If you’re looking for a laptop that can handle casual gaming and a heavy workload, look no further than the Lenovo ThinkPad Laptop. It attempts to bring both worlds together by using an advanced 8th generation Intel CPU for multitasking and an Intel integrated graphics card for some very light gaming.
What Are the Main Features of Lenovo ThinkPad Laptops That Make Them Good for Gaming
The Keyboard
One Key thing (pun intended) that Lenovo have over their competitors is their extremely good keyboards. Their keyboards are always well designed with smooth yet snappy responsiveness that allows any gamer to enjoy their controls while playing and will always keep them immersed in the game. Although if I could wish for something, it would be an indicator light for the caps lock when it’s on.
High Quality and Wide Display
Another thing Lenovo can beat their chest about is their quality screens; whether it’s their Full HD displays, their 4K, or even their OLED screens, it’s very hard to call Lenovo screens bad, and they always come tied with their excellent 15-17” displays which are always standard for a gaming laptop however the ThinkPads usually have smaller screens anywhere between 12-14”
Affordable Pricing
Since Lenovo is trying to gain a market share in the gaming laptop sphere, they always try to price their laptops competitively to compete in the market and steal sales away from the competition. However, this doesn’t come without some sacrifices, but Lenovo is aware that they are in a very competitive market, so they try their best to limit those sacrifices or at least put them in places you won’t notice.
Battery
The Lenovo ThinkPad E580 has some good specs, but the battery life is where it stands out. We were able to squeeze almost 9hrs of use out of it with our general use and watching YouTube videos, and while gaming, we got over 2hrs on it.
Ports and Expandability
Anything from 8-16GB of RAM is good, and that’s usually the average of recommended RAM requirements for most games. An SSD of 521 GB is good too, but 1TB is still the best. Then maybe a 2TB external is perfect. Since the UHD 620 doesn’t have VRAM, then a 32GB would be good too. ThinkPads always have good IO options such as; USB 2.0 Type A’s, some 3.1 Gen1’s, and an HDMI, and some have a Gen 2 Type C’s
Power and Performance
The Lenovo ThinkPad Gaming Laptops aren’t actually the best for gaming because of their Intel-integrated graphics cards. However, they do usually have fast 8th generation Intel Core i7-8550U. This is a 4-core CPU with a base frequency of 1.8Ghz and capped at 4Ghz.
That is enough to get you at least 30-45 fps on Roblox and up to 60 fps on CSGO. However, if you’re looking for a more intense gaming experience on a Lenovo laptop, maybe you could get the Lenovo IdeaPad gaming 3.
This is the one that comes with an NVIDIA GTX 1650 TI 50watt card, and this is the card that can actually handle a lot of the more advanced games and give even higher frame rates.
Some Lenovo ThinkPads Good for Gaming
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 extreme
This has an 11th Generation core i9-11950H processor with vPro inside. It has a base speed of 2.60GHz and a max speed of 5.00GHz with a turbo boost, and up to 8 cores and 24 threads. It has a 16” anti-glare display with either a UHD+ or QHD+ with Dolby Vision and a max brightness of 500 nits.
Its standout feature is its NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 discrete graphics card. This is one of the top-end graphics cards that allow for only the best level of graphics. These cards allow for formidable graphical features to be active. Ray tracing, Particle effects, and DLSS are all active without significant dips in frame rates. It has a boosted RAM of 64GB DDR4. This will be a mega boost and will allow it to work extremely fast.
It costs about $1770 on the Lenovo page, so it’s a very good option for a laptop under $2000.
The Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 8
This is another thin and light laptop with a nice classic design, and it’s got a core 10th generation intel core i7 inside. It delivers long-lasting power and productivity, and a quality battery life.
The DOLBY ATMOS speaker system provides an immersive sound experience. It comes packaged with windows 10pro but can be upgraded to windows 11
It has various display options with the 14” 4k HDR Dolby vision-enabled super screen. It has a max brightness of 500 nits which is to be expected for this kind of laptop. It also has an FHD variant which also has a max brightness of 500 nits.
The RAM is a cool 16GB LPDDR3 which isn’t the fastest, but I’ll let that one pass. It’s got a solid 1TB SSD which should be enough space to play games with. The battery is very good as it’s a 51wh battery, and it will last pretty long. Our test saw it reach up to 13.5hrs on our general use test.
However, its biggest flaw is the intel UHD integrated cards. So, for gaming, I would suggest you look somewhere else to find a better system for gaming, maybe the Asus Zephyrus G13. It also costs about $1200 on Amazon.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X260
This is a nice 12” laptop with a 720 display and an, 8GB RAM, and a 512GB HDD, and it’s got a sixth-generation Core i5-6300H processor.
It’s not the most complicated laptop. It’s got a nice simple design, and its Intel UHD integrated card is ok for casual gaming. It’s got a 50wh battery, and under our general use test, it managed upwards of 8hrs.
It’s a business-class laptop, and it costs about $500 on Amazon
Pros
- The fast recent generation of Intel Cores or AMD Processors
- A good number of IO / Ports
- Good Battery Life
Cons
- Generally, have integrated graphics cards or lower-tiered cards.
- Better series of laptops.
Conclusion
The ThinkPad is a very good brand but just not for gaming. This is a business-class laptop and it won’t come with all the best specs and it shows but it’s more of a multitasking machine. However, the ThinkPad, in general, has a lot of good things about it but not as a gaming Laptop; its biggest letdown is definitely the Intel UHD card that is a usual staple of the ThinkPad design. In the end, there are better options out there, like the Legion series of Laptops.
Image Gallery – Are Lenovo ThinkPads Good for Gaming?
