Review
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 [Gen 3] For CAD on the go, this sleek ultraportable 15.6-inch laptop impresses, but it struggles a little to stand out from its predecessors, writes Greg Corke The ThinkPad P1 was Lenovo’s response to the ultra-portable 15.6-inch mobile workstations that had been flying out the doors at Dell and HP. This year’s Gen 3 model is more evolution than revolution, featuring the same chassis as the Gen 1/ Gen 2, but there’s still plenty for CAD users in search of a good balance of performance and portability from their mobile workstation. Stand-out features of the Gen 3 model include a new super-bright 600nit UHD (3,840 x 2,160) LCD display, optional LTE WWAN for mobile broadband and enhanced cooling. In terms of core specs, there’s a choice of 10th Gen Intel Core CPUs up to eight cores and 5.3GHz, a small improvement over the 9th Gen Intel Core CPUs in the ThinkPad P1 Gen 2, but the same choice of Turing-based Nvidia Quadro T1000 or T2000 GPUs.
Sleek & minimal The ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 is a stylish machine. It’s thin (18.4mm) and light (starting at 1.7kg) and comes with a new matt black ‘anti smudge’ soft-touch finish that significantly reduces marks from greasy fingerprints, a bugbear of the Gen 1/Gen 2 models. There’s an understated carbon fibre weave on the rear of the panel to show off the premium materials. Like its predecessors, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 has been designed to withstand (and is Mil-Spec tested for) cold, heat, vibration, shock, dust and other hazards. Built with a magnesium chassis, the laptop has a really solid feel to it: the hinge is firm, the display is rigid and the keyboard has very little give. All of this is trademark ThinkPad. The keyboard is seamless, so it blends in with the palm rest, but there’s no numeric keypad. There’s just about the right amount of travel on the keys, making typing a pleasure, a reminder of just how unimpressed I am with my 2019 MacBook Pro’s ‘butterfly’ keyboard. Equally, the glass touchpad has the perfect amount of resistance with full multitouch support. For those who prefer their input device to be old school, there’s the classic trackpoint, along with three physical www.AECmag.com
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mouse buttons. To the right WiFi, but the built-in card is a Product spec of the keyboard, there’s a much more elegant solution for fingerprint reader that uses those frequently on the road. ■ Intel Core i9 10885H CPU touch rather than swipe for The ThinkPad P1 is (8 Cores) 2.4GHz, easier authentication, and eminently serviceable, with a 5.3GHz Turbo) Windows Hello technology is metal and carbon fibre bottom ■ Nvidia Quadro T2000 GPU (4GB built into the optional Hybrid panel that’s attached with seven GDDR5 memory) IR camera, complete with captive Phillips head screws. ■ 32GB (2 x 16GB) privacy shutter. The Dolby There are two slots for RAM DDR4 memory Atmos speaker system is said and two for M.2 SSDs, as well as ■ 1TB NVMe SSD to be an improvement over the access to the WiFi/WWAN and ■ Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + Bluetooth Gen 2. The clarity is superb and the 4 cell Li-Polymer 80Wh ■ Integrated Mobile volume loud, which is great for battery, though this is quite Broadband 4G LTE-A, video calls, but it lacks bass. fiddly to replace. Rapid Charge Fibocom L860-GL The Gen 3 comes with a Technology means you can go ■ 15.6”UHD (3,840 x 2,160) LCD IPS choice of 15.6-inch panels from zero to 80% charge in 30 600nit, Anti-Glare 100% Adobe panel — two FHD (1,920 x 1,080) mins and from zero to 40% in ■ From 1.7kg and two 4K (3,840 x 2,160). 15 mins after plugging in. ■ 362 (w) x 246 (d) Our test machine’s new Finally, the ports: there’s a x 18.4mm (h) colour-calibrated 4K LCD decent selection, including ■ Windows 10 Pro IPS 600nit panel is a thing of two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 for Workstation beauty, delivering incredible (one of which is always on), ■ 3 year warranty brightness, super-sharp detail, two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 and ■ £2,933 (Ex VAT) and an impressive range of HDMi 2.0. The machine is too lenovo.com colour and contrast, with slender for a full-sized Ethernet support for Dolby Vision HDR port, so Lenovo bundles a and 100% Adobe. The bundled Pantone USB-C to Ethernet adapter instead. X-Rite Color Assistant software allows you to choose between colour profiles, Specs and performance including sRGB, Adobe RGB and DCI-P3. For a machine of this size, you get a decent Blacks appear really black and, with amount of processing power, although an anti-glare finish, there’s virtually no it’s not a marked improvement over the reflection. It really is a joy to behold. ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 — the main difference Connectivity is bang up to date with being ‘Comet Lake’ 10th Gen Intel Core integrated Wi-Fi 6, a relatively new WiFi CPUs instead of ‘Coffee Lake’ 9th Gen. standard previously called 802.11ax. Our test configuration is one of the highest It replaces 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) and not performing models, equipped with an Intel only boasts faster speeds (up to 9.6 Gbps Core i9-10885H processor (eight cores, 2.4GHz, 5.3GHz Turbo), 32GB of DDR4 (2 x 16GB) memory, an Nvidia Quadro T2000 GPU, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. On paper, the Core i9-10885H might have a 5.3GHz Turbo, but this is a theoretical maximum and in our singlethreaded Solidworks CAD benchmark, we mostly saw it hovering around 4.6GHz/4.7GHz, with very occasional bursts of 5.0GHz. But performance is good. It took 79 secs to export our IGES test model, three seconds quicker than a ‘Coffee Lake’ Intel Xeon E2286M in a Dell compared to 3.5 Gbps) but is also said to Precision 7540 and only 4 secs slower work much better on congested networks than the Intel Core i9-10900K, which is with lots of connected devices. Of course, a the current fastest desktop CPU for singleWi-Fi 6 router is needed to take advantage. threaded workflows. Wi-Fi 6 was also available on the In our multithreaded render tests, the Gen 2, but the new model increases the ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 did well, on par with connectivity choice with an optional LTE the Dell Precision 7540, which has a much WWAN card for mobile broadband – larger chassis so more substantial cooling. simply insert a Nano-SIM card on the side But don’t expect to get similar performance of the machine, just as you would for a to an equivalent desktop CPU, which can mobile phone. You can of course tether the clock much higher when all eight cores laptop to your smartphone via Bluetooth or are in use. That said, the ThinkPad P1 September / October 2020
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