sRGB 400 nits Low-power
• Camera: 5MP RGB+IR with Microphone
• LAN: Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 NCM825 2x2 BE & Bluetooth 5.4
• Fingerprint Reader: Included
• Keyboard: Backlit Keyboard, Korean
• Smart Card Reader: None
• Battery: 58Wh
• AC Adapter: 65W USB-C Standard 90% PCC 3-pin AC Adapter

After the purchase, there was no notice for a while, and then the notified scheduled shipping date popped up was set for February 13th, 16 days after the purchase date. Even on February 13th, I only received an email saying it was shipped, nothing else. Several days passed, but the shipping status page still showed "Scheduled for shipment on February 13th.

Eventually, I made an inquiry on the 17th, and they sent me the DHL link. It turned out it had already arrived at Incheon Airport. It was shipped from Nanjing, China, passing through Shanghai Pudong Airport, and was brought into Korea. After being imported into the country, it proceeded smoothly and was delivered on the 19th. As soon as it arrived on me, the shipping status page was immediately changed to "Delivered," and even more oddly, to "Delivered on February 4th"...

Even though it's a CTO (Configure-to-Order) product, it's hard to understand why production took so long, especially when there's no semiconductor shortage like during the COVID era. I also learned that Lenovo's shipping tracking is completely unreliable. I tell you to be cautious when purchasing from the Lenovo official website.

The laptop was shipped in its original box without any additional packaging. Fortunately, there is internal cushioning inside the box to prevent direct impact during shipping.

Setup

SSD Replacement

Since the SSD option on CTO was unreasonably expensive, I decided to buy and replace it with a 1TB SSD myself. I purchased a Solidigm P44 Pro 1TB online. It's a DRAM-equipped TLC m.2 PCIe 4.0, and the price was 104,000 KRW.

For reference, as of now 1TB option offered by CTO charges an additional 200,400₩ from the base 256GB.

When disassembling the back panel, you only need to loosen five screws, but the latches were very tight, making it difficult to get it off. I was worried because the latches (or "teeth") on my e15 were very prone to breaking. In the end, I forcefully used a card to open it, but fortunately, no latches seem... to have broken off.

I removed the existing SSD and installed the 1TB SSD. The default is a Kioxia BG6.

Windows/Linux Dual Boot

I really like Windows, but I've been noticing its drawbacks, such as being less convenient for development than Linux, and recent issues like in-OS ads and minor bugs. So, I decided to install and try Linux as my host OS, but I didn't think it could completely replace Windows, so I opted for dual booting.

After researching, I found many recommendations to install Windows first and then Linux. So, I proceeded with the Windows installation first.

Windows does not detect other operating systems and does not feature a boot menu. When you install it, it overwrites your boot sequence and your computer then boots straight into Windows.
...
For this reason, if you want to dual-boot or multi-boot with Windows, it is easier and recommended to install Windows first, before you install Linux Mint.
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/multiboot.html

Windows Installation

I installed the latest 24h2 version of Windows 11 with an ISO, but Windows could not recognize the Wi-Fi. I was perplexed because Windows had always automatically detected the network for me, but I managed to solve by downloading the Qualcomm LAN driver onto a USB and installing it.

However, I encountered a problem during the driver installation. Windows sets the EFI partition size to 100MB during installation. This 100MB was insufficient, and when I tried to update the BIOS, it failed with a "flash error" message. Increasing the EFI partition size was also not easy. After struggling with the Windows built-in disk management tool and diskpart, I finally succeeded with a third-party app installed.

Here is how I did: I gave up on trying to increase the existing EFI partition and created a new EFI partition, then copied and pasted the contents. I deleted the old EFI partition. This method works because the system searches all EFI partitions during boot and tries them one by one. However, this caused an fragment that cannot be used. It's best to expand the EFI partition size during the initial Windows installation.

Ubuntu Installation

I chose to install Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS For Linux. I considered 24.10, which has a higher kernel version, due to the new Zen 5 processor; but 24.10 will be end-of-life in a few months, and I heard that 24.04.2, which was scheduled for release on the 13th, would also be provided with the same 6.11 kernel as 24.10.

However, the release of 24.04.2 was postponed by a week for some reason. After eagerly waiting, on the 20th 10 PM I finally saw 24.04.2 uploaded to Ubuntu Releases and proceeded with the installation.

Linux installation isn't particularly difficult; you can follow the GUI instructions. However, since I intended to dual boot, I had to be careful not to erase the existing Windows installation. The installation wizard conveniently detected the installed Windows.

Why I Chose Ubuntu

I considered installing Linux on a laptop a big step. I didn't want to complicate things further, so I chose Ubuntu, which has a large user base and is the easiest to find solutions for when issues arise. However, according to Lenovo, the T14s Gen 6 AMD also supports Fedora.

Review

Very Small and Light

That's the first thing I noticed when I picked it up. My previous e15 wasn't designed for lightness, so at 1.79kg, it wasn't too heavy, but also not ideal for carrying around with comfortable. This t14s, at only 1.26kg, felt significantly lighter. The size is also considerably smaller than the e15.

Performance is Good of Course

I conducted simple performance benchmarks. I didn't control variables as it was done during actual use, and both were set to balanced power modes.

• Geekbench 6.4.0 benchmark
  • e15 result link
  • t14s result link
• shadcn-ui website build in WSL 2 (pnpm run www:build) (commit 779517a1)

The performance is flawless. Based on Geekbench 6, both single and multi-core performances were nearly doubled compared to the e15. Of course, benchmark scores don't perfectly reflect real-world usage, so the shadcn-ui website build time was reduced by only 17%. However, the performance improvement during actual use is significant enough to be noticeable. Web pages load instantly, and the operation is smooth.

Sleep Issues are Gone Compared to the Past

When it comes to AMD laptops, you can't skip sleep mode issues. Surprisingly, after using it for nearly a week, I haven't experienced any sleep mode issues in Windows. I did have one occasion where the screen didn't turn on, but it returned to normal when I touched the keyboard and trackpad. I haven't had a single blue screen either. I'm gladly impressed by how much AMD has improved.

The problem is with Ubuntu. After resuming from sleep mode in Ubuntu, the screen suddenly turned off after a minute, and it wouldn't respond, which required me to do a force shutdown. It seems Strix Point is not ready yet for kernel 6.11.

Fingerprint Recognition Sometimes Fails

Inspired by MacBook's fingerprint login, I added the fingerprint recognition option to the t14s. While it generally recognizes fingerprints well, about one in ten times, the fingerprint reader doesn't work at all after booting. The fingerprint login option is visible on the lock screen, but the fingerprint reader doesn't light up green, so I have to log in with my password. It seems to be fine when waking from sleep mode, so I suspect there's an issue during booting.

Uncomfortable with Small Trackpad and Palm Rest

Maybe it's because I went from bigger e15, I feel quite much that palm rest and trackpad are small. trackpad on e15 has the height of 6.8cm while t14s has 6cm and this 0.8cm difference is very noticeable unexpectedly. And about palm rest, when I press keys on the each end with e15 I could lay down my hands stably onto the palm rest but with t14s I have no idea where to put my hands because my hands are outside the palm rest.

High Heat and Fan Noise on Windows

It's not that high but that not negligible. I was surprised when I found out it was lukewarm and quiet on Ubuntu, out of my expectation. I guess there is a problem with graphics considering that it gets severe when I watch videos on Youtube.