Hey guys, I’m Roland, the Techusiast, and I’ve been using the Lenovo Z13 for
more than two weeks, and here’s how it went. Let’s take a look!
Before we get into the specifications, let’s take a closer look at the design
and ports. The laptop weighs just 1.25kg, making it an ultra-compact and lightweight
workhorse. Despite its thin profile, it’s actually military-grade certified, meaning
that it should be able to survive a wide variety of conditions. The laptop is made of aluminium,
and it feels well-made and premium. Lenovo certainly didn’t sacrifice on the build
quality, and the Z13 will look elegant on whatever surface or desk you use it on.
If there’s anything that stands out, and not in a good way, it’s the Windows Hello
sensor and the web camera. Instead of opting for a notch or a bezel placement,
Lenovo went the extra mile and included the sensors in a bulge that sticks out. You could
argue it has aesthetic purposes, but it doesn’t look very appealing. That said,
you can certainly live with it, and it won’t get in the way.
Moving over to the ports, the laptop sports two USB-C ports and an audio
jack. I wish it had an ethernet port, or the very least an SD card reader,
but I guess these things aren’t exactly made for content creators,
so I’ll give them a pass on this one. The USB-C ports are USB4, meaning they’re fast,
and charging shouldn’t ever be an issue when transferring files or powering the laptop.
The keyboard flexes slightly, but it’s more than acceptable by today’s standards, and I didn’t see
any soft spots that’d call for a cause of concern. The typing experience felt solid,
and it took very little time to get used to the switches. The keyboard is backlit,
tactile, and the travel is excellent. I also want to highlight that the Z13 comes with a
built-in fingerprint sensor, located beside the left arrow key. I would’ve preferred this to be
embedded in the power button, but once you get used to the placement, it works like a dream.
I also want to highlight that the classic TrackPoint is still here,
and a simple double tap will bring up the quick menu, allowing you
to change the camera and microphone settings, as well as other options.
The palm rest isn’t exactly large, but that’s what you get from a small
and compact laptop of this size. As someone who’s used to having 15 and 16-inch laptops,
it felt a bit uncomfortable, but after a few days, I was comfortable and used to the size.
The trackpad was very odd by default, but after spending a little bit of time fine-tuning it to
my preferred settings, it felt much better. It’s not quite a Mac, but it’s very close,
and the force touch feedback felt great. When it comes to the size, it’s a decently sized trackpad,
compared to the palm rest, and it's more than adequate for moving files,
and navigating around. Overall, the trackpad felt solid, and I’m seriously impressed.
The Lenovo Z13 comes with a 13.3-inch display, and here I have the 1920 x
1200 Full HD IPS LCD model without any touch functionality. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio,
and the panel is 100% sRGB rated. I’ve used the display day and night, and while it only has a
peak brightness of 400 nits, it gets plenty bright outside. The screen was colourful
when editing photos, and it looked sharp and beautiful when I watched videos on YouTube and
movies on streaming services. The screen is large enough to get work done, and I never felt
the need for ever more space, even though I’m a person who uses large displays during my daily.
The web camera is a 1080p sensor with f/2.0 aperture. It does a decent job,
even in challenging lighting conditions. Compared to other cameras on laptops,
I’d say it’s above average, and it definitely gets a few bonus points. As for the microphone,
it does a decent job, and it’ll work perfectly well for video and conference calls.
Speakers Lenovo claims that it has great
speakers on the Z13, and I’m happy to confirm that it is indeed pretty good. The speakers have
Dolby Atmos, and it sounds clear with enough bass. Since it’s a business-oriented machine,
it’s better suited for calls, but I enjoyed watching movies and listening to music.
Moving over to the performance, this is where the Lenovo Z13 really shines. The laptop is
powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 6650U chip, and it has integrated Radeon Graphics. There
are six cores and 12 threads, plenty enough to get real work done, and I have to say,
this is one hell of a beast. It hasn’t struggled once under my usual workload,
and the 16GB of memory managed to keep up with games and even 80 Chrome tabs. It’s impressive.
Those of you who know me will be aware that I really dislike Windows as an operating system, but
I have to say, I had a pleasant experience using it on the Lenovo. It felt smooth, and there were
no hiccups. It performed as expected, and as it should, and it seems like a quite reliable device.
When it comes to creative work, the laptop was capable of editing large files, but I didn’t do
any video editing as I’m a Final Cut user. That said, the laptop has plenty of power, and light
video and photo editing will not be an issue, and it’s also excellent for university students who
need something that is powerful enough, yet portable and lightweight at the same time.
I do want to mention that when you do end up pushing the laptop to its limits, the fans
will get loud, and the back of the device will get uncomfortably hot. During a two-hour gaming
session, the laptop got so hot that i couldn’t keep using it on my lap and had to put it on a
desk. Airflow is critical, and so blocking it will make it throttle relatively quickly, but once you
unblock it and let the device cool down for a bit, it’ll be more than comfortable enough once again.
And, of course, a laptop review wouldn’t be a review if it didn’t include gaming. I
tested a train simulator and CS:GO, and both games performed well. Obviously,
it’s a small and compact laptop, so you shouldn’t expect it to play AAA titles, but if you do decide
to play a few games in your free time, it should be able to handle most games without any problems.
I did have to turn down a few settings to get a comfortable 60 FPS in the train simulator,
but other than that, it worked flawlessly. Just bear in mind that it’s not intended for gaming,
and the keyboard can get uncomfortably hot, especially if you play for longer periods.
The Lenovo Z13 sports a 51 Wh battery,
and it charges via USB-C. The good news is that Lenovo gives you a 65W Rapid charger
that can charge you from zero to about 80% in about an hour. I found this really useful,
especially as I often ended up using the laptop without being tethered to the wall.
As for the actual battery life, I can once again only say that I’m really
impressed. The laptop managed to last for more than eight hours on a single charge,
using Google Chrome and a few apps on the side. General web browsing, sending emails,
and doing some light work will perform beautifully, and you’re unlikely to
need the charger, unless you increase the brightness and put it in performance mode.
That’s not to say the laptop can’t be drained very quickly. I browsed the internet and played Train
Life for about 2 hours, and the battery went from 100% to 60%. I suspect it could do about
5-6 hours, depending on the game you play, but of course, this is primarily intended
at enterprise and business users who rely on special software and tools to get work done.
Overall, the battery will last you a long time before needing to look for a wall outlet,
and the rapid charging functionality will enable you to do more work,
without ever having to worry about the battery level. Great job Lenovo!
With that said, let’s try to conclude this review and ask whether you should
buy the Lenovo Z13 Gen 1 laptop. The thing is, this machine retails for
£1,909.99 ($2,259.00, or $1,377.99 while on sale in US) in the UK, and that’s a very steep price.
Considering that you can get a higher-end Lenovo laptop with a better CPU and GPU,
it’s a lot to ask for a device like this. However, not all laptops are built the same,
and this machine is primarily aimed at business users who are looking for a lightweight,
compact, and powerful enough machine that can last nearly a full workday on a single charge.
Business users often have to pay a premium, and if you’re looking for the ideal laptop
that has plenty of power, battery for days, a beautiful display, a great microphone,
and speakers, then the Lenovo Z13 is a laptop that won’t disappoint.
For those who are looking for an everyday laptop, this will likely be outside of your budget,
and chances are, you don’t need all of this to browse the web and do work-related tasks.
There are much better laptops for that price, sold for far less than the Z13.
There you have it. I hope you found this video useful. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a like
if you enjoyed this video. With all that said, thank you for watching. I’ll see you next time.