Naming Conventions

History

Lenovo likes to name and rename products or product lines over the course of their lifespan. It is understandable that this can confuse consumers trying to find the product they exactly need. Thankfully, Lenovo did not touch the core of the naming, which means the first letter should remain the same.

  • ThinkPad E-series: E490, E495, E590, E595, …
  • ThinkPad L-series: L490, L590, …
  • ThinkPad T-series: T490, T490s, T590, …
  • ThinkPad P-series: P53, P53s, P73, …
  • ThinkPad X-series, X390, X1 Carbon, X1 Yoga, …

The naming conventions have changed for the products coming with Intel Ice Lake (Gen 10) & AMD Ryzen Renoir (Gen 4). As you may have been aware, the previous naming convention generally defined 4 characters as shown above. We will make an example for the ThinkPad T490s:

  • T: Product line
  • 4: Display size
  • 9: The generation.
  • 0: 0 is generally Intel, while 5 is reserved for AMD.
  • s: s-suffix would mean slim

For the ThinkPad P-series, there are only 2 digits, because AMD was never fast enough to make it to the workstation series. However, things might change any moment in this department.

  • P: Product line
  • 5: Display size
  • 3: The generation.
  • s: s-suffix would mean slim

There are other exceptions to the naming convention such as the X1 Carbon and X1 Yoga, which names always remain the same. It is generally acceptable practice to add ‘Gen 1’, ‘Gen 2’ to the model name when talking about these products. You can always go full Louis Rossman mode and call them by their first 4 SKU characters. For example 20QF for the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 4. unfortunately 99.9% of the people won’t know what you’re talking about.

Now as all of you aware, the mainstream naming convention for ThinkPad has come to an end reaching the 9th generation. Now Lenovo has to find a naming convention that works. More on this below.

New Naming Convention

The new naming convention is as follows:

  • ThinkPad E-series: E14, E15
  • ThinkPad L-series: L14, L15
  • ThinkPad T-series: T14, T15, T14s
  • ThinkPad P-series: P1, P14, P15, P15s, P15v, P17
  • ThinkPad X-series, X13, X1 Carbon, X1 Yoga, X1 Extreme, …

What do we make up out of this?

ThinkPads featuring both Intel and AMD will no longer have different model names. For example we know the ThinkPad T14 and ThinkPad T14s will feature either an AMD or an Intel processor.

It seems that the first digit may refer to the product generation, being ‘1’ everywhere. However visiting Lenovo PSREF shows that they are appending the ‘Gen 1’ suffix in the URLs or sometimes labeling. This might indicate the first digit will remain the same generation upon generation.

Previously, we’ve only seen the s-suffix and p-suffix (roughly 5 years ago). A new suffix is the v-suffix in the ThinkPad P15v. The ThinkPad P15v doesn’t offer an OLED display among other things and is supposed to offer a better value. However, whether you want to spend 1500-2000 EUR on a ThinkPad and still want to have a v-suffix that stands for ‘value’ is a whole other discussion. You can’t move the ThinkPad P15v to the ThinkPad T-series either because it’s slightly thinner than the ThinkPad T15. This problem is likely going to solve itself once we see new clean sheet designs in 2021.

Buying Guide

Build Quality

While all ThinkPads pass MIL-STD-810G testing, the best build quality can be found in the ThinkPad P15 and ThinkPad P17. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon should have the best in-class build quality.

Graphics

If you a lot of graphics processing power, you’ll find peace with any of the models below. The ThinkPad P1 and ThinkPad X1 Extreme are based on the same chassis, so it’s a matter of preference for a Nvidia Quadro or Nvidia GeForce card.

  • ThinkPad P1: Up to Nvidia Quadro T2000
  • ThinkPad P15: Up to Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000
  • ThinkPad P17: Up to Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000
  • ThinkPad X1 Extreme: Up to Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650

Processor

Brand:

  • Intel: All
  • AMD: E14, E15, L14, L15, T14, T14s, X13

Performance:

  • Ultra Low Power: X1 Tablet
  • Low Power: All others
  • Performance: P1, P15, P15v, P17, X1 Extreme

RAM

The ultra portables and convertibles are generally limited to 16GB RAM. The workstation models are configurable up to 128GB RAM having 4 SODIMM slots.

Several models may have 1 or all RAM soldered, check Lenovo PSREF for more information.

  • 16GB: X1 Carbon, X1 Yoga, X13 Yoga, L13, L13 Yoga
  • 24GB: E14, E15
  • 32GB: T14s, X13
  • 48GB: P14s, P15s, T14, T15
  • 64GB: P1, P15v, X1 Extreme, L14, L15
  • 128GB: P15, P17

Display

The ThinkPad E-series have the worst displays of all ThinkPads, they come with 220-nit and 250-nit displays. These are not suitable for outdoor use.

The ThinkPad L-series are limited to 300-nit panels and have multi-touch options.

The ThinkPad T-series, P-series and X-series have besides 300-nit panels also higher brightness panels available of 400-nit and 500-nit. There may also be 4K options for Intel, but not for AMD.

The cream of the crop is the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, X1 Yoga, X1 Extreme and P1 which have a more expensive OLED panel available.

Battery Life

On paper, the Intel version of the ThinkPad T14s has the longest battery life between 14.28 hours and 21 hours. The runner up is ThinkPad X1 Carbon at up to 19.5 hours and ThinkPad X1 Yoga at up to 19.3 hours.

It is well worth mentioning that the difference in expected battery life is smaller between the models above and as well their AMD variants when tested with MobileMark 2018. In this case, the AMD-version of the ThinkPad T14s would have definitely made it into the top 3.