Even when the consumer PC market is all but frozen due to high memory prices, corporate customers will continue to purchase PCs for their employees. After all, in many cases, once three- to five-year lease agreements expire, new hardware is needed. This makes the commercial PC market even more attractive to PC makers, as it represents a steady and reliable revenue stream.
Besides HP, two of the biggest names in this segment are Lenovo and Dell. Lenovo’s ThinkPad line is almost synonymous with business laptops as a whole, and Dell obviously maintains a strong presence in this market too, with its Dell Pro line of laptops. In the business market, 14 inches is the most common size, and we’ve tested the two mainstream business lines from Dell and Lenovo – the Dell Pro 5 14 and the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 7. With our recent review of a high-end variant of the T14 Gen 7, it’s time for a comparison.
In terms of design, both are no different from each other, with a black chassis, although the Dell offers an optional aluminum lid, while Lenovo always uses a carbon fiber/glass fiber mix. The Dell Pro 5 is slightly heavier and larger than the ThinkPad, but also thinner. They’re equal in ports, upgradeability options, and security features, but the Lenovo has a user-detachable keyboard, as well as the red ThinkPad TrackPoint, and dedicated mouse buttons — which the Dell Pro lacks. In exchange, it has a larger touchpad.
Only the ThinkPad has an optional 2.8K OLED screen
The ThinkPad clearly wins when it comes to screen, as our review unit comes with a 2.8K (2,880 x 1,800) OLED option that the Dell Pro 5 14 doesn’t provide. Our sample contained only a simpler WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200) IPS panel. There are optional WUXGA OLED panels and 2.5K (2,560 x 1,600) IPS panels available for the Dell Pro, but we’ll still give the ThinkPad the win here.
Both tested machines contained Intel Panther Lake CPUs, with the Intel Core Ultra 366H in the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 7 and the Intel Core Ultra X7 368H in the Dell Pro 5 14. Both delivered nearly the same CPU performance. The X7 CPU wins when it comes to the GPU, which is to be expected; the ThinkPad can also be optionally configured with this CPU. What’s different: The Dell laptop runs much louder under load, while both are on par in terms of thermal output. In battery life, the Dell Pro 5 wins, thanks to the more power-efficient screen and larger 70Wh battery – the ThinkPad we tested contained a 60Wh battery, but there’s an optional 75Wh battery if you need more runtime.
Overall, Dell and Lenovo are on par in this comparison. According to the evaluation, we preferred the ThinkPad, thanks to the better keyboard and pointing devices, but there is no doubt that the Dell Pro 5 will also serve you well in a laptop fleet. Which would you prefer?
