Lenovo ThinkPad 16" E16 Black 2025

A desk-bound powerhouse with a fantastic keyboard and all the ports, but it's comically heavy and has a dim screen. Buy it if you need 32GB of RAM and never plan to move it.

The Ryzen 7 7735U is a known quantity, and it's a good one for getting work done. With 32GB of fast DDR5 RAM, multitasking is a breeze. You can drown this thing in browser tabs, Slack, and a few hefty spreadsheets without a stutter. The surprise is how well it handles that workload given the integrated graphics. Don't get any ideas about gaming, our score there is a brutal 17.8 out of 100, but for everything else, it's a quiet and cool performer. The 1TB SSD is a nice inclusion, sitting in the 68th percentile for storage, so you won't be hunting for space anytime soon.

The ThinkPad E16's main rival is the Microsoft Surface Laptop. The Surface is in a different universe for portability and has a much better screen, but you'll pay more for similar RAM and storage. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is a wildcard. It's smaller, lighter, and its dedicated GPU will run circles around the E16 for gaming or creative work, though it's less of a pure business machine. If you're even thinking about a MacBook Pro M4 Pro, just go buy that. It's better in almost every way that matters, except maybe upfront cost and port variety.

Pricing is all over the place, with a $180 spread between vendors. At the low end of $1560, you're getting a lot of RAM and storage for the money, but you're also paying for the ThinkPad build quality. The value proposition falls apart if you don't need 32GB of RAM or that tank-like durability. For a desk-bound office machine, it's a fair deal, but make sure you're buying from the vendor with the best price, not the first one you see.

The Lenovo ThinkPad E16 is a bit of a mixed bag, and honestly, the spec sheet you see here is confusing things. The listing data is a mess, mixing up Intel and AMD models. The actual unit we're looking at packs an AMD Ryzen 7 7735U, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. That's a solid productivity workhorse on paper. But the real story is the chassis. This thing is a tank, and at 2.68kg, it's one of the heaviest 16-inch laptops we've seen, landing in the bottom 9th percentile for portability. If you never move it from your desk, that's fine. If you commute, your shoulder will hate you.

If you're looking for a laptop to carry to meetings, classes, or coffee shops, this isn't it. Go get a Microsoft Surface Laptop or an LG Gram instead. Your back will thank you. This is a desktop that can technically be moved in an emergency, not a daily commuter.

The ThinkPad E16 is a purpose-built tool for a specific person: someone who needs a desktop replacement with a ton of RAM that will live on a desk and never move. For that person, it's a dependable, no-nonsense workhorse with all the ports you need. For anyone else, the weight and dim screen are dealbreakers. The reports of charger failures are concerning, so factor in the cost of a spare USB-C charger just in case. It's a solid machine with a very narrow appeal.