Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 review: a true mobile workstation

We don’t sometimes overview laptops just like the ThinkPad P16 Gen 2. It exists in a class solely for artistic professionals working at massive organizations — a industrial PC designed with efficiency in thoughts above all else.

I used to be curious although: How does this stack up towards extra mainstream units? I’ve reviewed a variety of laptops over the previous few months geared toward balancing effectivity and efficiency in thin-and-light chassis. Just a few are reputable contenders to make our record of the best laptops, however none present the type of efficiency that avid gamers and creators require.

Are a type of a greater possibility for IT departments than a conventional workstation just like the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 2? In spite of everything, it’s thick and heavy, nevertheless it packs in additional highly effective elements aimed purely at rushing by means of demanding workflows and with some gaming thrown in. You received’t wish to lug it round, and whereas the ThinkPad P16 delivers its promised efficiency, it simply prices an excessive amount of for nearly everybody.

Specs and configurations

As is usually the case with laptops providing a ton of configuration choices, it’s not at all times attainable to purchase each given mixture at a given time limit. As of proper now, the $2,619 base mannequin has an Intel Core i7-14700HX CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, an Nvidia RTX 1000 Ada GPU, and a 16.0-inch FHD+ IPS show.

My overview unites has the identical CPU, RAM, and storage however upgrades to an RTX 4000 Ada GPU and a QHD+ IPS show, and it’s priced at a whopping $5,614. The largest leap is within the GPU, which by itself provides $1,560 to the worth. The most costly mannequin is a very stratospheric $10,453 with a Core i9-13980HX, 192GB of RAM, two 4TB SSDs in RAID 1, an RTX 5000 Ada GPU, and a 4K+ OLED show. Once more, the GPU improve could be very costly at $3,050 over the bottom mannequin and the RAM provides $1,120.

These are very costly costs, regardless of how you chop it. You’re getting a laptop computer that’s designed to satisfy the very exacting necessities of functions like AutoCAD the place rock-solid reliability is important, and also you’re paying a premium for that stage of certification. For those who don’t care about that, then you may get an equally highly effective gaming laptop computer just like the Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 9 for much less, and even an Apple MacBook Pro 16 that may get fairly costly, however not this costly.

Design

I used to be a bit of shocked once I pulled the ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 out of the field, as a result of it’s a lot bigger than any laptop computer we’ve reviewed in a very long time. This can be a correct cell workstation, by means of and thru.

It’s bigger even than most gaming laptops, notably in its 1.2-inch thickness and 6.5 pound weight. The Asus ProArt P16 is one other highly effective laptop computer geared toward creators, and it’s significantly smaller even with its personal massive 16-inch show. Not solely is it thinner and shallower nevertheless it’s quite a bit thinner at a most of 0.68 inches and lighter at 4.08 kilos. The final gaming laptop computer we reviewed, the Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 9, is roughly as massive in width and depth however thinner at 0.89 inches and lighter at 5.51 kilos.

These two are additionally very highly effective machines with nice efficiency, so it’s a bit of more durable to justify the ThinkPad P16’s sheer dimension. My spouse makes use of an Alienware M16 that’s additionally very highly effective, and it feels quite a bit smaller. However the ThinkPad P16 does supply an incredible thermal design that strikes plenty of air round, and it’s extra expandable than many laptops with the flexibility to equip twin SSDs for quicker storage efficiency. And Lenovo constructed the laptop computer to attain Impartial Software program Vendor (ISV) certification, which depends on steady efficiency to make sure reliability for professionals. However is the ThinkPad P16 too large? I feel it could be.

It’s additionally constructed of plastic with glass fiber on the skin, with a magnesium shell internally. It’s fairly sturdy, with no bending, flexing, or twisting within the lid, keyboard deck, or backside chassis. But it surely doesn’t really feel the identical as many different laptops in the identical value vary. The Apple MacBook Professional 16 is an instance of a laptop computer that exudes a sense of upper high quality, even when it’s no extra sturdy than the Thinkpad P16. In all probability, the plastic was utilized in half as a result of it’s already 6.5 kilos, which is fairly heavy. If the chassis have been all-metal, it could solely be heavier.

The aesthetic is fairly bland. Most laptops have a minimalist design at this time, with little or no if any of the bling of a number of years in the past. However the ThinkPad P16 takes that to an excessive, with virtually no character by any means. It’s a boring grey with boring strains, and it’s solely saved from being downright fugly by a few the same old ThinkPad splashes of crimson. It’s there within the dot on the “i” within the logos on the lid and palm relaxation and the TrackPoint nubbin embedded within the keyboard.

But it surely doesn’t comply with both the old-school black-on-black ThinkPad aesthetic or their newer, extra trendy look. After which there’s a crimson strip alongside the decrease fringe of the again chassis. Gaming laptops and the MacBook Professional 16 are both extra thrilling or extra elegant.

Keyboard and touchpad

The ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 has Lenovo’s non-ThinkPad keyboard, oddly sufficient, which is shallower than the ThinkPad model however has the identical massive sculpted keycaps and many key spacing. The switches are gentle and snappy, though the bottoming motion isn’t fairly easy sufficient to rank as considered one of my favourite keyboards. As normal, Apple’s Magic Keyboard stays on the prime of my record.

The touchpad is a mechanical model that’s OK. There’s the TrackPoint nubbin embedded within the keyboard as a nod to ThinkPad followers, however its two buttons take up house from the touchpad. That makes the swiping floor even smaller.

Connectivity and webcam

As is common with massive laptops like this, there’s loads of connectivity. There’s a mixture of trendy Thunderbolt 4 ports and legacy connections, alongside the aspect and the again of the chassis. The facility connector is proprietary. Wi-fi connectivity is one era behind.

The webcam is a 1080p model, so it meets the brand new commonplace. It’s high-quality. There’s no neural processing unit (NPU) on board, so the ThinkPad 16 can’t benefit from at this time’s AI with a quick however environment friendly chip. The GPU can be utilized, although, and it’ll present very quick AI processing at the price of extra energy utilization.

Efficiency

The ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 makes use of Intel Raptor Lake CPUs within the thirteenth or 14th generations. That iteration has had some points with instability that Intel has been engaged on, particularly these rated with a TDP of 64 watts or greater. That’s one thing to bear in mind. My overview unit used the Core i7-14700HX, a 55-watt half with 20 cores (eight efficiency and 12 Environment friendly) and 28 threads, operating at as much as 5.5GHz Max Turbo frequency. It’s a quick and power-hungry chipset that gives excellent efficiency for demanding artistic and, e.g., engineering functions.

It additionally makes use of the Nvidia RTX 4000 Ada GPU, which is geared toward these skilled functions and, as talked about above, is ISV-certified and so it offers some assurance that its efficiency will likely be dependable. This half is the primary distinction that comes with a workstation product like this — you’ll be able to’t discover it on client mainstream laptops. The RTX 4000 Ada makes use of the newest CUDA, RT, and Tensor cores for quick efficiency and homes 20GB of GPU reminiscence with superior AV1 encoders. It’s not optimized for gaming, nevertheless it performs quite a bit just like the GeForce RTX 4070 and in some instances like a 4080.

The ThinkPad P16 does very effectively towards a wide range of different machines Core Extremely Sequence 1 chipsets and the RTX 4070. It additionally stored up with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. It’s notably quick in single-core duties, and the RTX 4000 Ada churns by means of Cinebench R24.

Most telling amongst our benchmarks is the laptop computer’s efficiency within the Pugetbench Premiere Professional benchmark that runs in a stay model of Adobe’s Premiere Professional and may make the most of the GPU for quicker efficiency. It’s one of many quickest laptops we’ve examined, coming in behind the MacBook Professional 16 with numerous CPU optimizations that assist out however GPU cores that aren’t fairly as quick. Be aware that I included outcomes from the MacBook Professional 16 with the previous-gen M3 Max; the M4 Max was just lately launched and is more likely to be even quicker.

Merely put, the ThinkPad P16 is a really quick laptop computer for professionals, and it may be even quicker with a Core i9 CPU and an RTX 5000 Ada GPU that rivals the GeForce RTX 4090. Whether or not it’s quick sufficient given the excessive value comes down extra as to if you want an ISV-certified laptop computer as a result of your livelihood depends upon rock-solid reliability.

When you could have a laptop computer with these sorts of elements, you’ll naturally wish to think about enjoying some video games. The RTX 4000 Ada isn’t geared toward gaming and it doesn’t use the usual Nvidia gaming-oriented drivers. Besides, it’s a succesful gaming GPU.

To start with, it scores 15,993 within the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, which is quicker than the same old RTX 4070 rating of round 11,000. Actually, the Alienware M16 with an RTX 4080 scored 17,659 on this benchmark whereas the Legion 9i Gen 9 with the RTX 4090 rating 20,293. That locations the ThinkPad P16 nearer to the RTX 4080 — at the least, on this artificial benchmark.

Taking a look at a few real-life gaming benchmarks paints the same image. The ThinkPad P16 hit 102 frames per second (fps) in Murderer’s Creed Valhalla at 1600p and ultra-high graphics. That’s a bit slower than the 114 fps hit by the Asus ProArt P16 with its RTX 4070. In Cyberpunk 2077, the Thinkpad P16 managed 74 fps at 1600p and extremely graphics with FSR 2.1 enabled, in comparison with the Legion 9i Gen 9 at 106 fps. So, the RTX 4090 is quite a bit quicker. With ray tracing turned on, the ThinkPad P16 hit 60 fps in comparison with the Legion 9i Gen 9’s 88 fps.

In the end, you’ll be capable of run trendy titles at 1600p with graphics turned up at the least in addition to an RTX 4070.

Battery life

There’s a big 94 watt-hour battery packed into the ThinkPad P16, but additionally some power-hungry elements and a big, moderately high-res show. You don’t count on nice battery life from a laptop computer like this, and also you don’t get it.

I noticed simply 4.25 hours in our internet searching take a look at and round 5 hours in our video looping take a look at. These are fairly unhealthy, however then I acquired simply 42 minutes in our Cinebench R24 take a look at that runs the CPU at full pace. Meaning you’ll want to hold across the very heavy energy brick to get any actual work accomplished away out of your workplace. That makes for effectively over 7 kilos to hold round, making this a less-than-portable answer.

Show and audio

Lenovo provides a number of show choices for the ThinkPad P16, all 16.0 inches within the 16:10 facet ratio. You may get FHD+ (1920 x1200) IPS, QHD+ (2560 x 1800) IPS, 4K+ (3840 x 2400) IPS, and 4K+ OLED. The QHD+ IPS panel, which was on my overview unit, runs at as much as 165Hz, whereas the remainder are restricted to the extra pedestrian 60Hz. I feel QHD+ is simply sharp sufficient at this show dimension, though I want 4K+ for the sharpest textual content. Subjectively, the show was good however not nice — however I’m very spoiled by reviewing so many glorious OLED and mini-LED shows which might be spectacular out of the field.

After I examined the show with my colorimeter, I bumped into some points. Lenovo consists of the X-Ceremony Coloration Assistant utility to pick out numerous manufacturing facility calibrations, and none of them supplied excellent outcomes. The most effective end result got here from the “Not calibrated” setting, and people weren’t excellent in any respect for a laptop computer meant for professionals who are likely to demand a show with large and correct colours. These outcomes have been very poor, at 99% of sRGB, 76% of AdobeRGB, and 77% of DCI-P3, that are simply common for IPS shows at this time. Coloration accuracy was horrible, at a Delta-E of seven.19, and Gamma was method too vibrant at 1.7 (2.2 is commonplace and the overwhelming majority of at this time’s shows hit that worth).

The show was vibrant at 498 nits and distinction was good at 1,100:1. However regardless of which calibration I chosen, the colours have been simply unacceptable. The worst worth got here with the Rec. 709 setting that’s alleged to be optimized for video work, at a Delta-E of 11.88. That simply received’t minimize it. That’s unhealthy sufficient that there might one thing mistaken with my overview unit, however that’s the info I collected from my colorimeter.

Lenovo could must do some work on these settings or my overview unit may simply be a dud. However whenever you spend this type of cash for a laptop computer, you count on higher. I’m positive the 4K+ OLED show is great, and that will surely be my selection if I purchased the ThinkPad P16.

Audio is supplied by two upward-firing audio system, and there’s loads of quantity with clear mids and highs. However bass is missing, so that you’ll desire a pair of headphones or a Bluetooth speaker for something greater than YouTube movies and system sounds.

A laptop computer that you simply’ll solely need if you actually need it

Skilled workstations just like the ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 are invariably costly due to the engineering wanted to be ISV-certified, and professionals who depend on them to receives a commission can justify the worth to realize the best attainable stage of reliability. They’re not at all times the quickest choices except you’re utilizing an software that takes direct benefit of the capabilities of a particular element.

The ThinkPad P16 is certainly very costly, and it’s seemingly very dependable for that choose group of patrons. The efficiency of the industrial GPU can also be actually spectacular. But it surely’s additionally virtually unreasonably thick and heavy, and it’s not that a lot quicker than less-costly options (or in any respect). In the meantime, the show on my overview unit was very disappointing. Even those that demand ISV certification can seemingly discover a higher various.