Thinkpad T14s Gen 6 Snapdragon X Elite vs Thinkpad T14 Gen 6 AMD

Summary

In general Ubuntu support for ARM laptops is improving with each new release of the kernel. At the moment sound, camera, wifi and most other features work. However, twin displays with the dock, boot from dock and external HDMI are not yet supported. Power management is also sub-optimal.

Model	T14s Gen 6 ARM	T14 Gen 6 AMD	ARM vs AMD
Weight	1.23kg	1.47kg	better
Dimensions	312x220x20mm	315x225x20mm	tie
Screen (diagonal)	357	357	tie
Ports	Left 2xUSBC, right 2xUSBA	Left 2xUSBC,USBA, right: RJ45,USBA, microSD	worse
Battery	58Wh	57Wh	better
Geekbench 6.4	Single core 2347, Multi-core: 14312	Single Core 2893, Multi-core: 12324	tie
Speakers+microphone	works	works	tie
External headset	works	works	tie
Cameras (internal and external USB)	works	works	tie
Dock	partial (one screen only)	works	worse
Boot from dock	no	works	worse
LUKS encryption	works	works	tie
Firmware updater	no	works	worse
Hibernate/wake up	works	works	tie
Kernel upgradable	works	works	tie
wifi	works	works	tie
Hibernation for 1 hour	lost 4%	lost 1%	worse
SSD	M.2 2242	M.2 2280	Worse
HDMI	not detected	works	Worse

For the tests I used two models of the Lenovo Thinkpad:

1. T14s Gen 6 Snapdragon Elite X

2. T14 Gen 6 AMD Ryzen 7 Pro AI

Operating systems

For laptop 1 I used Ubuntu 26.04
For laptop 2 I used Ubuntu 26.04

Kernels

For laptop 1 7.0.0-10
For laptop 2 7.0.0-10

Processor

Laptop 1: Snapdragon X Elite X1E78100 Qualcomm Oryon 3.417 GHz, 12 physical cores (no hyperthreading)
Laptop 2: AMD Ryzen 7 350 (8 cores with hyperthreading) 2 to 5 GHz, w/Radeon 860M x 16

Battery

Laptop 1: 58Wh.
Laptop 2: 57Wh.

When put into hibernation laptop 1 lost 4% of power per hour. Laptop 2 lost 1%. The difference may be down either to the default sleep mode not being “deep” or for deep sleep not working at all. I will investigate.

Installation

Installation of Ubuntu 26.04 was successful with all options on both machines.

Thunderbird

Installation was successful and worked the same on both machines, including calendars.

Speakers and microphone

Internal speakers and microphone work on the ARM machine from kernel 7.0.0-10 and onwards.

Function keys

Brightness and sound controls now work on both machines.

Cameras

Both the internal camera and external Logitech 720P camera worked fine on both laptops.

Firmware Updater

This now works on both ARM and AMD machines.

Upgrading the kernel

You can install mainline as per the instructions on the mainline git repo with either machine.

Wifi

This works as expected on both laptops since kernel 6.18.6.

External monitors

Tested with a twin UHD display via Thinkpad USB-C Dock Gen 2.

This worked fine on laptop 2.

On laptop 1, however, closing the lid did not assign the main screen to one of the external monitors.

The first UHD external monitor was recognised at full resolution. The second external UHD monitor was not recognised, but was mirrored from the first. It does not appear as Display 3 in Displays control panel. Only the laptop (1) and first external monitor (2) appear. If you close the laptop the video on the external monitor freezes.

The same behaviour was observed with twin FHD monitors.

Changing the primary monitor to the internal display or vice versa worked, but it did not register the change in the Displays settings panel, which always shows the external monitor as primary.

HDMI

This doesn't work on laptop 1 at all.

With dock

On laptop 1, boot from the dock led to a fuzzy grub menu. On selecting Ubuntu the screen went black and did not boot. On laptop 2 this works fine.

Upgradeable Storage

Laptop 2 takes standard M.2 2280 drives, of which there are plenty of models up to 4TB. Laptop 1, however, accepts only M.2 2242, a 42mm long drive which is harder to source. I found only one model that has 4TB capacity. Most are 512GB-1TB. The 2230 drives can be used in a 2242 slot with an adaptor but 2280 drives are simply too large.