If you’re on the hunt for a work laptop with a marvelous display, excellent productivity performance, and a battery life that will get you through the day,Lenovo’s ThinkPad Z16 Gen 2 (AMD)certainly fits the bill. It has a few drawbacks, like a finicky trackpad, low screen refresh rate, and just two USB-C ports, but it gets the job done in style.
Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 Gen 2 (AMD)
The Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 Gen 2 (AMD) is an excellent laptop for productivity with a few downsides that can be overlooked if you’re fond of the overall package. The 16-inch OLED display is a rare find in the work laptop space, and the performance is able to get the job done.
If you’ve ever used a ThinkPad before, or you know a coworker who has one, you know what to expect here: a sleek laptop with very little to complain about when it comes to design. The Arctic Grey aluminum chassis meshes closely with what I picture when I think of a “work laptop.” It’s sophisticated, smooth, and classy. No complaints here.
If I were pressed to find something I dislike about the Z16 Gen 2’s design, it would be the weight. Coming in at 3.99lbs (1.81kg), it’s far from the lightest laptop on the market. However, this also lends itself to a premium in-hand feel; it doesn’t scream “I’m going to break if you put me down on the table wrong.”
Two speakers line either side of the Z16 Gen 2’s backlit keyboard with a glass haptic touchpad nestled underneath. The layout is practical, efficient, and far from an eyesore.
Moving onto one of the key draws of this ThinkPad: the beautiful, 16-inch WQUXGA OLED display. This is a showstopper—few productivity laptops have a screen this crisp and clear. It features a peak brightness of 400 nits, which isn’t the brightest in the world, but I think it strikes a fantastic balance between battery usage and on-screen clarity.
I used the Z16 Gen 2 on the brightest setting most of the time, but it’s easy to dim down during dark nights with the tap of a button.
The 16-inch display is also a happy medium between wanting more and trying to tangle with an unwieldy beast of a display. I was able to fit everything I needed on screen without a struggle, and it was an excellent size for a YouTube video or some Hulu in my downtime.
One area left me wishing for a bit more, though: the 60Hz refresh rate. Sure, 60Hz is perfectly passable for work, media enjoyment, and light gaming. But once you go to 120Hz or higher, you never want to go back. It’s the thought that it could be smoother, but it isn’t.
I can overlook it since it does cut back on power consumption, and a high refresh rate isn’t a necessity, but I certainly wouldn’t mind the upgrade.
Now, when it comes to the keyboard, the Z16 Gen 2 does little to deviate from the ThinkPad norm. It’s visually appealing, backlit nicely, and snappy to the touch. It does feel just a bit mushier than other ThinkPads I’ve used, but not to an off-putting extent. It’s a perfectly usable keyboard that didn’t prompt me to whip out an external option during my usage.
It even has a few bells and whistles to boot, like the fingerprint reader to the left of the arrow keys that can be used to sign in to Windows at a moment’s notice.
The trackpad, on the other hand, isn’t my favorite. While it’s a good size and looks great, it feels a little funky during actual usage. Sometimes it doesn’t register your movements, and other times it can be nigh impossible to make minute cursor adjustments during photo editing and similar tasks.
Clicking down feels quite nice, with the ability to push down just about anywhere and have it respond to one finger as a left-click and two fingers as a right-click. And if you’ve used a ThinkPad, you know to expect the red TrackPoint square in the middle of the keyboard, which you can use as a trackpad alternative. It’s not my preferred way to navigate, but it is there if you’re searching for it.
Performance: Perfect for Productivity
From first impressions, the Z16 Gen 2 seemed to handle just about any productivity task I threw at it with ease. From writing to photo editing, browsing the web to video conferences, this ThinkPad delivers premium performance. Diving into the tech specs of my review unit, I found a capable stack of hardware that explained the snappy performance I experienced.
My review unit came furnished with an AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 7940HS 4.00 GHz processor, Radeon 780M integrated graphics, 64GB of LPDDR5x 6400MHz RAM, and a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD. That’s a respectable stack for almost anything you want to achieve on a laptop. Minute to minute operation never felt slow or frustrating—quite the opposite, in fact.
Now, if you’re looking for a laptop that can keep up with modern-day gaming demands, the Z16 Gen 2 isn’t it. Booting up my usual benchmark game of choice, Rocket League, on medium settings, I wasn’t able to average 60FPS at any of the three resolutions I tested.
Rocket League (ran on Medium settings):
So, while not unplayable by any means, gameplay was quite choppy in some instances. And while Rocket League isn’t the easiest game on the market to run, it doesn’t hold a candle to many AAA title demands.
Putting the Z16 Gen 2 to the test in PCMark 10 and 3DMark yielded some respectable results. It’s overall PCMark score of 5,492 put it just above average (better than 55% of results in PCMark’s comprehensive database, including results from high-end gaming PCs).
I ran two tests on 3DMark: Time Spy (a DirectX12 benchmark for gaming performance) and CPU Profile (an overview of the processor’s capabilities).
Starting with Time Spy; this was a problem area for Lenovo’s ThinkPad. Its score of 3,414 earned it a spot above just 9% of other machines. This is understandable—after all, if you’re looking for a gaming laptop, you aren’t reaching for a ThinkPad first and foremost. There’s only so much integrated graphics can achieve.
It’s not a total dud when it comes to gaming—you can still play smaller indie titles at a comfortable frame rate on decent settings—but it’s just not built for 4K Ultra settings gameplay.
Onto the CPU Profile benchmark. These scores fell right around the 50% mark, lining up with PCMark’s test results. The Z16 Gen 2 offers capable multitasking performance and I never found myself cursing a bogged-down laptop while completing my day-to-day tasks.
Speakers: Booming but Shallow
When it comes to the Z16 Gen 2’s speakers, the results are a mixed bag. On one hand, they get plenty loud, and you’ll never have a problem hearing what you’re listening to clearly. On the other hand, they sound a bit hollow, leaving me wanting more of a bottom end to balance out the high end.
They’re not so tinny as to call them a major demerit to the Z16 Gen 2’s overall package; they’re just not as well-rounded as I’d like them to be.
You can always up your audio game by choosing something from our list of thebest headphones for listening to musicor connect a Bluetooth speaker at the end of the day. However, if you’re rolling with the default speaker setup here, you won’t be disappointed as long as you’re not expecting booming bass.
Connectivity: Room for Expansion
I’ve reviewed a number of Lenovo laptops, and the connectivity options on most of them are largely the same: not too extensive, but good enough that you’re able to expand on what’s there without a problem. Since the ThinkPad Z16 Gen 2 offers two USB-C ports (along with a third USB-C port for power delivery), you can always plug aUSB-C hubin to gain more ports for your peripherals.
However, if you don’t have a dock or hub, you might be missing a spot or two for your gear with the standalone connectivity options.
The Z16 Gen 2 also comes equipped with a 3.5mm headphone and mic jack for your audio needs. Since the ThinkPad is Bluetooth-enabled as well, you can connect wireless peripherals as you please. There’s also an SD card slot to expand your storage or quickly pull photos off of a camera, which can come in handy if you’re not a fan of digital transfers through the cloud.
You’ll also notice both USB-C ports run on the left side of the laptop. While not a dealbreaker, I would rather see one port on the right side as well for a choice of where to plug your cables into.
Battery: Long-Lasting, Fast Charging
The battery life is ample enough to get you through a work day with a quick charge up during lunch or commuting hours. In typical ThinkPad fashion, it charges in the blink of an eye thanks to its Rapid Charge capabilities and 135W AC adapter. Combined with a 72Whr battery, uptime was never a letdown.
TheLenovo ThinkPad Z16 Gen 2 (AMD)is easy to recommend for work due to its suave design, elegant OLED display, and impactful productivity performance. It falls into the mid to high price range, starting at just under $1,500 (rising quickly to the higher-end price range depending on your choice of configuration), and it has the build quality to justify it.
If you’re looking for a gaming laptop, look elsewhere. This isn’t it. But it is a great companion for work, browsing the web, and kicking back with a video or TV show.
