Yeah, they’re also good, I just went with laptops that would be more along the lines of what you said your budget is. Some people get offended if you suggest laptops that are significantly less than what they said their budget is.
So the Gen1 won’t be as powerful (Zen2 vs. Zen3+), but they (Ryzen 7) are still 8 core, 16 thread CPU’s. Also, they only have Vega IGP instead of RDNA2, and the GEn1 is only a Vega7 on Ryzen 7 Pro.
That said, if you’re not playing games, the Vega7 is absolutely adequate for anything else. They’ve got the nice 57wh battery so they get good battery life, despite the 4000 series not being as efficient as the 5000 and newer series, they’re still good efficiency.
And of course the good thing is that you should be able to put a 2242 m.2 PCIe 3x2 drive (or 2230 m.2 PCIe 3x4 drive w/ ACTIVE 2230 > 2242 adapter) in the WWAN slot to get your dual drives.
Some people get offended if you suggest laptops that are significantly less than what they said their budget is.
Absolutely not! Actually I hope to find something significantly lower than 900€, since this is the very max I can spend. So if you have other suggestions, just shoot 
That said, I have no problems with the power on that one, but I see that the RAM is soldered, so it’s stuck at 16gb max. Too bad!
Also, something I forgot to mention, the 4000 series Ryzen never got BIOS updates to enable the feature that allows the CPU’s to work with amd-pstate frequency driver. So they will use acpi-powersave, and will only be able to park down to 1000 MHz for power savings. The 5000 series (even Lucienne, which are still Zen2 cores) will use amd-pstate driver instead, so will be able to park down to 400 MHz.
For soldered ram, all TXXs models (Intel and AMD) will be fully soldered ram. And with Txx G3/G4, all AMD’s are soldered. They did this for 2 reasons. The first is money. If you can’t upgrade your own ram, you have to pay their exorbitant prices to get the ram amount you want. They did at least make their ram upgrades less ridiculous though. The second, and less greedy reason, is performance. They all use LPDDR5 instead of DDR5. This allows for lower power usage and HIGHER performance, thus extracing the max from the processors (and iGP importantly) that they can.
You may want to look into the E14 Gen3 AMD’s. They’re IMO one of the value KINGS. They’ve got the previously mentioned Lucienne processors. Zen2, but with the same efficiency upgrades as Cezanne (Zen3). So a Ryzen 7 5700U is still 8 core, 16 thread, still Vega8, still incredibly good efficiency, but will usually go for a VERY good price for the level of performance it brings to the table. ANd while they only have 1 slot for ram upgrades w/ 8GB soldered, they ALSO have 2 SSD slots (1 m.2 2280, 1 m.2 2242). The stock screens are mostly…less than good, but they can be upgraded to the good screens fairly easily if you’re willing to do the work yourself.
Hey, this is interesting. I actually didn’t mention that I got an E14 G4 AMD at home…I assume that it’s better than G3, right?
Actually my mother is using it, but I could take it if I want.
The problem with that, and the reason I didn’t bothered mentioning it, is the monitor. You’re right, it’s less than good.
But if you say that they are easily upgradable, well…this changes the whole thing! So they can become good? Like 100%sRGB good? Any chance you could point me to a starting point on how to do it? Sorry, but it’s something I never did to upgrade a monitor and I’m not sure how easy it is and how to proceed. Thank you.
Yes, they can get implanted with the same 400-nit 100% sRGB low power screens as other models. Just need to find out which LCD is currently in it to know which one needs to be transplanted.
If it’s got linux on it, run…ummmm, oh hey, I don’t have access to my NAS right now to copy my lcd discovery script. I’ll update when I get home. I have a script that will print out the information for all attached displays to figure out what model you have without ripping it open (doesn’t work with all OEM’s laptops though).
Yeah, it’s got Linux on it.
A 400-nit 100% sRGB low power screen would be just awesome. I’ll wait for the script then, thank you very much!
Ok, you’ll need the edid-decode package installed to use this, just a simple one-liner, but it eliminates you needing to figure out which device is your monitor:
for lcd in /sys/class/drm/*; do echo $lcd; cat $lcd/edid | edid-decode; done
That’s the output
/sys/class/drm/card0
cat: /sys/class/drm/card0/edid: File o directory non esistente
EDID extract of 'stdin' failed: unknown format.
/sys/class/drm/card0-DP-1
EDID extract of 'stdin' failed: unknown format.
/sys/class/drm/card0-HDMI-A-1
EDID extract of 'stdin' failed: unknown format.
/sys/class/drm/card0-eDP-1
edid-decode (hex):
00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 0d ae 0a 14 00 00 00 00
29 1d 01 04 a5 1f 11 78 03 28 65 97 59 54 8e 27
1e 50 54 00 00 00 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01
01 01 01 01 01 01 36 36 80 a0 70 38 20 40 30 20
a6 00 35 ad 10 00 00 18 00 00 00 fe 00 4e 31 34
30 48 43 41 2d 45 41 45 0a 20 00 00 00 fe 00 43
4d 4e 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 fe
00 4e 31 34 30 48 43 41 2d 45 41 45 0a 20 00 02
----------------
Block 0, Base EDID:
EDID Structure Version & Revision: 1.4
Vendor & Product Identification:
Manufacturer: CMN
Model: 5130
Made in: week 41 of 2019
Basic Display Parameters & Features:
Digital display
Bits per primary color channel: 8
DisplayPort interface
Maximum image size: 31 cm x 17 cm
Gamma: 2.20
Supported color formats: RGB 4:4:4
First detailed timing includes the native pixel format and preferred refresh rate
Display is continuous frequency
Color Characteristics:
Red : 0.5898, 0.3496
Green: 0.3300, 0.5546
Blue : 0.1533, 0.1191
White: 0.3134, 0.3291
Established Timings I & II: none
Standard Timings: none
Detailed Timing Descriptors:
DTD 1: 1920x1080 60.001 Hz 16:9 66.721 kHz 138.780 MHz (309 mm x 173 mm)
Hfront 48 Hsync 32 Hback 80 Hpol N
Vfront 10 Vsync 6 Vback 16 Vpol N
Alphanumeric Data String: 'N140HCA-EAE'
Alphanumeric Data String: 'CMN'
Alphanumeric Data String: 'N140HCA-EAE'
Checksum: 0x02
/sys/class/drm/renderD128
cat: /sys/class/drm/renderD128/edid: File o directory non esistente
EDID extract of 'stdin' failed: unknown format.
/sys/class/drm/version
cat: /sys/class/drm/version/edid: Non è una directory
EDID extract of 'stdin' failed: unknown format.
You have an Innolux N140HCA-EAE in there currently. 30-pin 300-nit 45% NTSC. This is actually the same monitors that go back all teh way to the T480. Good thing, that means I don’t even need to look up the model of what you can replace it with, I know it by heart…
N140HCG-GQ2/GR2. Same monitor just the coating is different. 400-nit low power 72% NTSC. The single most common upgrade to the T480/T490/T14G1/T14G2 nowadays for anyone who wants to actually use it day to day without a dock.
Sounds good!
GQ2/GR2
Is there any substantial difference that I should know between the two? If so, what’s you suggestion? At this point I just blindly trust you 
GQ2 is the matte screen, GR2 is the anti-glare screen. Anti-glare is the marketing way of saying glossy but we tried to put a coating on it so it’s not quite so awful if there’s a light source near you.
MOST people will prefer the GQ2, but some like the anti-glare and think it looks better.
Great. Now, last questions.
I see that there are different brands (BOE, Innolux…). Any suggestion?
And, considering that I have never did it, is there anything else that I should be aware of before proceeding?
So, the other brands are “compatibles”. The N140HCG-GQ2/GR2 are made by Innolux, and only Innolux. If someone says N140HCG-GQ2 compatible, message them and make sure it’s 400-nit brightness compatible, not just “it’ll fit” compatible. There are panels by BOE and AUO that are every bit as good (even better) than the Innolux, so it’s not necessarily BAD to get a compatible. But you need to verify the compatibility is in the brightness and color accuracy, not just that it’ll fit. If you’re able to and ok purchasing from AliExpress, I can link you to a couple stores that I deal with regularly there (I buy a lot of replacement LCD’s due to my unwillingness to tolerate low brightness low contrast low color accuracy displays) that if you message them will make sure that you get one of the good panels (probably the Innolux even).
As to be aware of, if that model has the maintenance videos on the Lenovo support site, watch the videos before you do anything for how to do it. They’re very good, go step by step, and will make the process easy (if somewhat slow since you’re watching video, doing, watching video, doing again and again).
Would something like this get the job done?
I’d prefer not to purchase from AliExpress, I’d like to have it pretty soon and they usually have super long shipping time. But I’ll do it, if it’s worth it.
I’ll check the channel for videos then.
I’d contact them and verify that the panel sent would be 400-nit and 72% NTSC. Obviously, since it says they’re sending a BOE, it won’t be an actual N140HCG-GQ2.
But BOE does make some great panels, the NE140FHM-N61 is actually a slightly superior panel to the Innolux GQ2. But they also make some REALLY super awful panels.
Okay, I think I’ll play safe here and just get an Innolux so I avoid problems.
So, if you have some links for it, then shoot! Even if it’s AliExpress, I’ll look into it
So these are the 3 stores I use. I generally just message them when I need an LCD, and let them know what I need. So they’re used to getting messages like “I have an E14 Gen4 w/ a Innolux N140HCA-EAE currently, but I want to upgrade it to a 400-nit display. Do you have something that works for that?” Easier to just message and ask IMO than it is to search their inventory.
I use these the most, but I’ve had them not have LCD’s that would work a few times:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1101766901
These 2 I’ve used mostly when the first one doesn’t have something that’ll work for what I need:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1101745965
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1101017386
Thanks. I’ll keep them in mind but they take really too much time to get here…
I think that this would be okay too, since it’s Innolux and 400nits, right? I’d prefer to order from there but I want to be sure that this is the right display.
If it’s 400nits then it will be 72%ntsc too, I assume. Or do I have to check?
It definitely says it’s the Innolux, and I don’t see where it says “compatible” anywhere, so it should be.
Okay, I’ll assume that’s 72%ntsc too and go for it then.
Thank you very, very much.