Lenovo P-series laptops?
 

Does anyone have a Lenovo P-series laptop? If so, what are your thoughts on them?

Our office standard-issue are T-series ThinkPads, usually full-blown, but it appears you can't get any of the newer models with Quad-Core CPUs. Nor can you stuff a decent amount of RAM into a T-series. BUT, the P-series does!

It'll be replacing a full-blown ~2009 Macbook Pro, with my Unix load averages running ~8-15 most of the time I'm using it. Yes, 8.0-15.0. It is as miserable to use as you would guess. Worst, the Mac drops keystrokes under high load.

PSRef says http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool%5CSy...ifications.pdf the T460p is only available with quad cores and maxes out at 32GB. Do you really need 64GB? The T450p had the option for quad cores but maxed at 16GB as usual.

Thanks for the link!

The 460p doesn't support 3K screens. The T560p does, but has no quad cores available.

On RAM, currently using all 8GB RAM + am using 10GB swap on the Mac. Traditionally Windoze isn't as good with memory management as *nix, so factoring that in, I'm already at ~24GB used. I can see myself hitting my head on 32GB by year-end, maybe sooner with all the extra performance and being able to run more things simultaneously.

I believe that DDR4/DDR3 SODIMM chips max out at 16GB per dimm

so to get 64GB, you need 4-dimm slots (<- hint... easy to narrow down search, but you'll have very few choices), and specific CPU models

lenovo publishes a technical PDF containing all the specs for their laptops. go browse it and see
https://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook.pdf
https://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/ThinkPad.pdf

P50 series is heavy though ("workstation" replacement) - starts at 5.6pounds

T460p/E5470 (quad core 35/45W + 32GB) = ~4pounds

Core 2 Duo Penryn 2.53GB


Trust me, it's worth it to upgrade to the latest intel architecture

I had a Dell XPS M1330 laptop (C2D Penryn). Just got a Skylake Dell E5470 laptop(i7 6820HQ 2.7ghz).... worth it, probably 3x faster

(2 cores-> 4 cores = 1x
Penryn->Skylake, maybe 0.5-1x faster clock-for-clcok
faster memory+ssd+HT, another 1x

Do you have a need for a laptop? Much easier to beef up a desktop.

A bit more complicated than that. The Intel firmware in the BIOS for pre Broadwell CPUs contained an assert which limited the ICs to 4GBit. You really badly can't put more than 16 DRAM ICs on a SO DIMM stick, they physically won't fit for example see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SO-DIM...R3_SO-DIMM.jpg so that's the 8GB per stick limit you often see on Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell machines. There's nothing really that would stop them working with 8GBit ICs / 16GB modules if someone updated the BIOS but Intel didn't let that happen. Except on Haswell-E motherboards because those are the latest in the "E" series as Broadwell-E doesn't yet exist so they work with 128GB RAM despite Intel Ark says 64GB max. http://ark.intel.com/products/82932/...up-to-3_60-GHz

This, by the way means that anything you read in Intel materials should be interpreted 'maximum memory supported using sticks available to us when we released this CPU'.

Now Samsung has 32 GBit DDR4 ICs http://gizmodo.com/this-is-samsungs-...hip-1744776220 and so theoretically it should be possible to manufacture 32GB (and very likely even 64GB) mobile sticks but I do not think anyone does. And whether there'd be support for them -- heaven knows what lurks in the BIOS this time.

3K on a 14" display isn't a big win in my estimation. It should support 3K (or even 4K) with the discrete GPU on an external display, though.

I had originally planned on buying a P50 once they were released, but the quad cores available are very power hungry, and it ships with a 190W power supply. I still travel regularly and was concerned about both the weight and the ability to use/charge it in-flight. At this point I'm waiting for the T460P's variants with the i7-6700HQ or i7-6800HQ processors (4 cores/8 threads) and discrete GPU to become available. 32GB should last me a few years.

Let's not exaggerate: it's "only" 170W. Comparing the old 170W http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdet...FC10#techspecs PSU to the http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdet...2DF3#techspecs new one, it's significantly lighter although of course a 1.32lbs PSU Is hardly lightweight.

However, this is silly business. You could create a cable that made the W530 think it got a 170W adapter https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPa...0W/td-p/841161 when, in fact, you had a 90W. What's the worst can happen? You overdraw your adapter. Any quality adapter (and Lenovo is good) will just shut down. As far as the laptop is concerned that's not different from unplugging the adapter off the wall and it's quite prepared to deal with that. I would not be surprised, at all, if someone made the P90 run with a 90W adapter. Not sure about Windows but Linux has governors where you can set to be powersave and I presume then the laptop would definitely eat less than that 90W. It must be because the http://shop.lenovo.com/ae/en/itemdet...E7BA925BCE90CA battery happens to be 90Wh, the battery life at 90W would literally be one hour but Lenovo claims 6 hours which is of course never realistic but let's call it three hours, that means the laptop eats 30W. Let's use another 30W for charging the battery -- if Lenovo had any brains it'd let you use the 65W and let you choose between performance vs charger weight.

I've played with an eval P50 that my prior employer had on loan from a rep -- they had it for a few days, I got to play with it for maybe about 20 minutes.

I prefer the ergonomics on the new Dell Precision 7510, but it seems like a very good machine.

If you can actually get one (still not showing up for direct order on Lenovo.com or on CDW), the T460p goes up to 32gb RAM and has a quad core CPU option.

For similar machines, the Dell Latitude 5470 is also a good bit lighter than the 15" ones. The Dell Latitude 5570 and Precision 3510 (closely related models) are a good bit cheaper than the P50 or 7510, although not much lighter.

If you want something with a similar form factor to the Macbook Pro, the Dell Precision 5510 or the HP Z-book Studio (if you can live with the gawdawful HP keyboard) are both PC-branded Macbook Pro clones, and go up to 32gb unlike the real MBP.

Also, the new MBP is coming out one of these days soon, and it will feature a Skylake processor which should go up to 32gb. I always recommend against running Windows on a Mac, but if happy about using the MacOS now, it should run rings around a 2009 Core 2-based model. (As would a 16GB 2014-2015 Haswell-based model.)

What T450p? They skipped that one, went from T440p (Haswell) to T460p (Skylake.)

Had the T450p been released with a quad-core Broadwell chip, it would go to 32gb.

Especially as it's already got WQHD (2.5K) not just 1080p.

I'm actually moving down from WQHD+ (3200x1600) on my current machine to 1920x1080 on my new one -- moving from laptop screen to non-HiDPI desktop monitor decently requires signing out, which is too big a pain to be worth it.

That's entirely the need to support non-CPU stuff, especially a large GPU. The Dell 5470 with a quad core and no dGPU runs OK on 65W. The CPU maxes out at 45W, and the bigger GPU in the P50 at 55W. I'm not sure why they don't let you run that with a 130W adapter.

Pretty sure that there's no 6800HQ, just 6700HQ or 6820HQ.

You're of course correct. I was looking at the platform spec sheet as I typed that but still managed to get it wrong :)

The two I'm waiting for to pull the trigger are the 6770HQ and 6870HQ -- I want a non-Mac machine with no separate GPU and a quad core i7 with Iris Pro. Preferably a reasonably-compact 14" machine along the lines of the 7470, although I'm pretty sure such a machine won't come out. :D

For those that have been following along, the Lenovo T460P is now available for order in the UK and PSREF has been updated to include 27 variants, most of which are for European distribution. A chat with Lenovo sales yesterday revealed an April 14th date for availability of user-customizable configurations in the US, with multiple processor options (I'm after the i7-6820HQ).

CDW appears to have the i5-based model with integrated graphics (Intel HD Graphics 530) in stock for immediate shipment, but all the rest of the TopSellers are "call for availability." Also, none of the TopSellers appear to be equipped with the 3K display, but I'm suspecting that this will be a custom-build option only.

Thanks for the update.

My work ordered a Dell 5510 for me, so I've put my personal machine upgrade plans on hold. I'm still hoping Dell and/or Lenovo will upgrade some of the i7-6820HQ systems to i7-6870HQ (and no dGPU) once the latter is actually available.

The latter should be soon; the first system using the quad-core-Skylake Iris Pro CPUs -- the Intel Skull Canyon NUC -- has finally gone up for pre-order today.. Whether/if that turns into orderable laptop systems with those CPUs from anyone else is an open question.

I've been playing the "just wait a bit longer and you'll get what you really want" game since August of last year, and at this point I'm feeling that if I don't just do something I'll just be playing it forever. This model meets my processor, RAM, graphics, disk storage and portability requirements and, well, it's time :D

If I didn't have a new machine from/for work (waiting for me at the office, so I can't comment on the model particularly), I might feel differently. As it stands, I've already waited this long, I might as well give it a few months to see if I can get what I really want instead of a compromise.

If not, right now I'm planning to get the E5470, and go for portability (and playing nicer with Linux) over dGPU or the 3K screen.