[Video Review] Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 – The supreme leader of Workstations



Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 in-depth review

The ThinkPad P1 is definitely one of the most interesting laptops you can get from this brand. It has a 16-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and an alleged X-Rite Factory color calibration.In addition to that, it comes with beastly hardware, which maxes out with the Core i9-12900H, and the RTX A5500. This is a professional GPU, which not only has a ton of raw power, but also 16GB of ECC VRAM. Can't get more "Pro" than that!All of this is placed inside the typical industrial-looking, no-nonsense chassis we're all used to. We don't know if it's for the better, but what we can say e[...]

Pros

  • 2x DDR5 SODIMM + 2x M.2 PCIe x4 Gen 4 with RAID support
  • Very good thermals
  • No PWM (BOE NE160WUM-N64 (LEN41B5))
  • 92% of sRGB coverage and accurate colors with our Gaming and Web design profile (BOE NE160WUM-N64 (LEN41B5))
  • Comfortable spill-resistant keyboard
  • Good battery life
  • 2x Thunderbolt 4, SD card + optional IR face recognition and fingerprint reader
  • 5G support

Cons

  • High price
  • Not perfect GPU utilization

Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 - Specs

  • BOE NE160WUM-N64
  • Color accuracy  2.7  1.3
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 4000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 64GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11 Home, Windows 10 Pro
  • Battery
  • 90Wh, 90Wh , 94Wh
  • Body material
  • Aluminum, Carbon, Glass Fiber, Magnesium alloy
  • Dimensions
  • 359.5 x 253.8 x 17.7 - 18.2 mm (14.15" x 9.99" x 0.70")
  • Weight
  • 1.81 kg (4 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • 4.0, Thunderbolt 4, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • HDMI
  • 2.1
  • Card reader
  • SD
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.2
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • FHD with privacy shutter, fixed focus
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Dual Array Microphone, far-field, Dolby Voice
  • Speakers
  • 2x 2W Stereo Speakers, Dolby Atmos
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot
  • Kensington Nano Lock

All Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 configurations

#CommissionsEarned

[Intro]

There’s hardly anyone that does workstations better than Lenovo, and to demonstrate that, we have the ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 here today with us. It doesn’t compromise on anything but charges a pretty penny for its services, which you’ll be ready to spend once you’re done with the review.

[Design]

In typical ThinkPad fashion, we’ve got a plethora of materials. The lid is composed of carbon and glass fibers mixed with plastic, while the base and bottom panel use aluminum and magnesium alloy. This keeps the laptop pretty light for its size, weighing 1.81 kg and having a thickness of just 17.7 mm. The lid is a bit flexy, but the base is way sturdier.

[Input devices]

What’s more important is that it opens up with one hand, which is a sign of good build quality. From here, we can see the thin bezels that surround the display. They also house an FHD webcam, a shutter, as well as an optional IR sensor.

Moving to the base, to compensate for the lack of a NumPad, we see front-firing speakers and a power button that’s separated from the keyboard. It doubles as a fingerprint reader, which adds another layer of security. The main event is the keyboard, with spill resistance and a backlight. To no shock, typing on it is great. The red dot that you see between the G, H, and B keys is the TrackPoint, which pairs well with the physical buttons on top of the touchpad. The pad is covered in glass, so it’s both smooth and durable.

[Ports]

Next on the menu are the ports, split on the left and right. There is a proprietary power plug, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 connector, and an audio jack on the left. Switch sides, and we see the rest, with two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports and an SD card reader.

[Display]

While the display selection goes as high as a 4K UHD+ IPS panel, we went for a more modest FullHD+ display. It still has a 16:10 aspect ratio and gets bright enough, at 346 nits. The 92% sRGB coverage certainly helps with doing Creator work, with the other displays going even higher. The panel has decent accuracy with the stock settings, giving us a dE value of 2.7. Once we apply our Design and Gaming profile, it goes down to 1.3, which is close to being perfect and is totally usable for color grading.

All of our profiles will be linked down below, so you can choose which one suits your needs the most.

[Sound]

With all of their front-firing goodness, the Dolby Atmos speakers of the ThinkPad get loud and deliver quality audio that’s clear of deviations across all frequencies.

[Battery]

And you can play music and watch movies all day, thanks to the 90WH battery, which lasts for 14 hours and 48 minutes of Web browsing, or 10 hours and 36 minutes of video playback.

[Performance]

That’s while being equipped with a Core i7-12700H, which is among the most powerful processors that you can get your hands on. It delivers really good performance while being competitive with the Dell Precision series and the ZBooks from HP. For more power, there’s the Core i9-12900H, with the same number of cores and threads.

For graphics, there are plenty of options to choose from with both Pro-grade and Gaming GPUs. We have the RTX A1000, which is an entry-level professional GPU running on the same GPU die as the RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti. It does well in benchmarks, however, it doesn’t have the fancy ECC memory of the higher tier A3000, A4500, and A5500.

[Cooling]

Cooling the Core i7 and the A1000 is left to two heat pipes and two fans. There are several metal plates that extend to the VRAM and VRMs, which also need attention.

In the stress test, the ThinkPad isn’t as competitive as gaming laptops, however, it’s still capable. In quick bursts, the P-cores spike up to 3.13 GHz, while being able to sustain 2.72 GHz for long runs, giving you a great experience when editing videos, for example.

The GPU does well in prolonged heavy use as well, having a very stable clock speed of 1650 MHz and a temperature of just 73°C.

What this means in terms of comfort is that the fans don’t get very noisy, while the base maintains a hotspot of 41.7°C, which is far from bothersome.

[Teardown and upgradeability]

Lastly, we have to look inside and see how the laptop will hold up in the future. We’re not surprised to see two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of DDR5 memory as well as two M.2 slots for Gen 4 SSDs.

If you want to see how to open the ThinkPad P1 Gen 5, we have a separate video, which explains the process.

[Verdict]

There’s hardly anything to complain about when it comes to the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 5, as it’s got a full package for any type of work that you’ve got planned. It’s compact and performs well, while the display is a shining beacon for creativity. It is pricy, however, but so is the ZBook series from HP, which are heavier, but also bring more power, so you’d have to be the judge of what’s more important.

For more tests and info about the ThinkPad P1 Gen 5, we have an in-depth review on our website. It’s linked down below.

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