I finally got a couple days with the laptop to have something to talk about. While I can't see it killing any bears, I'm really happy with it for what I need it for. Keep in mind that I'm moving from a nearly decade old HP so take my remarks with a grain of salt. Also I've never written a review before so don't expect coherent thoughts or well written descriptions.
The laptop looks and feels fantastic. Extremely sturdy with little to no flex throughout. I didn't expect it to be this thin and light in hand. It might not be the thinnest laptop ever but compared to what I had it feels super super thin. With the X1 not having an AMD refresh, this is a very good option for a powerful thin and light.
The whole thing feels extremely well built and sturdy, it does have the metallic feel of the X series over the rubberized T series feel, but I like that (for the most part, but we'll get back to that).
The keyboard and touchpad are both great, what you'd expect from a thinkpad. The port selection is better than most laptops. The S model removes the Ethernet jack but a dongle is available. It also has no thunderbolt capabilities and no 4K screen options since it's the AMD model and those two are still Intel only perks. But the FHD 400 nitt screen I opted for looks fantastic IMO and as a student who doesn't do any editing it's more than enough. I also wouldn't use an external GPU so thunderbolt isn't that big of a deal.
For me the extra juice in the AMD model is more than worth the trade off. This thing is very, very powerful. Despite the CPU being capped at a lower wattage than other models with the same processor, it's still faster than anything Intel has to offer for the price, with much better integrated graphics. For me it's more than enough juice for anything I'd use it for, such as matlab and rstudio and other programs, as well as light gaming. If this seems like the sort of tasks you'd use it for then it's a fantastic laptop. I can't see it being used for video editing and 3D modeling but some Photoshop should be fine too. This machine is somewhere in the middle between size and power but the s model I have definitely leans towards the thin and light over too much power. There's also a 4750u model with more power but I'd get the regular T14 with that processor as I feel like this one won't be able to cool it properly.
Which leads us to the main and probably only issue I had with this thing. Thermals.
Under light loads the laptop is very quiet and cool. But cranking it to performance mode or doing something intensive really ramps it up. The exhaust port is on the right which many complained would bother mouse users, I found it to be more an issue for using it on your lap or just touching the right side, as it got uncomfortably hot at some points. I played some NFS (2015) as it was the only game I had. With the laptop on performance mode and graphics on high, the laptop ran very smoothly and the fans were barely audible. However, you could fry an egg on the right side of the laptop. It got very, very hot very quickly, and stayed that toasty for the whole session. It cooled down as soon as i went back to battery saving mode and went back to file sorting. So keep that in mind if you're using the laptop on your lap.
To summarize this terribly written post, I really like the laptop. It's very well built and feels very expensive. It's also fast and controls brilliantly.
It does however have mediocre thermals and gets very hot very fast. Many have issues with the bezels and the speakers but I found both to be fine. Coming from the oil tanker that is my old HP the bezels are okay and the speakers are more than adequate, a bit tinny but they sound full and clear.
This laptop is for anyone who wants something portable first but also packs a serious punch. I've only been using it for a couple of days but so far I'm very very happy with how it performs and feels.
