Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 Review
The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 shouldn’t be a mere 15.6” laptop computer; it’s a Cell Workstation configurable with a skilled NVIDIA Quadro graphics processor, ECC reminiscence, and Intel Xeon CPU with vPro. This may be packaged in an especially mild 3.75+ Lbs chassis, making it a robust laptop computer for its weight.
The ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 has been designed for professionals engaged on demanding apps that require potent processors and loads of reminiscence.
People working with 3D purposes could need a licensed Quadro driver, and a few patrons may additionally purchase this workstation for its licensed sturdiness. As such, there’s a premium related to among the design and options, which we are going to go over.
Specs Highlights
Configuration as examined
On this overview, we’re particularly testing the mannequin with a 2.7Ghz i7-10885H CPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD (Samsung MZVLB1T0HBLR-00L7) with the 4K OLED show. The GPU is an NVIDIA Quadro T2000 with 4GB of VRAM.
At publishing time, this configuration on the official Lenovo product web page has an estimated value of $5040, and Lenovo was providing a reduced worth of $2670.67 by way of eCoupon (code: THINKCMSALE). Coupons are momentary by nature and is perhaps discontinued at any time. Additionally, essentially the most reasonably priced ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 begins at $1704.62 on Lenovo’s web site.
Configuration choices
The system configuration choices can assist a wide selection of costs, with the bottom model promoting for $2939 and the fully-loaded one retailing at an MSRP of $6734. That mentioned, Lenovo had some enormous low cost (~50%) this week, so it’s value wanting on the official web site.
Elements such because the Quadro GPUs bear extra worth for professionals who need licensed drivers and particular further options not discovered within the gaming counterpart GPU.
The ECC reminiscence can also be one thing that some customers would possibly need and protects in opposition to reminiscence errors for the best possible system stability.
ECC reminiscence is one thing that the common person doesn’t learn about or need. Should you don’t see why you’ll want to have ECC reminiscence or Quadro GPUs, then you definitely don’t “need” it.
- CPU: i7-10750H (base), i7-10850H (+$310), i7-10850H (+$440), i9-10885H (+$890), Xeon W-10855M (+$1100)
- GPU: NVIDIA Quadro T1000 or T2000 with Max-Q 4GB
- RAM: 8, 16, 32, or 64GB of DDR4 2933MHz of RAM, user-replaceable. With some CPUs, ECC reminiscence reveals up as an possibility.
- 15.6-inch Show
- FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS anti-glare, 300nits, 72% colour gamut
- FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, anti-glare with Dolby Imaginative and prescient™ HDR, 500 nits
- UHD (3840 x 2160) LCD IPS, anti-glare with Dolby Imaginative and prescient™ HDR, 600 nits
- UHD (3840 x 2160) OLED, AR/AS, touchscreen with Dolby Imaginative and prescient™ HDR True Black, 400 nits
- Storage
- Two bodily M.2 slots (for RAID possibility), 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or 2TB Intel OPAL SSD.
ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 Design and Ports
The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 has a basic and fashionable ThinkPad design confirmed to achieve success for enterprise customers. You possibly can admire the aesthetic facet with the pictures, and we’ll deal with the target advantages and potential pitfalls.
The chassis is usually made from carbon-fiber and magnesium with a soft-pain on prime, just like the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The show back-cover is the one place the place you’ll be able to see the carbon weave sample, and it provides a contact of sophistication whereas reminding folks what’s beneath.
Lenovo’s gentle paint is agreeable to the contact, not slippery, and really proof against put on and tear – extra so than bare aluminum.
As common with the ThinkPad line of product, the laptop computer has handed a dozen or so MIL-STD-810 assessments and doubtless has a spill-resistant keyboard, though we didn’t put this to the take a look at.
The underside cowl may be opened by eradicating screws, which provides you entry to the elements. There are two DDR4 RAM slots and two M.2 SSD slots, nice for upgrades and repairs.
“THE 3.75+ LBS WEIGHT OF THE LENOVO THINKPAD P1 GEN 3 IS A MASTERPIECE IN ITSELF”
The three.75+ Lbs weight of the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 is a masterpiece in itself, and anybody who carries a typical 5.5+ Lbs workstation is aware of that it’ll make a giant distinction in terms of mobility and journey – particularly in case you typically fly to fulfill purchasers and colleagues.
To provide you an instance, listed here are the respective weights of a handful of opponents. HP ZBook 15 G6 (5.7 Lbs), MSI WS75 (5 Lbs), Razer Blade 15 Studio Version (4.85 Lbs), and the closest, the Dell Precision 5530 (4.4 Lbs).
Keyboard and Trackpad
The total-size keyboard is great and the most effective we’ve examined on a 15.6” laptop computer. There’s ample key-travel, and the keys are curved and comfy to the contact. The plastic is designed to repel finger grease, which is a plus for heavy keyboard customers.
The trackpad is massive, however not huge – some 13.3” laptops have bigger trackpads. Nevertheless, I think that most individuals utilizing Workstations like this primarily use a mouse.
The bodily trackpad buttons are comfy and correct than in my view. It’s very true for “click & drag” operations and small objects choice the place you need to be 100% certain that the cursor received’t transfer as you mouse-click (instance: polygon vertices in a CAD app).
Thinkpad P1 Gen 3 Ports
The large availability of ports is extremely handy if it’s essential to join to numerous peripherals. Workstation customers are in all probability extra liable to be linked to a number of shows, printers, and custom-peripherals than your typical workplace employee.
With a full array of ports, together with a full-size USB+HDMI and highly effective ThunderBolt 3 ports, there aren’t limitations as to what you’ll be able to hook up with, and no danger of forgetting dongles when it’s essential to join essentially the most.
The variety of ports is an important distinction with extra compact and ultra-thin 15” shopper laptops on this worth vary.
- 2x USB-A, 2x Thunderbolt 3
- 1x full-size HDMI 2.0
- 1x 3.5mm audio, 1x SD full-size
- 1x proprietary Ethernet
- 1x safety lock port, 1x 4G LTE (optionally available)
ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 Show
We’ve the OLED 15.6-inch show, so the colours are vibrant, and the ~588 NITs measured brightness is often greater than vibrant sufficient, in any circumstances. Observe that the OLED show is rated for 400 NITs, however it does peak effectively above that, as our assessments present.
I believe that OLED is the very best for media consumption due to the right blacks. Additionally, for coding and high-contrast textual content, I discover it to be extra comfy too. The colour accuracy is excellent (we measured 100% sRGB, 96% Adobe RGB, 99% of P3 with SyderXElite), however in case you work in design or require the very best colour matching, the IPS 4K show -might- be a greater possibility.
As a result of it’s a workstation, all shows come out absolutely calibrated from the manufacturing unit, which is a plus for individuals who purchase laptops for his or her complete crew. Finally, you would need to recalibrate them, nevertheless.
For utilitarian purposes that don’t want high-resolution or super-precise colours, the bottom FHD show (300 NITs, no HDR certification) will just do tremendous. For extra satisfying media consumption, the FHD+HDR show tends to have higher distinction and colours too.
Remember the fact that FHD shows are rather more battery-friendly than their 4K counterparts, typically by ~30%-40%, however workstations are, normally, run with energy linked.
4K shows are wonderful in case you work with tremendous textual content (code, writing, studying) as a result of the textual content will seem very clean. The identical factor is true for purposes that use plenty of wireframe 3D graphics like CAD and 3D modeling apps.
- 1920 x 1080 IPS anti-glare, 300nits, 72% colour gamut
- 1920 x 1080 IPS, anti-glare with Dolby Imaginative and prescient™ HDR, 500 nits
- 3840 x 2160 LCD IPS, anti-glare with Dolby Imaginative and prescient™ HDR, 600 nits
- 3840 x 2160 OLED, AR/AS, touchscreen with Dolby Imaginative and prescient™ HDR True Black, 400 nits
Elective Digital Pen
The ThinkPad Pen Professional is optionally available ($99.99, with Wacom AES 2.0) however Lenovo offered us with one for testing functions. The pen is huge and comfy like a daily pen, so it might be appropriate for long-term use (versus simply taking notes for ~45mn).
I’m no designer, however I can verify that the Ink could be very quick and responsive. Now, this pen may not be nearly as good as an iPad 10 Professional’s for sketching functions, however I discover it to be fast and correct.
The efficiency will seemingly be restricted by the app’s brushes quite than the Pen itself and Home windows OS. For extra particulars concerning the pen, watch the official video:
Webcam
Relying in your show possibility, the webcam shall be a plain one or a fancier one with the secondary IR digital camera for a safe unlock. Each may have ThinkShutter, a bodily shutter that stops the digital camera from seeing something. In lots of locations, it’s a should and beats tape on the digital camera!
The webcam is inside the high quality commonplace for high-end laptops, however that’s not saying a lot. Typically, even a mid-range or low-end cellphone ought to yield a better picture high quality for video conferences and such.
The 2020 work at home will hopefully push OEMs to incorporate larger high quality cameras. Just lately, decreasing the cameras’ measurement has been a precedence to have a small bezel, however high quality must rise too.
ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 Velocity Take a look at
We don’t overview plenty of Workstations since principally we’re a consumer-oriented web site, however I’ve an affinity for them since I labored within the video video games business for ~13 years.
First, I wished to point out how selecting totally different CPUs have an effect on the uncooked CPU/RAM efficiency profile. Secondly, we are able to examine this with basic work laptops to point out you the way having a workstation might enhance your work scenario.
If we have a look at the uncooked CPU numbers with a take a look at like Geekbench, you’ll be able to see that going from a Core i7 to a Core-i9 or a Xeon CPU does kick efficiency into a better gear (and into larger worth too).
The graphics and artistic assessments resembling PCMark 10 Inventive and 3DMark FireStrike present that the graphics efficiency of our take a look at laptop computer is sort of excessive. Keep in mind that components of the graphics assessments might nonetheless be CPU-limited, so we don’t exclude {that a} sooner processor would elevate the graphics scores even additional.
And this isn’t even contemplating the extra worth for some customers to have Quadro-certified GPU drivers, and their app-specific optimizations. It’s robust to seize that worth in benchmarks, however prospects who “need” Quadro GPUs don’t want any convincing.
When engaged on compute-intensive purposes, the laptop computer followers will kick-in comparatively rapidly. The noise isn’t too loud for me, however it will depend on your tolerance. If you really want one thing quiet, you would possibly choose a desktop as a result of the P1 fan -will be ON frequently.
That’s true for any cellular workstation that performs a compute-intensive job. Efficiency generates warmth, and warmth must go away.
There’s an possibility for ECC RAM, which is great for individuals who need essentially the most excellent system stability. Once more, in case you don’t know why or in case you want it, you in all probability don’t.
ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 Battery Life
Battery life isn’t usually important for Workstations as a result of they aren’t used for ultra-mobility. As such, these computer systems typically function high-powered processors, graphics playing cards, and 4K shows. They’re actually meant to interchange a desktop and its monitor.
That mentioned, the 80Whr battery could be very massive, for the sub-4Lbs weight. With the 135W power-supply, you’ll be able to cost it from 0% to 32% in a pinch in ~30mn, which is fairly quick.
Within the PCMark 8 “work” battery take a look at, a typical office-work benchmark, our laptop computer lasted for ~3h43mn. This size shouldn’t be unhealthy in any respect for such a robust laptop computer with a 4K show (at 110 NITs of brightness). With a FHD show, it might final 5.5 or 6 hours, in our estimation.
That mentioned, laptops designed for ultra-mobility will have a tendency to attain even larger, with some reaching 9/11 hours at this take a look at.
Once more, take into account that battery life will considerably range relying in your show decision and brightness. After all, the apps you utilize have a significant affect on power consumption.
Conclusion
The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 is a wonderful 15.6-inch workstation, which is highly effective and comes with quite a lot of order-time configuration flexibility. Regardless of the use case, it has ample choices to get the job finished and do it securely (vPro chipset).
It’s particularly attention-grabbing to the road-warriors due to its light-weight and MIL-810G-STD confirmed sturdiness as a result of it reduces general journey fatigue and lowers the danger of getting a breakdown throughout a mission, which is able to value hundreds of {dollars} in delay. I journey so much for work, and one fixed fear is having my laptop computer die on me.
“AN EXCELLENT 15.6-INCH WORKSTATION”
Should you don’t know why you would want Quadro, ECC reminiscence, or a Xeon processor, you -might- have the ability to discover an alternate in gaming laptops. It is perhaps heavier however extra cost-efficient, relying on the configuration.
However I doubt that Enterprise prospects would think about this type of corner-cutting and would significantly think about the ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 for his or her workforce.
Total product ranking: 9.1/10
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