Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Review

Specifications:

• Series-P15s
• Brand-Lenovo
• Specific Uses For Product-Multimedia, Personal, Business
• Screen Size-15.6 Inches
• Operating System-Windows 10 Pro
• Human Interface Input-Microphone
• CPU Manufacturer-Intel
• Graphics Card Description-Dedicated
• Special Feature-Anti reflective
• Colour-Black

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Introduction

When we think of professional workstations, ‘ThinkPad’ is the name that comes to mind. Since the time the ThinkPad brand was created by IBM, it has been a staple workforce for the business class and has stayed the same even after it was bought by Lenovo.

True to its name, the Lenovo ThinkPad P15 again proves that we have a solid ThinkPad on our hands. It should be the go-to laptop for any business and we will let you know why we think this way with this review.

Design

‘Robust’ and ‘Industrial’ are the words that come to mind when we look at Lenovo ThinkPad P15 for the first time. Its bulky structure and the huge bezels might be a deal-breaker for some home users. However, it was never meant to look good; it is meant to be purely functional.

It is also as heavy as it looks, at 2.8 kg. However, it is meant to stay at one place, plugged into the mains with its fans blaring, performing any task thrown at it. For fans of the industrial design, the ThinkPad is drool-worthy with a matte finish and the carved ThinkPad logo with the glowing red LED that makes the dot of the ‘i’.

Another point to consider is that the laptop is certified to comply with the MIL-STD 810G U.S. standard, which is why the laptop feels so rugged in nature. The laptop can also handle any harsh conditions thrown at it such as sudden jerks, shocks, extreme temperatures, sand, dust, humidity, and more. In fact, it is bulkier than most of its immediate competition.

Configurations

The base version of Lenovo ThinkPad P15 comes with Intel 10th Gen Core i5 CPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD, Nvidia Quadro T1000 GPU and an FHD display. The popular medium spec version comes with Intel 10th Gen Core i7 CPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, Nvidia Quadro T2000 GPU and an FHD display.

However, if your work demands it, you can spec it up to transform it into the beast it was meant to be; with Intel’s Xeon CPU (both 6-core and 8-core versions are available), 128GB DDR4 RAM, two 2TB NVMe SSDs, Nvidia Quadro RTX 51000 Max-Q GPU and a non-touch 4K display.

Our review unit came with Intel 11th Gen Core i7 – 11950H vPro CPU, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU and a 15.6” FHD display.

Performance

If the Lenovo ThinkPad P15 was built with one specific aspect in mind, it is ‘performance’. The laptop can handle heavy workloads without breaking a sweat. It crushed the Geekbench score at 9306, while the category average was a measly 6575.

The usual multi-Chrome tabs were not enough to make the laptop even take notice. Hence, we had to resort to running workbench applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Handbrake, etc. However, we were amazed to see the laptop perform exceptionally well in all of these applications too. Hence, we asked it to encode a video in Blender and it completed the task within minutes.

Display

Since the laptop is geared towards heavy commercial workloads, there is no OLED or higher refresh rate here. Instead, you get a robust 15.6” 60Hz IPS LCD display with 600 nits of brightness.

If gaming or creative work is your array, you are better off connecting it to an external monitor. However, we need to mention that the inbuilt display is enough for the daily tasks it is supposed to undertake, such as CAD design, industrial applications, AI simulation, etc. You can also opt for a 4K display with 3840 x 2160 resolution.

Audio

The fact that audio was not even a consideration while designing this laptop is evident the minute you fire up a YouTube video or Spotify. It is an overall disappointment, to say the least.

Although the huge speaker grille at the top of the keyboard creates the illusion of great sound quality, two small orifices inside the grille actually fire out the audio. Although they are able to get very loud, there is no sign of bass and the clarity begins to disappear at higher volumes. Even though it might seem bad, it is again functional and is perfect for commercial usage.

Input

Being a Thinkpad, it still comes with the trademark red TrackPoint nub as well as including a mouse and keyboard. The trackpad is also a typical ThinkPad affair with three bulky buttons, again keeping in line with industrial usage. It is also large enough for making use of the Windows gestures with 3.9” x 2.8” surface area.

The keyboard seems to be comfortable even for long typing sessions since it has larger crisp lettering and adequate spacing between keys. Since it complies with the MIL-STD 810G U.S. standard, the keyboard is also spill-resistant, which is always good for the environments the laptop is supposed to work in. The bulky design of the laptop also ensures that there is adequate key travel for comfortable typing. 

Battery

The battery life of the Lenovo ThinkPad P15 is lacklustre. However, that is expected given the heavy usage that the laptop is built for. However, if we consider the normal tasks such as internet browsing and basic office usage, the battery performs really well.

We were able to run it for 10 hours 50 minutes by connecting it to Wi-Fi and looping videos by keeping the display at 150 nits. This time is again considerably higher than the category average of 6 hours and 20 minutes.

Connectivity

Being a commercial laptop, it has a plethora of connectivity and security options. It comes with a fingerprint scanner and an optional IR camera with Windows Hello facial recognition. It includes the well-touted TPM 2.0 chip required by Windows 11.

On the left side of the laptop, you have a 3.5mm combo jack, an optional nano-SIM slot, USB-A 3.2 port and an HDMI 2.1 port. The backside of the laptop has 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-C port, a barrel port for charging and an RJ45 port. On the right side, the laptop includes an SD card slot, another USB-A 3.2 port and a security lock.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 put other workstation laptops to shame with its stellar performance and amazing build quality. Although a bit on the expensive side, it gives you the best bang for your buck. If you can look past the dated and bulky design, and a lacklustre industrial battery performance, it is the ideal laptop for any workbench.

Additionally, it has all the necessary ports, security and the durability of a tank to take on anything thrown at it. Hence, it is the ‘ideal workstation’ and the ThinkPad brand has again proved its mettle with the Lenovo ThinkPad P15.