Lenovo ThinkPad 14" E14 Gen 5 Gris 2023

The Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 is a dependable business laptop with a fantastic keyboard and great port selection, including Thunderbolt 4. The i5-1335U and 16GB of RAM handle office work smoothly, but the 256GB SSD is cramped and gaming is a non-starter. Pricing is all over the place, from $950 to $1,552, so shop around. It's a solid buy under $1,000 for anyone who needs a reliable Windows machine for productivity.

The i5-1335U is a 10-core chip from Intel's Raptor Lake family, mixing performance and efficiency cores to balance speed and battery life. In our benchmarks, it lands in the 42nd percentile overall, which puts it in the 'solid but unspectacular' camp. For the kind of work this laptop is designed for, that's perfectly fine. It handles Office apps, web browsing, and video conferencing without any noticeable lag. The 16GB of DDR4 RAM helps a lot here, even if the RAM itself is in the 38th percentile. It's enough memory that you won't feel the need to micromanage your open tabs.

The integrated Iris Xe graphics are the main performance bottleneck for anything beyond basic visuals. The GPU sits in the 48th percentile, which is about average for integrated graphics. You can run a second monitor without issues, and streaming 4K video is smooth. But don't expect to do any serious gaming or 3D modeling. The storage is the real weak point. The 256GB NVMe SSD is fast enough for booting and loading apps, but it's in the 26th percentile for capacity. That's tight for a modern laptop, and you'll likely need to lean on cloud storage or an external drive sooner than you'd like.

The ThinkPad E14's most natural rival is probably the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition. The Surface is lighter, has a sharper and brighter display, and feels more premium. But you'll pay for that privilege, and you'll lose the ThinkPad's port variety and that legendary keyboard. If your work is mostly in a browser and you value screen quality above all, the Surface is the better pick. If you're typing all day and need to plug in a projector or wired network without adapters, the E14 makes a stronger case.

On the other end of the spectrum, something like the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is a completely different beast. It'll run circles around the E14 in any gaming or creative workload, but it's also louder, hotter, and usually more expensive. The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is in a similar boat. These are gaming machines that can do work. The E14 is a work machine that can't really game. The Apple MacBook Pro M4 Pro is in another league entirely for performance and battery life, but it also starts at a much higher price and locks you into macOS. For someone who just needs Windows, a good keyboard, and a reliable machine for office tasks, the E14 holds its own against these flashier names by simply being practical and affordable.

Pricing on the E14 Gen 5 is a bit of a rollercoaster. We're seeing it listed anywhere from $950 to $1,552 across different vendors, which is a massive $602 spread. At the low end, around that $950 mark, this is a genuinely good deal for a business laptop with a Thunderbolt 4 port and 16GB of RAM. You're getting a reliable machine with a great keyboard for less than a grand. At the high end, over $1,500, the value proposition falls apart completely. For that kind of money, you're in striking distance of a MacBook Air or a higher-tier ThinkPad with a better screen and more storage.

The sweet spot is clearly the lower end of that range. If you can snag this for under $1,000, the compromises on storage and screen quality are much easier to swallow. Just budget for a cloud storage subscription or a portable SSD, because that 256GB drive will feel tight after a year of Windows updates and accumulated files.

The ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 is Lenovo's pitch for someone who needs a dependable workhorse without the sticker shock of the T or X series. It's aimed squarely at office workers, students, and anyone who spends more time in spreadsheets and Zoom calls than rendering 3D models. You're getting that classic ThinkPad DNA here: a keyboard that's genuinely pleasant to type on, a sturdy chassis that can survive a commute, and a port selection that means you can leave the dongles at home. It's not flashy, but it's built to clock in and get the job done.

Under the hood, the Intel Core i5-1335U with 16GB of RAM is a solid pairing for multitasking. Our database puts the CPU in the 42nd percentile, which sounds mediocre on paper, but in real-world office use it's more than capable. You can have a dozen browser tabs open, a video call running, and a few Office apps without the machine breaking a sweat. The integrated Iris Xe graphics are what you'd expect: fine for streaming and light photo editing, but they're the reason this machine scores a brutal 15.2 out of 100 for gaming. This is not a laptop for play.

The 14-inch 1920x1200 display is a nice step up from the old 1080p panels, giving you a bit more vertical space for documents. But at 60Hz and with a screen score in the 58th percentile, it's clearly built for productivity, not color grading. The 256GB SSD is the most obvious corner cut here, landing in the 26th percentile. It'll fill up fast if you're not careful. Still, for a machine that starts around $950, the E14 Gen 5 makes a strong case for itself as a sensible, no-nonsense laptop.

If you're a gamer, just move along. The integrated Iris Xe graphics score a 15.2 out of 100 for gaming, which means even older titles will struggle at anything above low settings. You'd be much happier with a dedicated GPU in something like the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14. Creative professionals who need a color-accurate screen for photo or video work should also look elsewhere. The display is built for documents, not DCI-P3 color spaces. A MacBook Pro or a Dell XPS with a high-res panel would serve you better.

Frequent travelers might also want to skip this one. At 2.29kg, it's not back-breaking, but it's noticeably heavier than many modern 14-inch ultrabooks. Combined with the small battery, it's not the best companion for long flights or all-day coffee shop sessions. If portability and battery life are top concerns, check out the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition or an LG Gram instead.

For the office worker or student who lives in Word, Excel, and a web browser, the ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 is a straightforward recommendation, especially if you can find it near the $950 mark. The keyboard is a joy, the port selection means you're always ready for a conference room setup, and the 16GB of RAM keeps things running smoothly. Just go in knowing that the 256GB SSD is tight, and you'll want to keep your files tidy or invest in cloud storage.

If your workload includes any gaming, video editing, or 3D work, this is not your laptop. The integrated graphics and small SSD are dealbreakers for those tasks. You'd be better off looking at a gaming laptop like the ASUS Zephyrus G14 or a creator-focused machine. And if you're frequently working away from an outlet, the small 41Wh battery and 2.29kg weight might push you toward something lighter and longer-lasting, like an LG Gram or a MacBook Air. But for a desk-bound, no-nonsense Windows workhorse, the E14 Gen 5 gets the basics right.