Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 (15”) Mobile Workstation Review

The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 is a 15.6″ ultralight mobile workstation. The ThinkPad P1 is a near-identical twin of the popular ThinkPad X1 Carbon business-class Ultrabook, first launched in 2012. It is safe to say this new model now is one of the thinnest mobile workstations.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 workstation is designed for people who specialize in industrial, mechanic, building or 3D modeling design.

The device we are testing is powered by the latest 9th generation Core i7-9850H processor. Besides, it comes with 32GB DDR4 and 2TB SSD coupled with NVIDIA Quadro T2000 MAX-Q. Of course, it has another version that features the Intel Xeon E-2276M processor and 64GB RAM.

Provided By: Lenovo

Price: $2.460.91

Cheaper ALT. Price: $1,799.99

Closer Look:

ThinkPad P1 2019 looks similar to its predecessor. Encased in carbon fiber and magnesium alloy guarantees its thickness, weight, and solidity. And meanwhile, the texture adds a sense of class to the laptop.

Just like its predecessor, this workstation adopts a three-sided narrow bezel design. Adding a 15.6-inch matte display (BOE NE156QUM-N66), the workstation brings the user a better visual experience. According to its configuration, the display’s resolution is up to 3840×2160. Its Adobe RGB color gamut covers 100% and X-Rite Pantone Factory Color Calibrated, brightness reaching 500nit and also supports Dolby Vision HDR 400

There are two cameras on the front. The one on the left is the infrared web camera which supports facial recognition. And the other on the right is the HD 720p camera with ThinkShutter privacy cover.

Keyboard, Touchpad:

This is the touchpad, and users who prefer ThinkPad laptops are no strange to it. Its keyboard boasts a comfortable hand feel, which is one of its highlights. In addition, the keyboard is backlit. To adjust the brightness of the blacklight, press the key with the backlight icon twice or three times. This way, the user had no difficulty typing in the dim light. Hands down, best ever keyboard from Lenovo. The keys are responsive with strong feedback, beautifully backlit, and seamless to boot.

Ports:

The ports on the right side include two USB-A ports and an SD card reader. A high-efficient SD is essential to a workstation. The rated power of its adapter is 135W, It can use USB-C chargers aswell.

The ports on the left include two Thunderbolt 3 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, a mini RJ45, and 3.5mm audio/mic.

Internals:

It’s easy to remove the back cover. After taking out all the screws, we can see its internals. The laptop has two fans and two pipes. The model we are testing comes with two 32GB DDR4 2666MHz chips. It comes with a 2TB Samsung PICe NVMe SSD. There is an extra M.2 PCI-E interface for the user to expand its storage.

This workstation has been built to keep you connected and up and running. An 80 watt-hour internal battery keeps the workstation powered up to 13 hours. For demanding tasks that drain your system, Lenovo’s Rapid Charge technology will bring you back up to 80% capacity in just an hour.

The device features an Intel’s AX200NGW which supports 802.11ax standards. Built to reach speeds of up to 9.6Gbps, it is the fastest WiFi.

With the Dolby Atmos speaker system and dual far-field microphones, the display is matched with an audio experience ideal for listening to music or a conference call. I expected the speakers to be horrible but they are really not. They’re fine. I’ve seen far, far worse on equally expensive gaming laptops.

Specs:

Performance:

This workstation is powered by the ninth-generation Core i7-9850H processor. The chip has six cores and twelve threads. Its frequency is 2.6GHz, up to 4.6GHz. We used CineBench R15 and R20 to test its CPU. The results display that the i7-9850H processor’s single-core score is 193cb and its multi-core score is 1066cb. As a Hexa-core standard-voltage processor, it has a quite good performance.

On CineBench R20, the chip’s single-core score is 438pts, and its multi-core score is 1984pts.

Geekbench scores are 1240 for Single-Core and 4725 for Multi-Core Score

Thermals are very acceptable. The laptop is never too hot to touch (unlike some of the thin-and-light gaming laptops). The fan noise is minimal even at full tilt. With 125mV undervolting, I am getting 3.30Ghz CPU clock with the CPU and GPU at full utilization, which is pretty reasonable for something this size.

GPU:

The GPU, an Nvidia Quadro T2000, it has 4GB GDDR5 memory, rather than the newer GDDR6 that’s found in the Quadro RTX graphics cards, but it’s built on the Turing architecture instead of Pascal. It consists of 1024 shading units. The GPU is operating at a frequency of 1200 MHz, which can be boosted up to 1620 MHz. As far as performance goes, it’s great.

SSD Speeds:

The Samsung 2 TB NVMe SSD included here offers outstanding speeds, and there’s even room to add a second SSD if this one doesn’t cut it.

Battery Life:

It sports an 80Wh battery. The battery is not great. I would have liked to see an 99.8 watt-hour battery here. I get 4 hours of normal battery use. As a laptop powered by a standard-voltage i7 processor and featuring a professional independent graphics cards, it had a good performance in terms of its battery life.

Conclusion:

The hardware itself is everything you’d expect from a top-of-the-line Lenovo. The keyboard is excellent, the TrackPoint is fantastic, and the trackpad works very well. The fingerprint reader almost reads instantly, facial recognition works great but, I never use it. The webcam works great and I appreciate the slider to hide the camera when not in use. The Biggest negative of this great workstation is its a fingerprint magnet.

The ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 is aimed at entry to midrange technical users and delivers great performance for the target audience. It produced solid scores on all the tests we ran. Overall, this machine is a lean mean workstation with great performance without the bulk.