AMD is pushing itself deeper into Lenovo’s ThinkPad line, the laptop maker announced today. Starting this May, 2nd Generation AMD Ryzen Pro mobile CPUs will be available in ThinkPad’s professional-focused T-series line, starting at $939, as well as the light and portable X-series.
Lenovo announced three upcoming AMD-based ThinkPads today, the 14-inch ThinkPad T495, starting at $939 and debuting late this month, the 14-inch ThinkPad T495s, arriving in early June starting at $1,089, and the 13-inch, lightweight (under three pounds) ThinkPad X395, also arriving in early June with a starting price of $1,089.
ThinkPad T495
The laptops will boast up to 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen 7 Pro mobile processors, which include integrated AMD Vega graphics. AMD announced its new Ryzen Pro laptop chips, based on its Zen+ architecture, in April. They go up to the AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U, which has four cores, eight threads and a 4-GHz turbo clock speed.
The T-series, 14-inch laptops will have FHD resolution (1920 x 1080) displays that Lenovo claimed can hit a max brightness of 400 nits (we'll have to test hat ourselves). The ThinkPad T495 and T495s’ screens are also equipped with AMD FreeSync, which should help prevent screen tearing during intense gaming or fast-paced videos.
ThinkPad T495s
Those concerned about privacy, particularly business users, will appreciate the T495s and X395’s PrivacyGuard, which makes it harder for people sitting next to you to peek at your screen.
Lenovo also claimed it extended battery life by up to four more hours with these laptops. The last X-series ThinkPad we reviewed, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme, lasted 6 hours and 7 minutes on our battery test, (which browses the web and streams video and OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi at 150 nits brightness) with a power-hungry, 4K, HDR display. So you can expect these new ThinkPads to significantly surpass that battery life.
ThinkPad X395
AMD’s 2nd Gen Ryzen Pro chips are meant to help everyday productivity with updated multi-core boost algorithms and reduced cache and memory latency. We’ll see if they have it takes to satisfy the high expectations of ThinkPad users.
Photo Credit: Tom's Hardware and Lenovo
