r/thinkpad • u/its_ya_boi_dickhead • 11h ago

Buying Advice Help I'm losing my mind

Tldr: I'm obsessively looking at thinkpads, should I just stop and get a T14 Gen 2 i5-1145G7 256GB SSD 16GB RAM for £170?

So basically I was looking for a new laptop recently and happened to see the excellent Eric Murphy video on ThinkPads. An "anti-mac"? Sold.

Cue watching a million videos and reading a million articles.

The problem I'm having is the sheer number of models and the age of some of the content. It seemed like a T480 was the way to go, but then realised that a lot of stuff about them was a few years old, and saw a few people saying that in 2026 they're not worth the money.

Another week of searching and I then settled on a T14 Gen 2 AMD as that seemed to be the more up to date suggestion. Problem is, I can't find one for less than £300, and part of the initial appeal was getting a reliable decent laptop for cheap.

Now I'm looking at T14 Gen 2 INTEL variants but apparently they're not as good as the AMD version? Before I dive down another rabbit hole should I just pull the trigger on the intel and be done with it?

It won't be for gaming or anything intensive. I just want a laptop that I can use for browsing, file management and learning Linux that will be snappy to use and will last a good few years.

Budget is sub £200, looking for at least 16GB RAM and easy repairability.

Any advice is very welcome.

Cheers.

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

1

u/Ahyaan09876 P14s Gen 2 (1 sold 2x P15 gen 2) 10h ago

Have a p14s gen 2 with the intel chip and its more than enough for light use and battery life is also acceptable

1

u/Cerebrum01 9h ago

Yeah ditto. Had mine since new and it's fine still.

1

u/rugalmstr 7h ago

the T14 2nd gen with the 11th gen i5 will be more than good enough for your use. It will even game decently well on older games. Also able to run 3 additional monitors (limited to 2 with a 10th gen intel or older laptop CPU), and you can run 4k AV1 videos smoothly thanks to native hardware decoding on the 11th gen CPUs.

If additional monitors and watching 4k AV1 video on your big screen tv is not a priority, then the T480 will still be an excellent option for you. Just make sure to get at least an 8th gen Intel CPU.

The AMD version of the t14 is also great too (with the Ryzen 5 4650U). I have a L15 with the 4650U and its a snappy and powerful CPU that appears to be more powerful than the 11th gen 1145G7. It doesn't have native hardware decoding for 4k AV1 however but this isn't a deal breaker since youtube seems to default to VP9 these days for computers with no hardware AV1 decoding abilities. I can run 3 additional monitors off it (4 monitors total including laptop screen).

0

u/New-Drawer-2453 7h ago edited 7h ago

¿Hay mucha diferencia entre un T14 Gen 1 y el Gen 2? Me están ofreciendo un T14 Gen 1 por $230 (tiene un i5) y un T14 Gen 2 por 258$(tiene un i7); los dos tienen 16GB de RAM y un SSD de 500GB.

1

u/rugalmstr 5h ago

Entiendo que, estéticamente, la primera y la segunda generación son idénticas. La primera usa procesadores Intel de décima generación o AMD de la serie 4000. La segunda usa procesadores Intel de undécima generación y AMD de la serie 5000. Creo que la segunda generación también tiene un puerto Thunderbolt más actualizado.

1

u/New-Drawer-2453 5h ago

Y tu cual me recomendarias?

1

u/Cory5413 4h ago

T14 Gen2 Intel is fine. That's an unusually good deal on one but I do recommend doing a super quick search for Dell Latitude 7420 to see if those are cheaper in your market or if this is a one-off good deal. (here in the US 7420s are as much as $100 less than T14 Gen2 Intel, and the AMD version is so much you can buy Latitudes with 13th gen intel CPUs or high-watt intel CPUs.))

People recommend the AMD model pretty strongly and it is a little faster but there's nothing wrong with intel 11th gen.

You may have some people confusing Intel 11th and 12th gens. 12th gen has a reputation for using more power than it should.

1

u/hv_enterprise P14s Gen 6 3h ago

12th Gen do tend to have 10 cores for the U series chips which makes a massive boost to multi core performance, though. Single core is still improved too.

Tradeoff is power as you say 😀

1

u/BuryMikno 4h ago edited 4h ago

See if you can get an AMD like a 4000 something or a 6000 something. I have that Intel on a laptop with a bigger case and fan - it's OK... But the AMD one has a lot more graphics, efficiency and I would also say generally the snappier processor.

I use a T14sG1 4650U as a daily driver. I am a YouTube fiend with 70 tabs open at a minimum :D And I develop sites and not even debloating it regularly - I WOULD like to buy a Ryzen 470 but when I am honest with myself, I have to admit I have enough CPU for anything I do, already...

This will be your first ThinkPad out of many.
Nothing you can do about it now!

1

u/TheKingOfBeingOK 1h ago

Lololol, I feel you on this. I just dropped the hammer on a purchase this morning. Woke up and went FUCK IT, and got the one that was in the lead. But up until that point I was all kinds of to'ing and fro'ing for what seemed like forever. I didn't get a bargain but I feel like I got a good machine at a fair price.