The T490's successor is going to be called T14, the T590's is the T15, and the X390's the X13, and so on. They'll probably go the "n-th generation (202X)" route for model years, as they've been doing with the X1 series. We'll see what they're going to call the AMD versions. Source: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T14-X13-T490-X...

They should just call them T800 and T1000 if you ask me

I couldn't wait so I got the E495. I wanted the T495, but I'm not going to pay a premium for a laptop that's worse than previous revisions (no option for second battery, soldered RAM).

However, since I got a good deal on mine, I'll consider getting an upgrade if the next batch of laptops look good. I hope Lenovo backtracks on soldering on RAM and removing the option for a second battery for the T-series. If I want thin, I'll get an X-series, I got the T-series because it's a work horse that can be configured according to my needs. I'm not satisfied with the solution of having a USB battery bank as a backup.

Seems solved already - the AMD variant is simply labeled as being 5 better than the Intel.

Or did you mean the 490+10 = 4100 vs 500 naming problem?

The latter - historically they added or removed digits when the number overflowed. Both aren't very good solutions IMO.