The Dell XPS 15 has long been our favorite 15-inch class laptop, but new competitors are coming. The Lenovo Thinkpad Z16 is one such machine.
The thin-and-light 15-inch laptop class is attractive for creators and power users who don’t want the absolute largest machines to lug around. The Dell XPS 15 has led the class for some time now, and it’s one of the best laptops you can buy.
Lenovo’s new ThinkPad Z16 takes the ThinkPad line in a new, more modern direction, offering a few interesting features that the XPS 15 lacks. Are they enough to dethrone the king?
The laptops start at around the same price, with the entry-level ThinkPad Z16 costing $1,424 for an AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, a 16-inch 16:10 Full HD+ (1,920 x 1,200) IPS display, and AMD Radeon integrated graphics. For $1,449, you get an XPS 15 with an Intel Core i5-12500H CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 15.6-inch 16:10 Full HD+ IPS display, and Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics. So it’s a trade-off between RAM and storage with each laptop’s low-end model.
For $2,482, the ThinkPad Z16 comes with a Ryzen 9 PRO 6950H CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, a 16-inch 16:10 4K+ (3,840 x 2,400) OLED display, and AMD Radeon RX 6500M discrete graphics. The XPS 15 tops out at $4,629 for a Core i9-12900HK CPU, 64GB of RAM, an 8TB SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU, and a choice between a 4K+ IPS panel or a 3.5K (3,456 x 2,160) OLED display.
The XPS 15 can be configured as a more powerful laptop, and you’ll pay the price.
The ThinkPad Z16 departs considerably from the iconic black-on-black ThinkPad aesthetic, with a silver lid and chassis bottom that more closely resembles the XPS 15 than another ThinkPad. Open the lid and you’ll find a black palm rest and keyboard deck with the red TrackPoint nubbin, but the XPS 15 also has the same kind of black interior (albeit in the XPS 15’s case, it’s constructed of carbon fiber). The lines are different, with the ThinkPad Z16 being boxier and the XPS 15 being more streamlined, but these two sleek and attractive laptops have more similarities than differences. The ThinkPad Z16’s reverse notch that accommodates a 1080p webcam (compared to the XPS 15’s 720p version) stands out most.
