Hands-on: Lenovo’s ThinkPad L and P laptops get welcome upgrades

My personal favorite family of laptops is Lenovo’s ThinkPad series, and it’s not even close. Lenovo showed off the newest members of the L-series and P-series laptops to the video team, and they were eager to get their hands on those iconic TrackPoint nubbins, whose death has been greatly exaggerated. You can come along in the latest PCWorld video on YouTube.

The first entry is the new ThinkPad L13, one of the cheapest ThinkPads available, which now comes in both a standard clamshell and 2-in-1 (AKA Yoga) form factor. New for this fifth generation is the Communications Bar, a little extended lip on the top of the lid that houses the camera and other sensors, as well as functioning as a handy grip for opening the laptop. The 13-inch, 16:10 screen is, naturally, touch-sensitive on the 2-in-1 model.

This design has a refreshed keyboard (with the correct Ctrl and Fn button locations), double USB-C (Thunderbolt 4) and USB-A ports, and a full-sized HDMI. Based on the Core Ultra Arrow Lake platform, you can get a maximum of 32GB of soldered RAM, but the 42mm SSD is user-accessible and swappable along with other parts like the battery. Hooray for repair and upgrade options.

The slightly more premium P series is represented by the 14-inch ThinkPad P14s, now in its sixth generation. This one comes with AMD Strix Point or Intel Arrow Lake-H processor options and an upgraded OLED panel, even on a non-touch display. A little extra room in the chassis means a collapsible Ethernet port on top of the other ports available on the L13. We don’t know the specific prices or release dates on these new laptops, but they should be out sometime later this year.

For more hands-on looks at the latest laptops, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube, and check out our weekly podcast The Full Nerd.