The March of the warbler grass is coming, please cherish every inch of your time ~~
Hello everyone, I'm Yuna, a hardware digital enthusiast. Today I bring you a delicate thin and light book - Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ 2023 unboxing review.
Last year, the ThinkBook 14+ was the most popular machine on the whole network - outstanding workmanship texture, complete configuration options, excellent performance release, even Lenovo's own small new series were stolen a lot of limelight. However, because its birth coincides with hardware replacement + new mold opening, the actual experience is not satisfactory to everyone.
After a year of fading its youth, and successfully "recored" to the 13th generation Core/Ryzen 7000 series, what will be the change? Let's experience it today.
ThinkBook 14+ 2023 has more configurations, except for the two Ryzen models, the Core version configuration is currently optional i5-13500H/i7-13700H core graphics, and provides 32GB memory options; In the future, a higher version with i9-13900H and RTX 3050 dedicated graphics will be launched. This one I have is the entry configuration of i5-13500H+16GB.
Appearance: Continuing the previous generation design One of the most complete and thin interfaces
The ThinkBook series still belongs to the Think family, and the outer packaging is more business than the young and lively Xiaoxin.
The family portrait includes manuals that may not be read for a lifetime~~ The power supply is still the previous generation of Delta 100W, the volume is similar to a pair of JoyCons, or slightly weighty.
The body is true, the machine mold has not been greatly changed compared with the previous generation, and the A side adopts a contrast design different from the ThinkPad. The overall color scheme of the fuselage is a relatively more "young" silver gray (Lenovo's official name "Cangyan Gray"), rather than the traditional "little black" of ThinkPad.
Lenovo is still unsparing in its workmanship, the ACD is metal on three sides, and the floor pads on the D side are high and strong. Of course, the machine is not heavy, officially claimed to weigh 1.4kg (1.8kg for the 16+ version), thin to 15.9mm.
The one-handed opening and closing of the machine is a little reluctant, and the C side will be brought up from time to time at 90°. Support 180° flat, which is a good thing for office workers.
Inheriting the ThinkPad tradition, the ThinkBook 14+ 2023 is exceptionally rich in interfaces. On the left, from left to right, are USB-C (full-featured, protocol 3.2 Gen2), USB-A (both protocol 3.2 Gen1), HDMI, Thunderbolt 4 and advanced 3.5mm headphone headset in one.
From left to right, micro SD, another USB-A, RJ45 and anti-theft keyhole. There is also a hidden USB 2.0 on the left side of the micro SD that can be used to plug in mouse devices, and the interface configuration of the whole machine is almost the most complete in the current thin and light book.
C-side details, the trackpad area is large, and it feels very comfortable. The keyboard also feels pretty good on the tap.
Turn on the real shot, the keyboard is pure white light, there is no light / 1 gear / 2 gear adjustable (I didn't turn on in the photo). The upper camera supports Windows Hello face recognition, which can save the complicated step of entering passwords - note that it has a physical occlusion design like mainstream business notebooks.
Configuration: 13th generation standard pressure Core + 2.8K 90Hz 16:10 screen
The ThinkBook 14+ 2023 passed the Intel EVO certification (last year's 2022 model was not), and many students must have noticed the faith sticker at the bottom left of the previous picture. The rules for EVO certification have changed this year, but indicators such as battery life, fast charging, second wake-up, and must be equipped with Intel network cards are still the same.
The CPU is a new classmate - the 13th generation Intel Core i5-13500H processor, which belongs to the iterative upgrade of the previous generation i5-12500H. Intel 7 process, 4 performance cores (P cores) with hyperthreading + 8 energy efficiency cores (E cores) without hyperthreading, acceleration frequency reaches 4.7/3.5GHz, respectively.
The graphics card is the i5-13500H integrated Iris Xe core graphics, in fact, the earliest 11th generation Core has above, for some reason today's latest version of GPU-Z, but can not recognize its information. It has 80 execution units (EUs) and the actual operating frequency should be about 1300MHz.
The memory adopts the LPDDR5 on-board (non-replaceable) that is more common to thin and light books, but students who need large memory can rest assured that this generation has provided a 32GB memory option since i5. Hynix particles, due to the technical support limitations of the 13th generation Core, the actual operating frequency of the nominal 6400MHz is 5200MHz.
The hard disk is the more familiar magnesium light 3400, an OEM version PCIe 4.0 solid-state drive that has been popular since last year. It's a shame that the capacity hasn't been able to continue to scale to 1TB.
The ThinkBook 14+ 2023 is equipped with a 2.8K 90Hz (2.5K 120Hz for the 16+ version) 16:10 ratio "golden screen", and the panel designation LEN9123 is the same as last year's 2022 model. Using Red Spider X combined with SpyderXElite, its sRGB, AdobeRGB, P3, and NTSC color gamut coverage was measured to be 100%, 82%, 84%, and 77%, respectively, which was slightly better than last year's 2022 model.
The 2023 Lenovo adds factory pre-color correction to the screen. The 3F yellow with the largest color difference is 2.38, with an average value of 0.94, which is quite good, and students who do PS and front-end design can get started and use.
Running score: CPU slightly upgraded Core display/delay is eye-catching
ThinkBook 14+ 2023 supports Lenovo's ancestral Fn+Q switching performance mode, "energy saving", "smart" and "beast" three modes, desktop floating icons are "battery", "snowflake" and "dashboard". When students clean up the boot items daily, they should pay attention to keeping this Lenovo Hotkeys, otherwise Fn+Q and Fn+R (switch refresh rate) and other functions will not receive prompts.
All subsequent tests, unless otherwise specified, are carried out in "Beast" mode, and the power mode of Windows 11 is also set to "Best Performance"; Does not raise the machine, does not dissipate heat externally.
The theoretical running score part is to clean the background (close other visible software before running).
CPU-Z belongs to the physical performance test with light load, and its single-core score is related to the mild single-core performance of the CPU (such as switch software, web browsing); Multicore scores are related to mild multicore performance (e.g., compression software, multitasking).
The i5-13500H equipped with the ThinkBook 14+ 2023 runs a single-core 758 and a multi-core 6545. Compared with the previous generation i5-12500H, they are all increased by 5~6%.
Cinebench R23 belongs to the physical performance test with heavy load, and its single-core score is related to the heavy single-core performance of the CPU (such as UI refresh, slag optimization games); Multi-core scores are related to heavy multi-core performance (such as video transcoding, program compilation).
As the load increases, the increase of the i5-13500H compared to the i5-12500H also changes. The single-core amplitude is better, while the multi-core is nearly 10% stronger.
3DMark Time Spy is a graphics performance test, and its physics score can reflect the physical rendering performance of the CPU, but it is not much related to the game; The graphics score can better reflect the upper limit of GPU gaming performance (especially 3A masterpieces).
The previous generation of mobile core CPUs generally had the problem of poor core graphics scheduling, and the performance of the same scale has regressed. Today's i5-13500H solves, and the core graphics score is more than 1400 - which is about the same performance as the GTX 960M in the game book many years ago, which means that it can still be used in many older games.
AIDA64 mainly measures memory and cache performance. This piece has little to do with the brand manufacturer's tuning, basically depending on the performance of the CPU and the memory itself.
LPDDR5 memory has higher frequency and lower power consumption than conventional DDR5 at the cost of a correspondingly higher timing. However, the i5-13500H effectively controls the delay at 105ns this time, which has made significant progress compared to the previous generation of 120ns, and the performance of the version with a dedicated display in the future will be worth looking forward to.
Crystal Disk Mark mainly measures the performance of hard disks, but it is customary to mix hard disks of the same level in notebook circles, and this test can only be used as a reference for starting batches.
The running score of the magnesium light 3400 is very good, even in my habitual 16GiB mode, the continuous read and write speed is close to the 6600/4300 level; The 4K random reading speed that most affects the actual use experience also reaches 65, which is 30% stronger than many similar products.
Office: Gradually all-round media creation performance UP
First, let's take a look at the PCMark 10 Modern Office Test, which brings together switch software, browsers, Word, Excel, and other content that everyone often deals with every day. The retouching and video clipping in "Digital Content Creation" probably corresponds to relatively light image/video creation such as the Meitu App and Format Factory, which is also of great reference significance.
This test, especially the first 4 items do not have high requirements for configuration, starting from the popularization of 4-core processor + 16GB memory in 2019, basically all thin and light books can be competent. ThinkBook 14+ 2023 runs a score of 5690, the most eye-catching is video editing, almost the level of a game book with RTX 3060 graphics card 2 years ago.
This is followed by the Adobe 2022 benchmark. Its final score is "relative" - a top desktop with R9-5900X + RTX 3090 + 64GB of memory as a benchmark of 1000, and a general score of 600 or more means that it can be used as a productivity tool in this area.
The intensity of this set of tests is high, like the video material used in PR reaches 4K 150Mbps, so it is corresponding to professional needs. For students whose demand is not so heavy, the passing line of AE/PR can also be lowered to 500/400 respectively.
The ThinkBook 14+ 2023 ran a good score of 781 points in the PS test, and considering that its screen quality is also fantastic, it is completely fine to be competent for the job. High-intensity PS eating memory capacity, you can also consider adding money to buy a version with 32GB memory; The i7 version does not have to be demanding, PS is mainly flat office, and does not eat much graphics graphics performance.
AE and PR are not normally core notebook specialties, but the ThinkBook 14+ 2023 still crosses the passing line, which is evident in Intel's years of hard work on hardware acceleration. Of course, when the budget allows, I still recommend everyone to wait for the exclusive version with RTX 3050.
Finally, there is the SPECviewperf 2020 benchmark, which covers various modeling and rendering applications commonly used by engineering students such as 3dsmax, maya, and solidworks. These projects generally rely on high-performance graphics cards, in addition to CPU (more single-core performance) drivers, and the configuration requirements are more similar to triple-A games.
This piece of content generally uses OpenCL, which is really not the strength of Xe Core, and it is not recommended to use any Core GPU to do the work inside. Of course, if you draw a CAD or something, the ThinkBook 14+ 2023 is still up to the task.
Battery life: 6 hours for daily use A great improvement over the previous generation
Thin and light books, especially business thin and light books, often have unplugged use scenarios, many students must have "battery life anxiety", especially the previous generation of ThinkBook 14+ performance in this area is really poor. So can this generation improve?
Unplug the power supply during the battery life test, select the mode, and set the power mode of Windows 11 to "best energy efficiency"; The screen brightness is set to 60% and the volume is 30%.
In order to facilitate the calculation of the time, I usually control the start of the run on the hour, so the initial power cannot be consistent, so I can only try to be dissatisfied with the power start (some power shows that the speed of dropping from 100% to 99% is extremely slow).
79% battery start.
First open one TIM, one Word and one Excel window, and then open 3 web pages with the Edge browser, and the Steam+PCMark10 window is maintained. After that, stay on the Bilibili homepage with many elements and animations, maximize it and let it sit for 20 minutes.
This process consumes a total of 4% of the electricity and the remaining 75%.
After that, without turning off the above content, use the PotPlayer default setting to play a total of 21 minutes of 1080P 30FPS H.264 local video.
This process consumes 7% of the electricity and the remaining 68%.
Then close all the above content except Steam + PCMark10, and run the first 4 items (video chat, browser, switch software, Word) in PCMark10 modern office. I don't run the last Excel because OpenCL computing is used in it, which is no longer in the scope of daily use and is not friendly to Intel graphics cards.
This process consumes a total of 6% of the electricity, leaving 62%.
A total of 61 minutes of testing has a total of 17% power down, and the daily use of the ThinkBook 14+ 2023 is estimated to be 5 hours and 58 minutes, which is about a third improvement compared to the previous generation, which is quite good for the WIntel platform, and insisting on unplugged office for an afternoon is at least not a problem. It is believed that with the continuous iteration of the architecture process, the future thin and light battery life will be better and better.
Entertainment: Ultra-clear viewing tool Capable of light games such as Genshin
Video encoding/decoding has always been Intel's strength, which can be seen in the previous office test. Hard UHD video is a hand-to-hand for the ThinkBook 14+ 2023, and both the 4K 120FPS HEVC and 8K 60FPS VP9 can easily run to near full frame rates with a low occupancy.
Games are relatively not its strengths, after all, Intel 7-based Xe core graphics have been around for 3 years. The Final Fantasy 15 1080P standard quality benchmark scored just 2267 points, which is still far from the passing mark of 3000.
However, light games are completely competent for it, especially the i5-13500H standard pressure processor power consumption wall is high, the core display is easy to run full performance. League of Legends 1080P is the highest quality, the average frame rate of ThinkBook 14+ 2023 is more than 125, and the minimum frame rate in fierce team battles can be close to 100.
It can be seen in the upper left of the screenshot that the core display is only half occupied at this time, so the native resolution of 2880*1800 + the highest image quality can also be controlled. However, LOL's screen optimization belongs to the "left and right widening" type, 16:10 will lose the field of view, it is recommended that you use this setting to play, so that the machine noise control is also good.
Genshin can achieve a frame rate of 40~55 with low image quality at 1080P resolution, which is already better than the highest image quality on iOS; Medium quality can also be played at 30 fps, which is about the same as PS4 quality.
Since Genshin only has native resolution and can be full-screen, and is not a competitive online game, it is recommended that you open 2880*1800 resolution, and then pull down the rendering ratio to 0.6 or 0.7 to play, with FSR sharpening picture quality is better.
Heat dissipation: There is still a slight increase in release 55W at full load for a long time
Normally, the CPU heavy load temperature will not exceed the single-baked FPU, and the GPU heavy-load temperature will not exceed the single-baked Furmark. However, in dual-load scenarios such as gaming and video rendering, the temperature of one of the CPU and GPU (often the CPU) may exceed the double baking.
The room temperature at the time of thermal testing is 23°C. Does not raise the machine, does not dissipate heat externally.
With a single AIDA64 FPU, the peak power consumption of i5-13500H can approach 80W, and the performance core/energy efficiency core can run at a high frequency of 4.3/3.2GHz respectively. After 20 seconds, it gradually drops to 60W, and after 1 and a half minutes it drops slightly to 55W stable, at this time, the performance core frequency is between 3.6~3.7GHz, and the energy efficiency core is between 2.9~3.0GHz, and the temperature reaches 94 °C.
Since the GPU-Z and HWiNFO currently cannot read the data of the i5-13500H core display sensor, the single-baked Furmark does not get any feedback at present, and can only see that the CPU (in fact, it is integrated with the core display) temperature is only 69 ° C, which is still very cool.
Double baking, the total power consumption peak of CPU + core display exceeds 80W, and the maximum operating frequency of the CPU reaches 3.8/2.9GHz. After that, the scheduling strategy is similar to that of single baking, dropping to a total of 70W after 20 seconds, and then dropping to 55W after about 2 minutes and maintaining it, the i5-13500H performance core can finally run at a full core of 2.8GHz, with an energy efficiency core of 2.2GHz and a temperature of 90°C.
Although the performance release is more radical, the ThinkBook 14+ 2023 is quite "restrained" in the eyes of users. Full load noise between 40~45dB (about equal to the hum of the refrigerator), C side except for the general contact under the screen, only the temperature of the left wrist rest is higher than 30 °C (warmth), Lenovo's tuning skills in heat dissipation are really first-class.
Conclusion: The "Little Silver Book" with Business Fashion
Faded the youth of 2022, the 2023 ThinkBook 14+ is becoming more and more mature, and the problems encountered by the previous generation (especially the first batch) have not been repeated in this test. After the doubts of quality control/tuning dissipated, the acceptance of this "little silver book" was higher - who can refuse it with both business fashion and good performance?
Compared with the 12th generation, the upper limit of the 13th generation Core is really not much (or it is better to say that the 12th generation is too big...). ), but carefully polished design + more mature management, the overall detail experience still has to go to a higher level - longer battery life + more stable scheduling, even if the version is verified, it is enough to adapt to a certain degree of creative needs in the "new media era".
Of course, it is still objective to say: there is no absolute "buy new and not buy old". When the new model is an improvement compared to the old model, it cannot bring you enough attractiveness, and at the same time the price of the old model is suitable enough, then it does not hurt to fold back and buy the old model.
After filling the short board such as battery life and color accuracy, ThinkBook 14+ 2023 has no obvious shortcomings, if you have to pick a bone in the egg is that the screen still maintains 90Hz, friends who mind this can choose ThinkBook 16+.
Recommendation: Exquisite white-collar work is preferred, higher demand recommends the independent version
Scored as 5 stars + half star system, more subjective for reference only - what suits me may not be suitable for you, what suits you is the best.
Appearance: ★★★★ ☆. Compared with the ThinkPad, it is already a lot more beautiful, but I personally prefer a rounded design.
Workmanship: ★★★★ ☆. Weight control, materials, feel are impeccable, considering that the starting price of 5K+ is still a slightly high positioning of the mainstream, halving the star prevents it from being proud ~~
Performance:★★★★★. It is basically the ceiling of a 14-inch thin and light book, and the independent version has not yet been launched, but there is still a margin for the release of the previous generation of the independent version.
Screen: ★★★★ ☆. It may be "backstabbed" by some models that use 120Hz, but in fact, many of these models use 2.5K screens, 14-inch + 200% rendering, and the visual effect is still not as comfortable as 2.8K.
Extension: ★★★★ ☆. The only regret may be that memory expansion is not supported, but you can also add a meter and directly buy and configure the 32GB memory version (this generation is no longer bound to i7).
Heat dissipation:★★★★★. Small size thin and light heat dissipation benchmark, no need to explain.
Price:★★★★. The first launch/daily price is 300 yuan more expensive than last year, and under the premise that the CPU is regarded as "squeezing toothpaste" (measured is actually not toothpaste), this price may still dissuade many people to buy the old version. Look at the old version of the clearance situation and its own promotional strength.
Time Period: ★★★★ . Since the price of the Zen4 series CPU that has not yet been launched will certainly not be cheap, it is still difficult to be challenged in the balance of performance-price-materials.
Comprehensive recommendation index: ★★★★ ☆. On the basis of the traditional cost-effective thin and light book, the business thin and light book with comprehensive improvement of performance/workmanship/tuning is suitable for white-collar workers who have a certain budget and are not satisfied with pure cost-effective products and pursue fashion and refinement.
Recommended group: Office workers with a budget of 5.5K upwards, including teachers and students without the need for large-scale games. Programmers and designers can give due consideration to the 32GB version; If you have large-scale games or heavy digital creation needs, it is more recommended to start the independent version.