Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 2021, Core i7-10610U, 16GB, 1TB SSD, Black

A stunning 4K screen bolted to a 2019 CPU. Buy it cheap for office work, skip it for anything else.

The 14-inch UHD screen is the star here. It sits in the 97th percentile for displays, which means it's one of the best panels you can get on a laptop this size. The 500 nits of brightness and HDR 400 support make it a joy for documents and media. But the Intel Core i7-10610U is a 4-core chip from 2019, and it lands in the 15th percentile for CPUs. That's rough. The 16GB of RAM is fine for most office work, but the integrated Intel UHD Graphics are a weak spot, sitting in the 36th percentile. Don't expect to do any real gaming or video editing on this thing.

Against something like the Apple MacBook Pro M5 or the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition, this ThinkPad feels ancient. Those machines have modern ARM or newer Intel chips that crush the 10610U in both performance and battery life. The ASUS Zenbook UX3405CA is also a strong alternative if you want a modern ultrabook. The ThinkPad's only real advantage is that 4K display and the classic ThinkPad keyboard and build quality.

The price spread in Canada is wild, from CAD 1,349 to CAD 3,463. If you're buying this, do not pay anywhere near the high end. At CAD 1,349, it's a decent deal for the display and storage alone. At CAD 3,463, you're getting robbed. The US listing at USD 587 is actually the best value we've seen for this config.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 is a weird mix of old and new. You get a stunning 4K display and a huge 1TB SSD, but the 10th Gen Intel CPU and integrated graphics are showing their age. It's a business laptop that's great for spreadsheets and terrible for anything that needs real GPU power.

If you need to edit video, run modern games, or do any kind of 3D work, this isn't it. Go get a laptop with a dedicated GPU or at least a modern CPU with Iris Xe or better. The ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 is for spreadsheets and email, not creative work.

If you can find this for under USD 600 or CAD 1,400, and you only need it for office work, email, and streaming, it's a solid buy. The display alone is worth the price of admission. But if you need any real processing power or want to play games, look elsewhere. This is a 2020 laptop being sold in 2025, and it shows.