REVIEWS / LAPTOPS / OWNER INSIGHTS
🦉 WE READ 205 OWNER COMMENTS
Thinkpad E14: what owners actually say
Owners consider the E14 a solid budget workhorse but Linux installers hit a recurring Secure Boot wall that requires a specific BIOS toggle
What owners complain about
- Secure Boot blocks Linux installs COMMON
Multiple E14 and E16 owners report Ubuntu installation failing until they manually enter BIOS (F1), navigate to Security > Secure Boot, and enable 'Allow Microsoft 3rd Party CA' — the default setting blocks the installer even though Ubuntu is technically supported
- USB boot disabled by default SOME
Several owners found USB booting is turned off in the UEFI by default, requiring manual intervention in BIOS Config and Startup menus before installation media is recognised
- Linux touchpad and brightness issues SOME
On Linux, touchpad detection can fail requiring 'sudo modprobe psmouse' or a Gnome settings toggle; brightness control via xbacklight does not work with AMD/Radeon GPUs and requires the acpilight replacement plus a custom udev rule
- Fingerprint reader incompatible on Linux FEW
The fingerprint sensor is not yet supported by libfprint; users point to an active but unresolved GitLab thread and a Discord tracking community for updates
- Performance lags on heavy Excel workloads FEW
A T14 owner (same ThinkPad family) with 32 GB RAM reports sluggishness with large Excel models of 10,000+ rows, suggesting the platform struggles with demanding spreadsheet work
What owners love
- Regarded as a solid, dependable laptop
Multiple owners and commenters describe the E14 straightforwardly as 'a solid laptop,' with one noting the closely related E16 shares the same CPU and is essentially the 16-inch version of the same machine
- Repair-friendly vs. competitors
Owners directly compare ThinkPads favourably to ZenBooks and other consumer ultrabooks on repairability, with one commenter stating 'the ThinkPad is far more repair-friendly' as a deciding factor
- Strong Linux compatibility once configured
A long-term ThinkPad user reports never having a major issue with ThinkPads on Linux across multiple machines, and their new T16 with 32 GB RAM, sRGB screen, 2 TB SSD and Ryzen 7 was described as 'great'
- Good enterprise fleet value
Large companies cycle through hundreds of these per quarter and sell them to employees cheaply, with commenters noting this is 'a really great way to get a 1-2 generations old laptop for almost nothing'
Surprising patterns
- The Secure Boot fix for Linux is so common that multiple users across Lemmy and Stack Exchange independently posted the exact same BIOS navigation path (F1 > Security > Secure Boot > Allow Microsoft 3rd Party CA), suggesting Lenovo's default is a known, persistent friction point rather than a one-off misconfiguration
- AMD GPU owners must abandon the standard xbacklight tool entirely and switch to acpilight with a manual udev rule for brightness control — a workaround that is not obvious and requires editing system files and video group permissions
- The E14 and E16 are reportedly identical apart from screen size and share the same CPU, meaning buyers are effectively choosing between chassis sizes rather than different performance tiers
WHO SHOULD SKIP IT
Buyers who want a seamless out-of-the-box Linux experience or need to run demanding workloads like large spreadsheet models or local LLMs without performance bottlenecks should look elsewhere, as the E14 requires BIOS troubleshooting for Linux installs and owners report slowdowns on heavy computational tasks
Synthesised from 205 real owner comments across 5 platforms. Every point is grounded in the comments — no marketing, no AI guessing. How we do it →