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Lenovo ThinkPads laptops are mostly suave in design and business users love that. They like the clicky keyboards, red rubber stops, and a solid body that Lenovo has been offering with the ThinkPad series. But, at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show, CES 2022, Lenovo brought a change to the ThinkPads. A refreshing change. The new ThinkPad Z-series laptops use recycled vegan leather, recycled aluminium, and compostable sugarcane and bamboo material – something you will mostly find on laptops meant for personal, or non-business, users.
The new laptops in the ThinkPad series, ThinkPad Z13 and ThinkPad Z16, take a modern approach in the selection of materials for the body. Vegan leather, as well as bamboo and sugarcane, is not what you will find on business laptops, but Lenovo may be thinking a bit differently. It is trying to remind users about sustainability and that conventional items, once discarded, contribute to unmanageable e-waste. And that may drive some users of the ThinkPad series home.
While the whole message of sustainability and its implementation through recycled items may sound very fashion-distant, Lenovo has paid attention. It has introduced fresh new colours to the new ThinkPad models. Both the Z13 and Z16 come in Arctic Grey and Bronze colours.
Lenovo ThinkPad Z13, ThinkPad Z16 price
The ThinkPad Z13 starts at $1,549 (roughly Rs 1,15,600), while the ThinkPad Z16 price starts at $2,099 (roughly Rs 1,56,700). Lenovo is targeting a release timeline of May for the new ThinkPad laptops.
Lenovo ThinkPad Z13, ThinkPad Z16 specifications
The Z13 has a 13.5-inch IPS OLED Dolby Vision display with a resolution of 2880×1620 pixels, a peak brightness of 400 nits, a screen-to-body ratio of 91.6 per cent, and an aspect ratio of 16:10. The laptop retains the notch, or the Communications Bar, on the top and it houses the 1080p webcam and dual-array microphones, which Lenovo claims will be best for Zoom calls. Powering the laptop is an AMD Ryzen Pro U-Series processor with integrated AMD Radeon graphics plus. But if you want slightly better performance, you can go for the AMD Ryzen Pro-powered model that is available exclusively. The Z13 has up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD storage.
Lenovo has given the Z13 a 4.7-inch haptic touchpad, a match-on-chip fingerprint sensor, and stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. The laptop comes with Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and LTE for wireless communication. In terms of ports, the laptop may be very consumer-friendly, and not business-friendly. That is because it has only a few of them. There is a 3.5mm audio jack and two USB-C ports, both of which support charging. The laptop has a 50Wh battery inside, and Lenovo claims it can offer incredible time for Zoom and Microsoft Teams calls.
Lenovo ThinkPad Z16, on the other hand, is more advanced in terms of specifications. It has a 16-inch IPS OLED display with 4K resolution (3840×2160) with a peak brightness of 400 nits, a screen-to-body ratio of 92.3 per cent, and an aspect ratio of 16:10. The display also supports Dolby Vision content. The notch is available here, as well, with a 1080p webcam and dual-array mics. It is powered by the AMD Ryzen Pro processor with AMD Radeon graphics, but you can opt for an upgrade to discrete graphics for an extra price. There is up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD.
Connectivity options on the ThinkPad Z16 laptop include Wi-Fi 6E, LTE, and Bluetooth 5.2. There are three USB-C ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and an SD card reader. Its speakers support Dolby Atmos, and its microphones use the Dolby Voice AI noise cancellation feature for calls. Giving juice to the laptop is a 70Wh battery. The backlit keyboard of the laptop has an integrated fingerprint sensor, protected by the Microsoft Pluton security processor. The Z16 weighs 1.97kg.
