All language subtitles for SO CLOSE to Great - 2024 Lenovo Thinkpad E16 Gen 2 Review (AMD)-en

well hello there it's very late at night

approximately 3:00 in the morning I

spent all day and a little bit of

yesterday testing this laptop here this

is the brand new 2024 Lenovo ThinkPad

e16 Gen 2 not too much changed this year

from last year's model there's a little

bit here and there not too much changed

from last year you can see here that it

is a ThinkPad through and through

ThinkPad styling track Point nib

ThinkPad keyboard

16-in model so it does come with a

dedicated numpad here relatively light

not overall too heavy uh not super thin

but also not super thick or anything

like that overall actually really robust

build quality considering the E Series

and the L Series from lore both kind of

their intro believe the eies is actually

their most intro most budget friendly

offering here uh last year they did

offer this with a, 1600p 100% srgb

screen fortunately they don't offer that

this year so we're not getting a super

fine resolution screen it's only 12200 p

it does come with a 77 7535 U or a 7735

U depending on which one you're looking

for this model here right here is the

ryzen 5 and it's the AMD model you can

get Intel the Intel model actually does

come with core Ultra which is really

interesting because the core Ultra would

actually be more powerful than this as

well because you're actually stepping up

to this year's CPU whereas this is last

year's CPU still very capable though you

do still get the 680 or 660m graphics

with the CP with this option here so it

is still a very very capable machine

this laptop is going to appeal for

people who are looking for a very budget

friendly offering need to have a 16inch

screen need to have good battery life

generally good performance overall good

reliability there are some improvements

to be seen inside of this laptop this

year that I'm actually very happy to see

so let's jump into this review and see

if this laptop is right for

you okay and here it is 16

inch uh very similar to the L 16 and the

e16 from last year that's just the way

they are kind of a different material

than some of their you know most upper

premium p6s t16 but still very nice

right so that's a nice feeling lid

there uh bottom feels nice as well I

wouldn't call them thin wouldn't call

them thick kind of in the middle it's a

think pad think pads tend to be kind of

middle think pads tend to be kind of

middling in terms of size that's just

the way that they

are nice clean sleek package there same

on the inside typical think

pad very nice going to be a fingerprint

magnet but they're easy to wipe down so

it is what it is uh yep basically you

get a black think pad you're going to

get fingerprints that's just the way

that they are uh you can use just like a

dry cloth typically you can remove most

of it you see that there uh but of

course if you just have a little spray

just anything honestly just like water

it'll take them off so you are going to

be you know black think pads are prone

to fingerprints just is just the way

they are they always kind of have

been right you just give them a wipe

down and fingerprints gone but if you

are driven mad by fingerprints that's

just something to be aware of right

quick wipe down and it's gone well I

missed a spot but other than that it's

fine um yeah so let's just have a check

at the weight

here one of the advantages of these is

they they do have a plastic material

pretty rugged plastic material

realistically and uh it keeps the weight

down a bit so this is a pretty big 16-in

laptop

but not super heavy I would assume yeah

1 Point 1,788 G tiny little charger so

not adding much there two

2,50 very good Port selection pretty

decent on this you can see here it's a

16in laptop so you'd assume that there's

going to be pretty good ports to USBC

which is also used for power uh that's a

usba a with always on meaning you can

charge a phone or something off of it

even if the device is asleep HDMI out

headphone microphone combo Jack right

side you get another

usba RJ45 ethernet and a caning lock

slot so you get two usba two

USBC okay and there's a look at the

inside of the laptop here you can see in

here these things are somewhat

customizable like you can get them with

fingerprint scanners you can get them

without it depends on how you want to

spec them out uh traditional ThinkPad

inside here all black matte they have

some slightly different ThinkPad um

designs are a little bit different here

and there this one here is like the L

Series and E Series have a very similar

chassis traditional touchpad uh

traditional think traditional tracko nib

with the buttons there uh doesn't have

like the design Grill up there that

sometimes they put on but just nice

clean simple uh in terms of the chassis

firm nice and firm uh zero bend on it

whatsoever like I guess if you like put

every bit of strength into it you could

probably bend it um but yeah it's a

pretty firm chassis doesn't have a lot

of Creek or anything like that so that's

nice these are typically very easy to

get into by the way you're just going to

use a Phillips head screwdriver and just

open it basically and a lot of the time

the

uh screws will actually lock in Yep this

is a lock in style pretty typical of a

think

pad business machine you know you're not

you're not going to lose the screws that

way can be a little weird when you're

trying to open them cuz sometimes they

kind of fall back in so you just have to

make sure you don't pull super hard a

little of a pain to get this thing in

but once that's in it should be

relatively easy I'm assuming that

there's going to be uh hook style hinges

on the front

see if that was right yeah so you can

see that it has these hook style things

here that shows up on camera so

technically if you pull from the front

you could break those off so I'd avoid

that uh inside you have your fan intake

there that's going to be a thermal pad

probably for I don't know the Ram or

something or SSD I don't know whatever

is there um I'd assume probably the SSD

there some kind of structure there to

keep it rigid because it's it's actually

surprisingly rigid this is all just

structure stuff so even though um you

know it's not some thick a massive

bottom or anything like that made of you

know Iron it's still G to be relatively

rigid totally fine lots of structure

stuff uh inside is relatively sparse uh

but it looks relatively upgradeable as

well so battery size uh this one wasn't

customizable you might be able to

customize it but this one wasn't I think

potentially you can get a bigger one but

this is a 47w hour battery it'll be fine

it's not going to have crazy long

battery life but it's an AMD processor

it's going to last for a long time so no

problems there uh in terms of upgrading

ability you do have uh Wi-Fi here which

you can upgrade nvme is unfortunately

only a 2242 I don't know why they do

that as the main one that's I guess what

it's spec out with but you do get a

second slot over here so you can upgrade

the W uh upgrade the storage very easily

keep that as your primary drive upgrade

that so I love to see two envm inside of

a think pad and you get dual Ram here so

you get one and two easy to upgrade this

laptop very very very nice so this is a

very upgradeable laptop you're going to

be able to upgrade the Wi-Fi SSD

original SSD add a second SSD and also

upgrade the RAM so fantastic so I mean I

spec this out pretty low in terms of

like RAM and you know storage and

that because it's so easy to upgrade

which is awesome uh cooling looks good

here too for what it is it's not a beefy

CPU so I don't expect it to run super

hot relatively big fan there with that

curve style so it shouldn't

theoretically run too noisy either uh

pretty big fan overall and then a huge

heat pipe only one but it is a massive

heat pipe sometimes these type of

laptops going to have a tiny to like

half that size there so that should run

relatively cool we'll have to see though

and they have the upgraded uh speakers

some of the think pads from you know

previous years just had these garbage

garbage speakers they were so bad

basically like last year and all of them

before unless they were a premium lineup

their speaker sucked uh this year this

is uh third second or third thing pad

that I've reviewed so far this year 2024

and they've upgraded to these um like

rectangular style speakers and they

sound so much better I did the l14 I

think it was and they had really

significantly better speakers than

previous years they're not as good as

like a yoga 9i you know Halo laptop but

they're massively improved over previous

years so very happy to see that they're

also using these better speakers n

Samsung Ram 8 gabes 8 GB Time 1 uh for

the purpose of this video I'm going to

swap in another stick though second

stick of 8 GB of RAM so we're going to

pop that in there uh 16 easy to upgrade

um that's one of the advantages of these

here you can buy your own Ram I knew

that I had RAM on hand either SK HX or

Samsung I have both so there's really no

point in me you know buying it from lovo

cuz I already have some from Lenovo so

you can't really expect much more

realistically it looks actually quite

good all things

considered okay so let's have a look at

the keyboard here traditional ThinkPad

keyboard with the flipped function and

control there some don't some do these

days that's fine it's a low profile

style key cap you can see that there

they're not the high Prof file but

they're again they're making different

options here but it's still a

traditional ThinkPad keyboard so you're

going to get a ton of travel isn't that

angry beep there lots of travel there

very nice so let's uh give a quick type

here of course these are the 16-in

models the P1 16in doesn't have a uh

numpad the ThinkPad P1 I believe all the

other 16 in have it so it just depends

what you want so this model here does

have back lighting um you might be able

to build it without some Lenovo Builders

let you some don't this was like a

pre-made one I didn't customize it so

there's three levels there's one two

three uh there's actually no Auto so I

guess there's just one two three CU it

doesn't have a sensor so I'm going to

leave it on it's just a black uh it's

just going to be a backlight not RGB

which is actually what I prefer

realistically because I don't personally

need all kinds of crazy colors uh but it

is nice if you're typing at night to

have that little bit of backlighting

there

yeah I mean it's the ThinkPad keyboard

so it's going to be one of the best that

you can use on the market this is a

lower profile ThinkPad keyboard it's

still fantastic still has all the travel

incredibly Snappy I prefer the slightly

higher ones like ThinkPad p16 but it's

not a big deal they're all great then in

terms of the trackpad you do not have a

gigantic trackpad it's a normal sized

ThinkPad trackpad and the reason it's

not so big is you also get the buttons

up here because you do get a tracko nib

which you can use to navigate around

left click right click scroll and the

purpose of that is if you're touch

typist you know you typing an essay like

this rather than having to remove your

hand down here to na navigate you know

to a line of text what you do is you

just move your finger right come over

here come like that and then you're back

to typing once you get the hang of it

you can do it very rapidly uh the only

thing that I see that's shrunk here

realistically is uh there's a little bit

of shrunk this here um I guess because

they have the numpad there so these are

these air directional arrows are just

slightly smaller than some laptops but

as a result the numpad is slightly

bigger so great I mean awesome you do

have all your function keys up here you

can see right now they are set up as the

alternative like brightness up

brightness down whatever cut but you can

also do function go like that now you'll

lock and now this turns into function

keys specs on this specific model you

can see it does have the

7535 U 3D on Graphics that's uh

basically going to be a seventh that's

just a refresh name of basically the

6000 Series so it's going to be

essentially a ryzen 5 from the 6000

series which is fine that's actually a

fantastic chip which is fine you can see

here oh it doesn't say but we do get the

660m graphics maybe it's down here no

it's that doesn't say but anyways we get

the 660m graphics which is great uh it

should be relatively capable be able to

do some decent gaming on it overall uh

16 GB of RAM I did add you can see it

runs at 4,800 megat transfers as

ddr5 uh which is nice even if you have

one stick you're still going to

technically be in pseudo dual channel so

that's fine uh the SSD here when we

we'll test it at The Benchmark section

but it's a nice high-end SK HX drive so

that should be good Wi-Fi here is also

quick here so Wi-Fi 6 real Tech Wi-Fi 6

so good specs overall realistically you

can get that CPU up if you want to get

up to ryzen 7 uh it is possible you can

get the 7735 view uh just got to pay

more money for that obviously okay so

we'll have a look at the screen here I

pretty much know what to expect I've

actually used I've used the screen

several times uh pretty sure probably

the exact same panel on multiple devices

uh so it's not going to be anything

shocking or anything here it's you know

it's not a fantastic screen but it's not

a bad screen by any means it's just the

color space is not great so a little bit

orange you can see there if youve used a

steam deck the original steam deck you

know what I mean you compare it to you

know the r Ali Legion go or the modern

steam deck you can see the reds are a

little bit muted it actually looks

better on camera but in real life it

comes out more of like a a lighter red

not quite that

Vivid uh blacks are good however on this

screen here uh may not show up well on

camera I've used this specific panel

many times uh no black light bleed and

good contrast ratio for an IPS panel um

primarily you're going to notice that in

the Reds realistically on these 45% ntsc

screens most of the other colors look

okay realistically but the color space

is crushed usually around the Reds a

little bit is where you're going to get

most of the color space crushing on a

45% ntsc screen then when you move into

100% dcip that's where you really start

to see Vivid Reds and greens the greens

are a little muted in here it's not bad

though I mean still going to be

acceptable more than acceptable for

day-to-day use now here's the one thing

that I am curious about that's the

speakers on this laptop here uh they do

have those upgraded speakers

so I def I do want to definitely see how

the speakers sound this

year okay so let's see how they sound

here turn it up so if you have

headphones you might want to watch them

uh these are the slightly improved over

last year so hopefully they sound pretty

good start at maybe

65 oh okay they're going to get loud so

watch your headphones as I turn it up

[Music]

[Music]

okay so uh they're hugely improved from

last year we'll start with that uh

basically most of the 2023 2023 think

pads other than the super high-end stuff

are actually worse than this these are

actually very respectable speakers for a

laptop of this price range uh they're

not going to beat out the highest end

think pads like the p16 P1 uh they're

not going to beat out the high-end yoga

you know the yoga 9i uh the slim 7 these

types these type speakers that are

significantly better from Lenovo they're

not going to be in the same realm as

that but they are very respectable

they're actually good I consider them

good for like a business kind of

productivity machine a lot of the time

think pads Dell uh what are they called

like

the business Dell machines business HP

machines the lower-end Asus stuff they

don't sound good they just don't sound

good they're tiny uh they sound hollow

they're quiet they have zero base this

is not that they have actually a decent

amount of low-end Base not tons but

actually it's there there actually is

there surprisingly uh lots of mid-range

the highs are actually a little bit too

high I would say so I'd actually go into

you know FX sound or whatever and tweak

that slightly so let's come in here and

see what we can do with this uh you know

that little Advantage Audio track see if

we can just prove it slightly here but

overall I'm pretty happy with just the

default of these

speakers so we'll come in here we'll

just replay that just watch your

headphones I just want to see if there's

a way to make it a little better cu the

high is a little high um almost hurts my

ear slightly so we'll try that again

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

yeah Dynamic sounds the best by far like

absolutely the best uh G music actually

sounds probably the worst which is

interesting CU we're listening to music

here I did not like the way the music

sounds it kind of makes it a little bit

weak in the mid-range and blows up the

high range high end a little bit too

much Dynamic sounds good so this

actually does work quite a bit here so

so one of the things you can do

Advantage is system updates which is

important because you don't you I mean

windows can technically sometimes Supply

Hardware drivers uh a lot of them they

will supply but you really don't want

Windows supplying things like bios I've

never seen Windows Supply bios but I've

heard that it can so typically you want

to get your bios updates through here

now you can also just go to the Lenova

website input your product model number

or easily much easier to put in your

serial number once your serial number is

there you can download directly from the

Lenovo website uh but I usually just use

the Lenovo Advantage most of the time

and this is important because you're

going to be able to get specific

Hardware drivers most importantly bios

updates bios updates can address

Hardware M functions optimization as

well as there's a bios right there as

well as security updates so you know you

can come in here and be like what is

this about and uh some basic stuff here

what do we do fixing isue where

Bluetooth like it's just fixing some

stuff right so uh you always want to do

your bios updates here uh looks like

there are some other Hardware things

here as well uh this is actually pretty

good stuff here okay so we are going to

try some different uh Center bench

performance modes here see how nois the

laptop is typically when you come into

these windows things it actually does

make a difference uh because the think

pads actually tie into this mode so it's

not just you know changing some random

Windows settings yeah you can see it

pops up there so it actually will

increase wattages to the CPU if you go

performance and then it will decrease it

if you go to balanced or uh silent or

whatever so definitely um you know

actually these modes actually do matter

and they do make a difference so let's

check performance mode here we'll see

what kind of temperatures we get and we

will see what type of just rough scores

we get then we'll come back with the

scores after but realistically I'm just

looking at the noise

here so this is performance mode

no throttling issues so far 82 degrees

fans are barely going I'd like them to

kick up a bit they probably don't need

to

yet wattage we're dumping about 27 28

watts into the CPU which is about normal

for this CPU

here going up to 30 this is rated up to

30 this chip specifically so that's fine

uh you got a short boost of 35 but it

should be static at about

30 there's the fans

so incredibly quiet laptop it's a pretty

big fan the diameter of the fan larger

fans are going to theoretically produce

less turbulence and noise than a couple

smaller fans or one small fan U then

have to spin as fast so that fairly

large fan there and that pretty thick

heat pipe are actually keeping it cool

it's not there's zero throttling even

Under full load and it's very quiet like

34 is not much above my uh noise floor

absolutely no coil wine whininess

pitchess anything like that so that's

good uh we'll just come back here we're

not going to get the scores yet with the

scores after let's go back to balanced

here balanced mode we where our Watts

here drop down about 10 more watts

temperature is coming down slightly

the sound is basically identical so you

may want to just throw and perform it's

not a big difference in the sound let's

go down to best power

efficiency now we've dropped down even

more should be around 10 to 15 yeah 10

watts just for browsing it's going to be

more than enough temperature dropped

down a ton

there uh and it's essentially silent I

don't know if the if you can hear it on

the

microphone I I think I can hear the fans

I'd have to like put my ear beside it

but I can't yeah can't really tell if

the fans are on so basically it's silent

is silent the fans might be going but

they're the basic passive cooling is

almost enough so yeah now let's jump

back into the actual performance modes

but realistically one of the nice things

is this laptop is very quiet we'll come

back with the Benchmark results now

looking at the actual Benchmark results

here you can see that in silent mode

we're getting a score of 5,000 which is

decent nothing special but decent for a

fairly low wattage offering and it's

just a ryzen 5 when you step it up to

balance there's a pretty big jump

actually

6,750 that's very respectable and then

when you go up to Performance mode it

actually does jump up to 8,000 that's

pretty respectable considering this is a

two generation old chip and it's just

the ryzen 5 mid-range chip so very

respectable out of this laptop here then

if we look at the Wi-Fi here reasonably

fast nothing special just typical Wi-Fi

six speeds here SSD here like I said is

a nice high-end SK HCK so you're going

to get really good five speeds out of

that even though it's a 2242 size and

then if you do look at the battery life

here this is one area that this laptop

is obviously going to excel 100%

brightness here just kind of hanging out

doing some casual moving around windows

probably at negative 8 or n Watts or so

something like that so you're going to

get about 5 to six hours despite the

fact that it's a pretty small battery

realistically then going into 1080p

YouTube there isn't a huge jump in

wattage being burned around 10 or so and

once again you can see we're getting

reasonably good battery life probably

about four 4 and a half hours and that's

despite the fact that it has a tiny

battery so if you can get this with a

larger battery you you're going to get

obviously much better battery life but

despite the fact that it is a relatively

small battery you're still going to get

decent battery life nothing special but

decent okay camera time my standard

moderately lit room uh nothing crazy I

kind of look like a zombie I have no

color to my body the white wall is the

same tone as me oh it went a little red

there for a second there it like figured

out that I was a living being um it's

fine I mean it's not gonna anything

special you're going to do meetings on

it you're have no problems with it it's

a mid-range it's an entro entry level uh

ThinkPad it's totally fine certainly you

know you're not going to be doing 4K

streaming on this thing and you know not

going to have the best camera but it

looks like the polling rate is fine and

overall it'll get the job done but it's

nothing special overall just it is a

webcam that does what it's supposed to

do which is be a

webcam okay a little game testing we're

going to do balers Gate 3 I do balers

Gate 3 because it's actually an igpu

killer it it's the GPU and the CPU at

the same time this is just a horizon 5

with a 680 uh 660m not even the 680m and

it's a lower wattage variant as well so

you can see that we're only at 30 Watts

so I mean the fact that we can play

games like this this is balers gate we

are on low with a little bit of scaling

but I mean the fact that we can play

these type of games is pretty impressive

here

right right we're only getting about 30

or so but

wait these markings T scratched in the

ground we must go there at

okay anyways so you can play the game

put it that way uh again turn-based

strategy game you're going to have no

problems playing the game whatsoever uh

you're going to get some drip like drop

downs in areas like this obviously um

you know you can throw on more scaling

and stuff here you could just lower the

resolution like we're at 1200p you could

throw it at 800p which is the same as a

steam deck uh maybe not use so much

scaling as a result you know something

like that there

800p little bit of scaling this time not

uh you know performance or anything like

that and then you know you're going to

get relatively good performance here

realistically

right you can see that there an easy 40

so you're have no problems playing games

like this and again this is a pretty

demanding 2023 title I use this to

Benchmark like desktop cards so I mean

that's pretty impressive here um so

you're going to be able to have no

problems with games like this you're not

going to want to play maybe you know the

games that are potentially maybe not

quite as you're not going to be able to

play games like Starfield at you know

4K Ultra settings

native you're not going to be able to

play games like Hogwarts Legacy with

ultra Ray tracing you know that kind of

stuff but you're going to be fine

realistically for a lot of these

different games here you're going to get

realistically pretty good performance

here right not bad at all so let's jump

into another type game maybe a lighter

game and just kind of see what we can do

and of course there are tens or hundreds

of thousands of games you can play on

660m Graphics these are you know this is

a brand new 2023 this is a 2023 title

one of the highest rated games of 2023

for sure uh see of stars this one here

got basically Universal praise it's not

even trying like it's at 9 to 10 watts

here right locked 60 no problem here

it's nothing to this CPU here so I mean

realistically you're going to be able to

play I mean loads of games from

2023 2024

2025 2026 probably games like this that

aren't so demanding you're going to be

able to play probably any game that's

like 2020 or earlier like any game

that's 2020 or earlier realistically

even AAA games you're probably going to

be able to play them uh you might have

to play with the settings a little bit

but you're going to have no problems

games from you know 2015 2016 2017

there're going to be nothing for the

shifter run it'll have no problems

whatsoever um and I mean yeah so I

realistically you have hundreds of

thousands of games you can play not like

a few dozen you can play the vast

majority of games ever made on this chip

here and have a good time with it so I

mean yeah so if you're wondering if you

can play games on this device here yes

you can it's not a gaming device so I

mean you're not going to be ripping like

I said Starfield at 4K or something like

that but you're going to be able to play

games you're going to able to play

Modern games as well no problems

whatsoever it's just you have to be you

have to understand that you're not going

to be ripping the most demanding uh

performance perform you're not going to

be able to get the best performance on

you're not going to be able to rip the

hardest settings most demanding settings

in all of these games so uh yeah there

you go lots of games can be played on

this chip and enjoyed as well and it the

laptop is completely silent because it's

only pulling 10 watts so what do I think

of the ThinkPad e16 Gen 2 well let's go

over the negatives to start here they

don't offer that 1600 piece screen

anymore last year they did offer a, 1600

piece screen over the 12 P most

importantly it was also 100% srgb that

was a really impressive screen on an e16

for Gen one uh I was pretty disappointed

actually to see that they got rid of

that this year so that's going to be the

most obvious and fundamental downside of

this laptop uh one of the thing is it

doesn't have an USB 4 so you get uh you

know just 10 GB per second USB the Intel

model gets a thunderbolt port and a 20

GB Port it's not even like you know

we're just losing the the USB 4 where

they have Thunderbolt but you're also

getting a 20 GB on the Intel and you're

not getting that on here so it looks

like the Intel model actually is pretty

beefed up over the AMD model it actually

has a little bit of a different this

model here has last year's processor

still very capable but it is a last

year's AMD processor the Intel model of

this has a brand new core Ultra CPU it

is weird to see that am that it is a

little bit weird to see that Lenovo

decided to make the amd1 basically last

generation and take away that extra Port

whereas the Intel model has the brand

new CPU and has better ports on it so

that's a little weird to me but I have

to I'd have to bring in the Intel one to

see how it performs but I'd assume that

it would perform better because it does

have the modern chip however this CPU

here is still very capable the ryzen 57

7535 U on this CPU which is basically

the AMD 6600 U just rebranded for the

next year you can also get it with the

7735 U also known as the 6800 U confused

yet imagine me trying to actually say

this stuff and how confusing that would

get basically it's last year's processor

one of the most important things I'd say

inside one of the most important aspects

of this laptop is actually the internals

two nvmes is awesome two RAM sticks is

also awesome and the improved speakers

so overall I mean the only negative I

would see from this laptop over last

year's model is you lose that, 1600p

screen I haven't R I haven't reviewed

the Intel model yet I'm going to try to

bring it in at some point uh but if

you're looking between the two of them I

mean often you'll watch my channel I do

often prefer AMD processors I go towards

them usually to battery life better heat

and also better igpu however in this

case the Intel model is going to have

the modern chip so it's actually going

to have a better igpu and a more

powerful CPU as well so if you can get

them for around the same price until I

AMD I would actually probably recommend

going towards the a Intel model again I

haven't tested it yet but I have tons of

experience with that chip and also now

with this laptop so if you just took the

chip out here from AMD put in the core

Ultra the core Ultra is a better chip

great laptop here if you're looking for

a bit budget friendly option this may be

one to pick up