Thinkpad

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6

Posted on September 3, 2021September 2, 2021 by Adam Fowler

Lenovo’s X1 Yoga for 2021 is now out – the 6th generation in the line of X1 Yogas, bringing in several changes to the line. We’ve come a long way from the first release too, but in essence it’s still an all-rounder laptop that can be flipped and rotated in all different ways, with a stylus and touch screen to provide an adaptable piece of hardware.

Specs

Tech Specs

Processor	Up to 11^th Generation Intel^® Core™ i7-1185G7 Processor with vPro™ (3.00 GHz, up to 4.80 GHz with Turbo Boost, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 12 MB Cache)
Operating System	– Windows 10 Home – Windows 10 Pro – Linux Ubuntu
Display	– 14″ UHD+ 4K (3840 x 2400) IPS, anti-reflection, anti-smudge, touchscreen with Dolby Vision™, HDR, 500 nits, 90% DCI P3 Color Gamut, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions – 14″ FHD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, touchscreen with Privacy Guard, 500 nits 14″ FHD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, touchscreen, 400 nits, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions – 14″ FHD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-reflective, anti-smudge, touchscreen, low power, 400 nits Screen to body ratio = 83%; aspect ratio = 16:10
Memory	Up to 32 GB LPDDR4x 4266MHz
Battery	Up to 16.1 hours 57Whr (MM18) Rapid Charge (requires 65W PSU or higher)
Storage	Up to 1TB PCIe SSD
Graphics	Integrated Intel^® Iris^® X^eGraphics
Security	– Discrete Trusted Platform Module (dTPM) 2.0 – Optional: Human-presence detection sensor with IR camera – Smart Power On fingerprint reader integrated with power button (match-on-chip) – Webcam privacy shutter – Kensington lock slot
Audio	Dolby Atmos^® Speaker System – 4 x 360-degree far-field mics – Dolby Voice^® professional conferencing solution
Camera	720p HD with webcam privacy shutter Optional: Hybrid infrared (IR) / 720p HD with webcam privacy shutter
Dimensions (H x W x D)	14.9mm x 313mm x 223mm x / 0.59″ x 12.32″ x 8.77″
Weight	Starting at 3 lbs (1.35 kg)
Color	Storm Gray
Certifications	Energy Star^® 8.0 EPEAT^® Gold
Connectivity	– Optional: WWAN* Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System – Optional: WWAN* Quectel EM120R-GL 4G LTE CAT12 – WLAN: Up to Intel^® AX201 WiFi 6 802.11AX (2 x 2) with vPro™ – Bluetooth^® 5.1 *
Ports / Slots	– 2 x USB 4 Type-C with Thunderbolt™ 4 (DisplayPort, Power Delivery and Data Transfer) – 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (One always on) – Headphone / mic combo – HDMI 2.0 – Optional: Nano SIM slot
Keyboard	Spill-resistant Color-matched keyboard with wider 110mm / 4.33″ TrackPad Backlit with white LED lighting Call-control keys (F9-F11)
Supported Docking	USB-C Dock ThinkPad Thunderbolt™ 4
What’s in the box	– ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 – 65W AC Adapter (Supports Rapid Charge) – 57Whr Internal Battery – ThinkPad Pen Pro – Quick Start Guide

I’ll cover the components I think are worth discussing:

Processor

Intel’s 11th Gen CPU is inside the Yoga X1 Gen 6. Tom’s Hardware do a good comparison of the differences and benchmark comparisons between 10th and 11th gen mobile Intel CPUs, with some rather large graphics and gaming improvements due to the Iris Xe Graphics’ capabilities. As expected, the CPU is a bit faster overall :)

Display

Some big changes here. The first obvious difference is the resolution – 1920 x 1200 instead of the usual 1920 x 1080. This is due to the screen ratio change, 16:10 instead of the 16:9 it used to be. The result is a little bit more space top to bottom, which is actually handy to have. If you have corporate backgrounds deploying out a 1920 x 1080 picture, you might need to adjust it to look good on this screen too.

Memory

The first X1 Yoga to have 32GB of RAM as an option! Nice if you’re planning on some grunt work, like running a few virtual machines.

Battery

The ~16 hours claimed battery life is quite high – so this should get you through a full working day without needing to plug in. Previous models were way over the 8 hour mark too, which to me would be the goal of battery life – last a working day so if you’re travelling, you’re not looking for a power point.

Graphics

Intel’s onboard graphics are still plenty good for general use, even light gaming. Note that Intel claim “Gamers can play fast and hard with new Intel® Iris® X^e graphics featuring up to 1080p 60FPS for more detailed, immersive gaming.”. I’m sure AAA gaming titles will need to be played on low/medium settings, but depending what you play and your expectations, this might be fine (low graphics quality games like Among Us are fine!).

Camera

We’re still at 720p for some reason – which is not isolated to Lenovo. I’m hoping next year we see 1080p as the standard resolution of inbuilt cameras, especially on premium laptops.

As usual, Lenovo progresses forward while keeping the fundamental reason Yogas exist – a flexible device that provides an all round experience. Going all the way back to the X1 Yoga Gen 1 I said the same thing. Now we have a few different laptop options in the ThinkPad series such as the X1 Nano and the X1 Fold (which I’d love to get my hands on), while the X1 Carbon is up to the 9th Generation – a very nice, thin laptop, but no touch screen.

Also worth noting is the touchpad is bigger on the X1 Yoga Gen 6, so this could be a deciding factor if comparing it to older models.

I’m sticking with the X1 Yoga still, but we’ll see what new devices Lenovo come out with, and if they’ll tempt me with something different and new!

For some more photos and a comparison to the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 5, check out my other post Fifth and Sixth Generations of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga.

*Although I am in a program with Lenovo (called Lenovo Insiders), no direct arrangements were made regarding this review or providing of hardware.

Fifth and Sixth Generations of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga

Posted on July 14, 2021July 15, 2021 by Adam Fowler

For the first four generations of the X1 Yoga click here

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga is still my favourite all-rounder laptop. In 2021 we’re up to the 6th Generation of the X1 Yoga and I’d previously written up the first 4, so figured it was time to cover these two.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 5

Coming out in 2020, we saw the jump from the 8th Generation Intel CPU to the 10th Generation (we skipped 9th Gen Intel for some reason). It was also the first with WiFi 6 which is now seeing wide adoption across markets.

Beyond that, there was very little difference between the 4th and 5th generations of the X1 Yoga. All the ports are the same, the layout the same, and the keys the same beyond a few different special functions above some of the function keys. There is a privacy shutter over the webcam though, which is a handy addition.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6

This one is a bigger jump again. The screen bezel is smaller, and at a 16:10 ratio rather than 16:9, the base resolution has changed from the very standard 1920 x 1080 and is now 1920 x 1200, providing a little more screen real estate without making the unit bigger – it’s actually slightly smaller as you’ll see below. Also coming with an 11th Gen Intel CPU, Lenovo changed the entire laptop from one shade of grey to another (OK, it’s officially changed from Iron Gray to Storm Gray which sounds like a superhero name).

The trackpad itself is a lot bigger, and the power button has moved to being above the keyboard, instead of on the side as per all previous generations. This button doubles as the fingerprint reader, no more dedicated fingerprint square to press. There’s also speaker grills on each side of the keyboard instead of above, and no dedicated special NIC dongle port.

Here’s some photos of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 on top of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 5:

From the above, there’s little differences to the ports beyond what I’ve already mentioned – the grill for expelling air went from the right on the 5th Gen, to the back on the 6th Gen (which is better to blow hot air away from you), and the audio jack is on opposite sides which shouldn’t bother anyone either way.

I don’t have any complaints around either model of laptop – there is something that feels more modern about the 6th Gen X1 Yoga in it’s colour and stylings, so the better CPU and screen differences are the biggest deciding factors. As always, I’m keen to see how the X1 Yoga line progresses, and this is a solid entry in the lineup.

Four Generations of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga

Posted on September 3, 2019July 14, 2021 by Adam Fowler

Lenovo’s X1 Yoga is my favorite business laptop. Ever since the X1 Yoga Gen 1 came out, I liked it over the other X1 options as it was an all-rounder, while doing everything really well.

That first generation came out in 2016, and each year there’s been a new one, the 2nd Gen, 3rd Gen and now in 2019, we’re at the 4th Gen.

It’s about time I did a round up and comparison of these four models.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 1

The Gen 1 came out in 2016 as the X1 Carbon became lighter, thinner and lost it’s touchscreen. There was mixed reaction to this decision from Lenovo, and although the Yoga had existed in several forms previously, this was the first in the ThinkPad X1 series.

Notable on this model is the OneLink+ connector – a shortlived port for a OneLink+ dock that only survived a single generation, to be replaced by USB-C/Thunderbolt. It has the standard rectangle style power plug hole, again this would not be seen on future X1 Yogas.

This is the only model to not have a dedicated Ethernet port, instead a special OneLink+ Ethernet dongle, USB2 100mbit dongle or USB3 gigabit dongle was required.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 2

2017 saw this release with the 7th Gen Intel CPU and the OneLink+ port abandoned, replaced by USB-C. This was great, since it was now an industry standard and meant there was a lot of flexibility with what power pack and dock you could use.

This is the first model to have an OLED display option, and strangely this Gen 2 is slightly thicker and heavier than the Gen 1. There wasn’t that many improvements in this model, but overall it’s pretty well rounded solution.

Battery life on this was claimed to be a lot better than the Gen 1.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 3

It was the third model’s turn in 2018 which saw few changes again. Another generation jump on the Intel CPU, which this time doubled the core count from the 7th to 8th mobile CPU generation.

Other smaller changes included the introduction of a shutter over the camera, a HDR display option with Dolby Vision, and the black colouring a bit different – the chassis is glossier, and anything silver has gone black including the hinges and ThinkPad logo (it still looks silver in this photo sorry!)

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 4

And finally, here we are in 2019 with the Gen 4 being released… and it’s a major jump. The biggest jump we’ve seen year to year so far. An all metal chassis, the laptop footprint has been drastically reduced (17% smaller footprint, 11% thinner), the colour is now ‘iron grey’ which I’m personally a fan of, and the screen to bezel distance is much smaller.

There’s also a new connector for a different ethernet dongle, and support for a new style of dock that connects on the left hand side to the combo USB-C/ethernet slot. Of course it’s jumped a CPU generation again, up to Intel’s 8th.

The MicroSD slot has been dropped, probably as part of making the laptop smaller. If you really need that, then look at any of the previous generations.

One other interesting feature is a new privacy screen option called PrivacyGuard that can be toggled on and off, and stops people seeing the screen on an angle. The retractable key feature has gone again – there’s no rubber feet to protect the keys, but they might be minutely sunk in, I couldn’t tell with the naked eye.

The final note on this model is that it has a very similar CPU to the Gen 3, still an 8th Generation Intel CPU but a newer variant – Whiskey Lake rather than Kaby Lake.

Let’s have a look at the 4 generations stacked together, going bottom to top Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3 and Gen 4:

You can see that footprint difference in the photos above. The 4th Gen looks completely different to the rest.

Each of my individual reviews lists out the possible specs for each model if you want to dive a bit further into the technical differences;

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen 1
Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen 2
Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen 3
Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen 4

The X1 Yoga will never be as small and light as the X1 Carbon, and never be as portable as the X1 Tablet, nor the powerhouse of the X1 Extreme – but it is all of these devices at once in it’s own way. It’s still my pick of the X1 series for it’s flexibility, but the other choices could also be better for your personal needs if you know how you’re going to use it.

Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga X1 Gen3 Review

Posted on May 10, 2018September 4, 2019 by Adam Fowler

Lenovo’s X1 Yoga for 2018 is now available, and I have my hands on one to review – which I’m using to write this article (Lenovo sometimes provide me with a laptop for review purposes, but that’s not the case for this particular one.)

Initially it looks and feels rather similar to the Gen 2 which I reviewed not that long ago. There are differences, but the jump from Gen 2 > 3 isn’t as big as Gen 1 > 2 was. I’d like to think that’s because they got things pretty right with the Gen2, and there wasn’t as much to change.

First, let’s check out the ‘Tech Specs’ – I’ll bold the options this particular laptop has in the table below.

Processor	8th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-8250U Processor (6M Cache, 1.6 GHz, 3.4 GHz max) 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8350U Processor (6M Cache, 1.7 GHz, 3.6 GHz max), vPro™ 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8550U Processor (8M Cache, 1.8 GHz, 4.0 GHz max) 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8650U Processor (8M Cache, 1.9 GHz, 4.2 GHz max), vPro
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64-bit Windows 10 Pro 64-bit – Lenovo recommends Windows 10 Pro.
Display	14″ FHD IPS (1920 x 1080), 270 nits, Touch 14″ WQHD IPS (2560 x 1440), 270 nits, Touch 14″ HDR WQHD IPS with Dolby Vision™ (2560 x 1440), 500 nits, 100% colour gamut, Touch
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 620
Memory	8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3, memory soldered to system board 16GB (max) / 2133MHz LPDDR3, memory soldered to system board
Webcam	Standard: 720p HD camera with ThinkShutter Optional: IR camera – required for Windows Hello and facial recognition, but it does not have ThinkShutter Both with dual array microphone
Storage	M.2 SSD / PCIe NVMe OPAL2: 256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Optical drive	None
Dimensions (W x D x H)	333 x 229 x 17.05 mm
Weight	Starting from 1.4 kg
Case colour	Black Silver
Battery	4-cell (57 Wh), integrated
Battery life¹	Up to 15 hours
AC adaptor	65W 3-pin USB-C, supports RapidCharge
Keyboard	ThinkPad backlit rise& fall keyboard
Fingerprint reader	Match on Chip (MoC) touch fingerprint reader
Audio support	Stereo with Dolby® Audio™ Premium
Ethernet	Via native ethernet dongle
Wireless LAN	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265, Wi-Fi 2×2 802.11ac + Bluetooth® 4.2*
Wireless WAN	Integrated global mobile broadband LTE-A (optional)
NFC	None
Ports	2 x USB 3.0 (1 x AlwaysOn) 2 x Thunderbolt (x4 Gen3) 1 x HDMI 1 x 4-in-1 micro SD card reader (SD, MMC, SDHC, SDXC) 1 x Combo audio/microphone jack 1 x native ethernet

Let’s go through some of the areas of interest:

CPU – Although often there’s little difference between each generation of CPU, there’s actually a big difference this time. If you look at the Intel spec sheet, the core count has doubled from 2 to 4, along with the thread count of 4 to 8. The single core clock speed is lower, down from 2.60Ghz to 1.90Ghz, but the Max Turbo Frequency is the slightly higher at 3.60Ghz rather than the older 3.50Ghz.

What does this all mean? It depends, but overall it’s probably a lot better. Single threaded programs might be a bit slower, but these days if it’s single threaded it’s probably old and anything modern is more than fast enough for it. Multi-threaded programs will go substantially faster. Here’s a benchmark comparison with some figures to demonstrate that. Of course, multitasking with many different programs should be a faster experience too.

Display – I would have loved to have seen that high end display, but the base level one is more than enough still. HDR, Dolby Vision and other high end settings – I need to see this!

RAM – If you want this laptop to last you years, go the 16GB. 8GB is still plenty, but we’re getting closer to 16GB being the standard. For general use, you still probably won’t hit the 8GB limit (unless you have a lot of Chrome tabs open!).

Webcam – I like the new little shutter that’s built in. You see a red dot when it’s closed, and the switch to open it is very small and unobtrusive.

Storage – As always, pick what you think you’ll need. It’s nice and fast!

Weight – Nothing’s changed here, same weight within a few grams as the last few models. It’s not a feather, but it’s light enough.

Case Colour – Yes this one is black, but it’s a bit different. The entire shell is a slightly glossier black than the matte black the last few models have had. The hinges are now black too, which fits in a bit nicer with the black body. There’s also the new X1 logo on the lid and the Lenovo branding on the bottom left of the display – all of which I think looks good. It’s branding without being in your face.

Battery – Same as the last generation, a big 15 hour claim and 12 hours just from an hour charge. I haven’t sat down and tested this, and another review I found claimed a bit under 8 hours which is slightly under the average, but of course it depends on what you do.

Other notes:

The fingerprint reader is a little smaller now, but works the same. Still USB-C charging which is great, but we seem to have lost one of the USB 3 ports on the left hand side. The device supports Microsoft AutoPilot which is good for anyone who wants to set this up on their Azure/Office 365 tenant and send devices out without needing to actually do anything to them.

There’s the new ‘Cortana Premium’ which makes the device pick up voice commands better and from a distance or different angles. The stylus is the same too, which is still a mid-size rapid charging pen that does the job well.

Let’s have a look at all the angles of the X1 Yoga Gen3:

Keyboard and Trackpad

As with most ThinkPads, the keyboard and trackpad are high quality. There’s not any wacky key changes in this model, and it’s very similar to the Gen2.

Lid

It was really hard to get a decent picture of the lid due to the new material they’ve used! We’ve now got the new X1 logo in the bottom right, the black hinges at the bottom and the standard ThinkPad logo in the top left, with the dot on the ‘i’ to indicate power on or off.

Front

Back

Front and Back – nothing exciting here, you can see the hinges again with the fan vent and panel for SIM and SD card.

Base

Again nothing exciting on the base, fingerprints already after I’d wiped it and moved it about which is the price you pay for having a nice black surface. You can see the dual speakers along with the stylus on the bottom left.

Left Side – USB-C In, USB-C Out, USB3 Right Side – Stylus, Power, 3.5mm Audio Jack, Mini Ethernet, USB3, HDMI Out, Kensington Lock

Summary – A small upgrade from the last Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga Gen2, the Gen3’s better 4 core CPU is a reasonable selling point. The slight cosmetic changes are all nice, but there’s nothing too drastic that a Gen2 owner should consider upgrading to. However, it’s a big jump from the Gen1 which you can read my original review on too. I’ll do a seperate writeup comparing the three models soon, and it’s still my pick of the ThinkPad lineup that I can’t fault. I’m actually running a VM on it (Windows 10 VM on Windows 10!) to work from and it performs very well for those wondering if they can do the same. Feel free to ask any questions below!

Also here’s a video review from MobileTechReview:

Lenovo ThinkPad P51s Review

Posted on January 18, 2018September 12, 2021 by Adam Fowler

Thanks to Lenovo and their Lenovo Insiders program #LenovoIN, I received a new Lenovo ThinkPad P51s.

I’ve previously reviewed the ThinkPad P50 (which has been superseeded by the ThinkPad P51) which is the big brother or sister to this device. Where the P51 is a top end workstation with multiple hard drive bays, 4 RAM slots and so on, the P51s drops a few of these extra features to be a bit more mobile, while still fitting in the workstation class.

Tech Specs

Here’s an overview of the possible technical specifications of the P51s, with the options I have on this model bolded. I’ll talk in more details about some of these below.

Processor	7th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-7300U Processor (3M Cache, 2.6GHz, max. 3.5GHz), vPro 7th Gen Intel Core i7-7500U Processor (4M Cache, 2.7GHz, max. 3.5GHz) 7th Gen Intel Core i7-7600U Processor (4M Cache, 2.8GHz, max. 3.9GHz), vPro
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64-bit Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Display	15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080), anti-glare, IPS, 250 nits, 700:1 contrast ratio 15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080), anti-glare, IPS, 250 nits, 700:1 contrast ratio, with on-cell touch 15.5″ UHD (3840 x 2160), anti-glare, IPS, 300 nits, 1300:1 contrast ratio
Graphics	Intel HD Graphics in processor and NVIDIA® Quadro® M520M, 2GB GDDR5 memory
Memory	Up to 32GB / DDR4 2400MHz¹, dual-channel capable, 2 x SO-DIMM sockets ( 2 X 8gb = 16Gb)
Webcam	HD 720p
Storage	SSD / SATA 6Gb/s: 128GB SSD / PCIe NVMe, 8Gb/s, OPAL 2: 256GB / 512GB / 1TB HDD / SATA, 6Gb/s, 2.5″, 7mm high: 500GB 7200RPM / 1TB 5400RPM
Dimensions (W x D x H)	365.8 x 252.8 x 19.95 – 20.22 mm
Weight	Discrete non-touch: With 4 + 3-cell: starting at 1.99 kg With 4 + 6-cell: starting at 2.18 kg Discrete multi-touch: With 4 + 3-cell: starting at 2.01 kg With 4 + 6-cell: starting at 2.20 kg
Internal battery	Integrated 4-cell (32 Wh)
External battery	3-cell (24 Wh) or 6-cell (72 Wh)
Battery life	4 + 3-cell: up to 13.5 hours 4 + 6-cell (72 Wh): up to 26.4 hours
AC adaptor	65W
Keyboard	6-row, spill-resistant, multimedia Fn keys, numeric keypad, optional backlight
Fingerprint reader	Swipe style fingerprint reader on the palm rest (optional)
Audio support	HD Audio, Realtek® ALC3268 codec / stereo speakers, 2W x 2 / dual array microphone, combo audio/microphone jack
Ethernet	Intel Ethernet connection
Wireless LAN	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265, 2×2, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth® 4.1⁴, M.2 Card Intel Tri-Band Wireless-AC 18265, 2×2, WiGig^TM + Wi-Fi + Bluetooth® 4.1⁴, M.2 Card (configurable from model with UHD display only)
Ports	3 x USB 3.0 (1 x AlwaysOn) 1 x USB-C/Thunderbolt HDMI Ethernet (RJ45) Combo audio/mic CS13 Docking Media card reader (SD 3.0 UHS-I) Smart Card Reader (optional)

Processor: It’s always nice to have the fastest. This has Intel 7th gen CPU options, which now are 1 behind the latest, but usually between single generations there’s not that much of a difference.

Display: Would have been nice to have touch screen, but I’m still happy with a 1080p res. Above that, and Windows 10 scaling + remote desktopping doesn’t usually make for a good experience. It seems like a higher quality display than what’s on my P50, something a bit more crisp about it.

Graphics: Having a dedicated graphics card is always a bonus on a laptop, and the 2GB NVIDIA Quadro M520M is about the same as a GeForce 940MX if you’re looking up benchmarks. This should give you high level gaming at 720p, or decent level gaming at 1080p.

Lenovo ThinkPad P51s Display

Memory: It doesn’t have 4 slots like it’s P51 sibling, but can still take two 16GB sticks. This one has two 8GB sticks which is plenty, but if I wanted to run lots and lots of VMs or a few beefy ones, I might upgrade that amount.

Battery: This took me a little bit to realise. There’s both an internal battery, and an external battery. I first connected the battery that came with it and noticed it was only 3 cell. I thought that wasn’t too big, but then found it also had a 4 cell battery inside. If you remove the external battery and the power plug, the laptop keeps going. 13.5 hours is a pretty good claim, and makes sense with that much battery power. It starts getting crazy with a 26.4 hour claim when using a 6 cell battery plus the internal 4 cell, and a good option if you really need your laptop to stay awake longer than you will.

Ports: Let’s look at each side of the laptop –

Left side – Rectangle charger plug, USB3, USB-C, Smartcard slot (filled in on this one)

Back – Nothing to see here, battery and hinges

Right side – 3.5mm headphone port, 2x USB3, full HDMI, full Ethernet

Another point I noticed about this laptop is that it came with a USB-C power cable, but still had provision for the older rectangle power cord. Handy if you have those from the last few years of ThinkPads as either port will charge the laptop.

Keyboard: Most people are fans of the ThinkPad style of keyboards, and this one even has a number pad. Nothing too different or tricky here – I liked the feel of both the keys and the trackpad on this model, and there’s no buttons that felt out of place for me (good to see Caps Lock where it should be!)

Lenovo ThinkPad P51s Keyboard

Other observations: The circular power button felt slightly off center, as in the left side of the button dipped in further than the right side. Not something that will make any difference, and isn’t visible unless you look really closely, but still worth mentioning to anyone that will notice non-perfect things like me :)

At around 2KG the laptop isn’t light, but it’s much lighter than the P50 on my desk. It feels solidly built, the hinge style seems strong and there’s very little screen wobble. The fingerprint reader is also nice for Windows Hello, but this unit actually came with Infa red cameras too – meaning I can use my face to log in. You visibly see something flashing when it tries to read your face (at a guess they’ve got some sort of film over the lenses to show that, since IR is invisible to our eyes normally.

Beyond that, I’m very happy with this laptop. There’s no frills to it’s appearance, so it’s square and black like most ThinkPads, but it’s enjoyable to use with a screen that has a decent bezel.

The laptop is also pretty much a ThinkPad T570 with a Quadro graphics card in it, so if you’d rather the consumer Geforce option, check that out too. If you’re looking at videos on how to take this laptop apart, the T570 is identical.

Lenovo ThinkPad P51s vs P51 or P71: If you’re wondering which to get, the main decision is purely tech specs based. The P51s can take 2 RAM sticks, for a max 32GB RAM. The P51 however has 4 slots, which doubles the max to 64GB.

It’s similar with the hard drives – a single drive in the P51s, versus the P51 that can hold either; a combo of two M.2 drives and one 2.5″ drive, or two 2.5″ drives. The third spec factor is the dedicated graphics card which in the P51 has 4GB RAM rather than the P51s’ 2GB. The M2200 is also a higher end card than the M520, and worth looking up comparisons on performance.

Finally the CPU, although the P51s can take a high end i7, it’s still not the Xeon you can get in the P51. Deciding what you want and need in specs, or leaving your options for upgrading in the future. If you don’t need the high end options, the P51s is a great choice which comes in a much thinner form factor, and a bit less weight.

All the above applies to the P71 too, just with a larger 17.3″ screen.

Feel free to ask any questions below about the laptop, and I’ll leave a banner here that should update on any Lenovo Australia deals currently on offer:

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