20 Best Thinkpad For Programming (2022 Updated)

The X1 is a fantastic machine, deserves 5 stars except I have had some initial troubling crashes/reboots for no apparent reason. For context, I use the X1 as a desktop machine and plug it into the ThinkPad Thunderbolt 4 Workstation Dock.

I have several USB devices connected to a hub that connects to the docking station (6 items, including 2 cameras, external microphone, wireless headphone, mouse and keyboard, and other peripherals ), I run dual monitors from USB-C port on the docking station, and ethernet into the docking station.

The docking station is VERY HOT, and I had to move the USB dongle for keyboard/mouse to the laptop as the docking station simply was not working. All this has been fairly stable, but every now and again the laptop fan spins up and then the machine just reboots (and unfortunately I lose my current unsaved work).

This is happened about 3 times the first month I had the laptop, but it has calmed down the second month so hopefully no more strange reboots. The rest of the laptop is great, at least the stuff I have used.

ThinkPad keyboard are always great to the touch, and while not the same feel as older models like the T480, it is fine. The laptop is extremely light which is great. I have not had a chance to use it on battery only yet, but I would guess it works about the same as other higher end laptops.

My X1 has i9-10885H CPU @ 2. 4Ghz, 32GB RAM and running Windows 10 Pro. Happy so far with purchase!.

Bought my ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 3 and splurged on addl RAM and better processor. This is the most I’ve spent on a laptop. It was replacing a Samsung that died a sudden death. Within the first few weeks, many things were not as I expected them.

1. Keyboard and laptop really attract fingerprints. Machine constantly looks greasy. 2. Screen flashes pink on and off, constantly. 3. I’ve a dead pixel 4. The camera switch is very hard to operate. I really struggle to turn it off and on because the tap doesn’t stick out enough.

5. Battery lasts no more than 4 hours before dying completely. This is with many browser windows open but no videos streaming, etc. 6. After machine has been hibernating, there’s a good 20-30 second delay in graphics on the Chrome browser only.

I essentially have to wait before I can resume work. I tried to resolve issues 2 and 3 but was on the lowest level of support and it required me shipping my laptop off. This is my work PC and I’d read many, many unhappy reviews on the Lenovo site about the long turnaround times.

Unfortunately, I’ve resorted to spending even more money to upgrade to the premium support to get all these issues resolved. I’m going to rent a computer for one month and will then begin the resolution process.

I’ve had this pc a year exactly. I wish I had not chosen Lenovo and will not buy another computer from them. It’s possible I got unlucky with my machine, but it’s been too painful to try again.

I had high hopes for this laptop since the specs far exceed my old, beloved IdeaPad P500 Touch. I have only had this new laptop for two weeks, but so far I’m disappointed. My IdeaPad seemed to work faster in many ways.

The same Thinkpad X1 Extreme is available with a 2tb SSD hard drive at Best Buy, but lessor memory and GPU. Does that make sense? You can’t get the 2tb hard drive from the manufacturer? I do appreciate the type and quantity of connection ports.

The battery life is very, very good. I have not had the opportunity to use it with Adobe Lightroom since I’m having trouble migrating my software to the new laptop (Go figure!). I very much miss the LED’s on the front of my IdeaPad; especially the one that alerts you to remaining battery life (the LED would turn orange at 20% remaining).

I’m glad that I purchased the extended warranty since my wireless connection with this laptop provides an error message when trying to connect a variety of webpages 33%-50% of the time. I have yet to sort it out with tech support.

I also need to talk to them about the use of Adobe RGB color space with the almost 4K display. Tech support could not get me to that setting, and told me to follow up with the sales department????????? We’ll see.

Overall, I expected much, much more from this machine. So far, it doesn’t really deliver. Lenovo, you really don’t have to make these laptops this thin and light. Bring things like installed CD/DVD burners and battery indicators back, PLEASE!.

I have owned this device for about 3 weeks, and it is a phenomenal device. My last Lenovo product was an E531, which lasted me 10 years and is still running, so I knew I wanted another Lenovo product.

This has not disappointed. The lightweight design is a huge plus for anyone traveling and using this computer on the go. I have used both 15″ and 13″ screens, and I think the 14″ is a great compromise between the two, as you get some extra screen, but the computer does weigh as much or take up the majority of your backpack.

Battery seems solid, and I appreciate being able to have the selective charge feature that allows for you to only charge to 80% in order to reduce battery deterioration for people that are plugged in most of the time.

People have complained about the fan noise on the gen 10, but for this gen 9 it is very quiet 99% of the time, and only ramps up during peak load when rendering a video or backing up your computer. The chassis does get rather hot, but if you don’t have it in your lap, that isn’t something to be concerned about.

The ports they kept on this device feel perfect. Enough USB A ports to get by, but also 2 USB C for the heavy data transfers and docking stations. Speakers are super loud, best I’ve ever seen on a computer.

I love my music, and when on the run they are great for video calls. Speaking of video, the camera is sub-par and rather disappointing. Probably the only hardware part they really cheaped out on 720p really gets grainy in low light.

Will want an external camera if you do more than just the occasional meeting online. Privacy shutter is nice though. Overall, this is a solid device! Sadly, MS has a glitch on their updates, and I had to reinstall Window 11 a few days ago in order to get a Win10 era update to go onto my device.

Not a Lenovo problem hardware problem at all, but do be aware that you may have to do some update work simply because MS hasn’t fixed their update system properly in Win11. This is a pricey computer, but I would say that the durability and quality of the product pays for itself in a very short time.

I’ve been researching for a while to replace the 5-year old laptop. I mostly use laptop to write Python scripts, querying data, watch video, surf web. For those reasons, it has to be light-weighted, does not have a dedicated graphic card (for battery), at least 400 nits, 1200p screen (battery and extra vertical space), non-touch screen, good keyboard, ability to upgrade RAM (not with C9).

Finally settled with the X1C9 and this is my first Lenovo. What I like so far: -Having both 15″ and 13. 5″ in the past, 14″ screen is perfect for my need, and 1200p is a bonus. In my case, I find 2k and 4k screens are not practical–I dock to external monitors when not roaming.

But when roaming, I prefer battery over resolution. -Keyboard is much better than any of my previous ultra laptops, although many reviewers find the C9 keyboard took a step backward compared to the older gens.

-I like the grainy and snappy feel of the track pad. -Battery usually last a whole day when watching videos and other light activities. What I don’t like: -Despite Lenovo telling this matte screen helps reduce reflection outdoor, it is not the case.

Text is hard to read. Adjusting brightness does not help much. My old 300-nit laptop did better outdoor. -The red LED dot on the logo behind the screen bothers me and I can’t find a way to disable it.

-This chassis is not for people with oily/greasy fingers. -When under heavy load, it can be warm and fan can be loud. It’s hard to find an ultra laptop non-soldered RAMs these days. To compensate for this, I maxed out the RAM configuration while choosing the smallest NVMe card to cut cost.

Bought and installed a 2TB NVMe card — it was painless. Overall, I’m happy with the laptop. Day-to-day productivity is somewhat light so it’s hardly warm/loud. Those cons I pointed are for people to be aware of.

They do not affect me drastically to take points off. Buy only when on sale. I got a discount via my company.

I bought it for my birthday in November 2021. This is my daily laptop. I chose Lenovo because I liked the P14 laptop my work gave me. Pros: 1. Bright Display 2. Wide Screen size, great for multitasking 3.

Super Fast everything: startup, opening apps, downloading files, surfing the internet 4. Numeric Keypad 5. Touch screen 6. Charges fast 7. Backlit keyboard with 2 brightness levels(it would be cool, if the user can change the keyboard light colors to what they want.

Maybe even an animation to it. ) 8. Design and keyboard layout 9. Light around the startup button Cons: 1. There are no USB C ports. You will have to use your laptop charger slot(USB C) or purchase a USB A to USB C adapter 2.

The battery life is mediocre. Last maybe 5 hours most on 100% display while using the PC. Then its back to plugging in the charger. 3. There is no pause/start/stop/fast forward/rewind buttons. Yet there is a hang up and answer button(very unnecessary) 5.

I have no idea what some of the function buttons do. Example. The f9 button, f12 has a star on it which makes no sense if it opens the inspector. 6. Bloatware 7. Very Limited/No color selection, only black 8.

Limited number of ports: 1 x HDMI, 2 x USB-A 9. The price for what I would have paid does not make it a perfect fit. Luckily, I bought the laptop with a coupon around black friday. Rather than its original $1800+ price tag.

10. Cannot use other touch screen pens with this model. I tried with an HP Pen from my previous laptop. 11. Only Apple laptops seem to be able to do this, when you dim the light to the lowest level. It makes the screen black/dimmed out completely as if the screen is sleeping.

Overall: 8/10. I’m happy with the purchase thus far, despite my cons list surpassing my pros list. Its only been a little over a month. The Laptop performance hasn’t given me any issues. If Lenovo can make upgrades to some of its PCs based on my con list.

I’d consider them the best by a huge margin.

I have had this laptop only a few weeks, but so far, so good. It was not hard to set up, and it has been working very well and is very fast. I do not like how aggressive Microsoft Edge browser is in trying to get me to use it as my default browser, (pop ups, etc.

) when I prefer Chrome, and need to use Chrome for work. However, this is a problem with Microsoft and not directly with Lenovo. The laptop came with Windows OS 10, which I needed because OS 11 is not yet compatible with systems in my place of employment.

This was one of the only laptops available that still had OS 10 installed, which is one of several reasons that I bought it, along with the large memory and RAM, and other tech features. I have never owned a Lenovo product before, but I am pleased with the product and highly recommend it.

It was pricey but I bought it on the Fourth of July Sale, which was a very good sale. I called Lenovo once for a clarification of a charge on my bill, and, after some back and forth with the representative, it became apparent that on the original bill, city tax was mistakenly excluded.

I was able to reach a representative easily enough and the representative was helpful. Extra premium support is available for extra charges.

The Thunderbolt cable is also the power for the laptop, which means you cannot be charging your computer and using energy hungry thunderbolt devices like the apollo x4 music recording interface, at the same time.

This is a horrible design flaw. The power should have stayed separate. Also, even though this has 1TB of memory the 16 GB are not sufficient for RAM hungry programs like Adobe Premier Pro. The touchscreen works, but it is clunky, coarse to the touch, and not as responsive/smooth as an iPhone.

So giving up performance for underdeveloped features was a lament for me as a 10 year Thinkpad repeat customer. It already crashed on me while applying luts and effects on video project. Overall, this laptop is not worth the discount price.

Thinkpad used to be top of the line for workhouse computers, and this is just a show pony. I’ll be keeping the item for writing and emails, but for recording music and video editing, this is nowhere near up to spec with the previous ThinkPads.

I was looking for something light, fairly small, long battery life, but fast with decent memory and disk. I use it a lot while traveling for personal and work use, as well as at home for personal and work use.

This seems to be exactly what I need. Also I wanted keyboard backlit, which this has (3 modes off low and high light). I will also look for a slimmer power cord (I think Lenova sells one) as it is a bit too bulker for my travel (though smaller than my last laptop).

I did not get the touch screen version – I wanted to try for longer battery life, plus the model without the touch screen seems to have better processer (and I really dont feel I need touch screen). Key board is comfortable to use, touchbad responds well (though when not traveling I use an external mouse due to De Quervain’s tenosynovitis).

Microphone works great, use it for language course, and skype/zoom calls. Speaker is good for all of this too – havent used it for music. And camera works well for skype/zoom also. It does lie flat, havent found a use for that yet.

I would have like to be able to put it in tent shape for following recipes (so I dont get bits in the keyboard!), I know its not touch screen but usually I’m not scrolling then, and can always use the mouse.

But not a big deal for me. I would also like an easy option to keep screen on (again for following recipes etc). Maybe there is one, but I havent found it yet. You can go into the powersettings and change the minutes before screen off, sleep etc, but would be nice to do with one control click/button.

I was also lookiing for a screen I could see outside. So far so good, seems very low reflection, but there hasn’t been a really sunny outside day yet to give it a good test!.

Overall I like this machine. I got a great discount during a sale, which made it worthwhile, but the regular price on this thing is nuts. In general, I like the size and weight; it’s a little smaller and lighter than my old T450s, although I have mixed feelings about the lack of a removable battery.

I really appreciate the minimal screen bezels; there’s much less feeling of wasted space. The clickable trackpad is also notably better than the T450s was. The machine feels significantly quicker, as well, but it has an SSD, twice the memory, and a considerably faster processor, so I would very much expect that.

And as has always been the case with the ThinkPad line, it has a first-rate keyboard (for a laptop). That alone is the biggest selling point for me in buying a ThinkPad. Now for the negatives. First, it came with Windows 11, which I dislike intensely so far.

The new start menu is annoyingly less functional than the Windows 10 version, in an attempt to make it “pretty” (I detest form over function). The machine also goes to sleep almost immediately if I walk away for even 30 seconds, and I haven’t figured out how to make that behavior stop.

I’m reasonably sure it’s the fault of Windows rather than the laptop hardware itself, but Lenovo did choose to install Win11 on this thing. Another thing I find bothersome is the fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button.

It seems too wide for most people’s fingers, so it is hard to cover the whole sensor, and yet too narrow in the other dimension to provide good mapping of enough of the fingerprint for good security.

I have constant trouble getting it to recognize my fingerprint, and have to fall back to logging in with a PIN or password more often than not. I don’t know if it’s a hardware problem, a driver problem, or if I haven’t got it calibrated properly, but it shouldn’t be this hard for it to work well out of the box.

Finally, the FINGERPRINTS. This thing attracts fingerprints like honey attracts flies, way worse than my T450s. Annoying, but not a deal breaker. I wish they could find a better finish, though. I’m also not a fan of the swapped the Ctrl and Fn keys.

I wish they would fix that, although there are probably a lot of ThinkPad fans from way back that are used to it. At least there’s a BIOS (UEFI) setting to swap their functionality.

7/10, good but not great. Great to use, but even a $250 Ideapad I used temporarily was a huge improvement over what I had before. Some fairly big issues, though nothing critical, & a bunch of small things, all add up to make what could have been a great computer disappointing.

I like it, but I don’t love it & it could be much better with a bit more thought & care. BIOS: – Brightness maxed & can’t be adjusted (same for live-boot environments) so it’s blindingly bright (& white, they could have at least made it dark themed) & drains the battery more – TrackPoint scrolling doesn’t work – ~80% of the time, clicking arrows to expand/collapse descriptions double-clicks them, so you have to try several times to get it to open/close & stay – Confusing & can’t get boot password working right – Should have option to show “if found” message on boot Case Design, Ports, & Display: + Hinge stiff, stable in use, but easy to open though could be a bit less stiff (barely opens one-handed) + Red light on lid is neat, though it’d be nice if it used different colors for different states &/or battery levels, & I don’t like it being on during use & wonder how much extra battery it’s using (likely insignificant, but still) + Bright display (typically use steps 2-3/11, 1 in the dark), great colors, & matte finish + Camera shutter (& manual!) + Excellent build, good, balanced weight, nice feel, small – Bezels/computer could be smaller – Display should get dimmer & shouldn’t have such a BIG jump from step 1 to 2 & brightness drifts sometimes – Display lottery – Front edge of rest is uncomfortable/pointed & should be rounded – USB-C/charging both on one side, especially bad considering.

– No barrel plug port, understandable but it’s nice to have the option for using a right-angle plug, whereas the USB chargers stick straight out & risk damage to the charger (which would mean replacing the expensive brick since the fragile USB cord is hardwired) & the port – SD reader position isn’t ideal, but requiring a tool to remove it is just bad – Could be easier to open – Supposedly an M.

2 NVMe drive can be used in the WWAN slot, but the one it came with wouldn’t even physically fit as the key is slightly off – Ryzen sticker corners kept snagging so I had to remove it, which was a pain due to the adhesive, & it should’ve been rounded, placed elsewhere, or included separately – Ports are close together, not enough to typically interfere but can be difficult to unplug items = Silk-screen printed markings along the keyboard deck edge showing port type & locations would be nice = Should have “if found” info card that slides into chassis (would barely require any space; card reader slot would be perfect for this) Keyboard/TrackPoint/Trackpad: + Nice tactile & typing feel & quiet (some keys are a bit “loud” but still pretty quiet) + Good layout: Fn key grouping; Individual Home/End/PgUp/PgDn; Large delete key in proper place (no power button there) + Hardware FnLock (can switch with key combo vs having to use Vantage) + TrackPoint drift slightly improved – Trackpad not as physically smooth as many others, including $250 IdeaPad, & not as sensitive yet has poor palm rejection – Stupid placement of Fn & left Ctrl keys, & when swapped to be like EVERY OTHER KEYBOARD the “Ctrl” key is much smaller, affecting its use in touch-typing, & the swapped labels causes confusion – Inconsistency of Fn keys between models – Backlight bleeds a lot under keys & excess brightness can be distracting & can overwhelm the actual letters, etc, plus the lower brightness is still much brighter than it needs to be & often too bright & an excessive battery drain (should be like the light for the mic status) – Backlight often turns off right after turning it on & sometimes turns on at full brightness, making you turn it off & back on to get it to low, & turns off when locking computer but not on again when unlocking, even shortly after – Mic Fn key light is on when mic is off which is backwards & annoying since the mic is always off & can’t be switched in Vantage – Fn key works at the hardware level, so can’t use it for additional shortcuts, & this could easily be done if they had it send a keypress to the OS – Fingerprint reader works poorly despite registering fingers multiple times & should be lit – Clicks often don’t register even when hearing button click – Middle trackpad button no longer works for both scrolling & middle-clicking, a major downgrade for no apparent reason, & requires 3rd-party software to fix – TrackPoint & pad often become *extremely* laggy & jump around for a while after waking computer, have completely stopped working until locking/unlocking computer, & multiple times one day stopped moving until I let off the stick then started moving it again, so new drivers not only less functional but very buggy – Too many TrackPoint & keyboard issues when those are the main selling point of ThinkPads = Arrow keys are better than most, but lower three are still smaller & I hit the wrong keys, especially PgUp/PgDn instead of left/right Installed software: + Minimal bloat, even less than MS’s own image (no Candy Crush, etc) = Vantage has some nice features but is needs improvement & is ADWARE = Indicator light on caps key but no OSD, which is useful for touch-typing, though there’s one for most other things, which is silly when there’s even one for the keyboard backlight, which is far less useful since the backlight is much more noticeable Performance, Audio, Noise, Cooling, & Battery Life: + Haven’t pushed it yet, but mostly very fast & doesn’t slow down with quite a bit going on, though does occasionally get pretty laggy (unsure if it’s the computer or Windows) + Tested iGPU with Borderlands 1 maxed out, was very smooth though possibly some mild screen tearing + Very good sound for a laptop, especially such a small one, plenty loud & clear (I can listen to music across the house, up/down stairs & around corners & down hallways) with no noticeable distortion + Charges quickly – Was only able to get 16GB of *soldered* RAM, which really isn’t enough – Fairly quiet overall & even when fan runs it’s more the sound of moving air than the fan, but emits various strange & somewhat annoying sounds, especially at low speeds, e.

g. a scratching similar to HDD heads moving, a chirping, what sounds like bad fan bearings (like a quiet version of a card in bike spokes), etc – Cooling is mixed, decent overall, often mid-40s to 50s with no little to no fan but fairly regularly gets up to 60s & 70s causing the fan to run even when not doing much, yet only got to high 60s during a Prime95 run on the same (balanced) power mode & 80 on max performance (which oddly suddenly throttled & dropped to ~60 after a while for a few minutes before ramping back up & going back to ~80, & seemed to throttle every time, & only when, I picked it up), hasn’t become hot to touch–just slightly warm on right side of the keyboard & bottom center-back–so the cooling system seems good but needs tuning, the fan quality may not be great, & throttles when picked up – Battery life mixed, as the first time, with very light use, it was looking like 12-14+ hours, but that quickly dropped to ~9 hours & now ~6.

5-7, still with very light use & low display brightness (though oddly neither turning it up nor using airplane mode seem have an effect), which is terrible & prevents leaving home without the charger for even a day, & in a normal day if I run off battery, I have to charge after a while, then can run on battery again but eventually have to charge *again* in the same day (charging to 80%); like my last ThinkPad, which also got nowhere near its rated life even with an extra slice battery Purchasing Process – I won’t go into full detail on how terrible ordering from Lenovo is, as that would take pages.

They’re easily one of the worst companies I’ve dealt with & I wasted HOURS trying to buy from them. I made THREE attempts Black Friday weekend of 2019, all canceled within hours, & the reps were completely useless.

I made multiple attempts in 2020, first for the T14 mid-Nov, but it kept declining payment & the bank said Lenovo wasn’t even attempting to process it. After hours on chat & phone, again with useless reps & one who was downright unprofessional, I finally gave up.

I tried once more for this on BF weekend due to the prices (I paid less for it than the T14, & I prefer it over that, so there’s that at least), & still ran into the payment declined problem. I finally tried disabling my VPN & then it worked, though it shouldn’t have mattered & it would have been nice if their system or reps had been able to tell me that, & searching about the issue, I found it’s fairly common, yet they’re too incompetent &/or apathetic to fix it.

I can only hope I never need warranty service, as I can’t imagine what a nightmare that would be. Bottom line, this feels both well-designed & half-baked at the same time. Lenovo has definitely declined.

The only things Lenovos have over others & the ONLY reasons I even consider them are the TrackPoint &, to a lesser extent, the keyboard. If not for those, I wouldn’t even look at them, which makes the terrible implementation here even more ridiculous, & at this point I doubt I’ll bother with another one.

Because of that, & since many people don’t appreciate, or even like, the TrackPoint, & this trackpad is mediocre, I’d actually recommend that most people avoid it. For those that don’t specifically want a TrackPoint &/or that the trackpad is important to them, get something else.

And Lenovo, way to go labeling this box with a character minimum but not maximum.

This is an incredibly solid laptop and it performs incredibly well. The only things that are lackluster about this laptop is that its speakers are very tinny and not fantastic. The trackpad is just ok but very useable, just not the most incredible feel, but it performs well.

The keyboard backlight cannot be set for when you are plugged in vs on battery, or I haven’t been able to find that setting yet, but this is a small issue. The battery life can vary wildly, and keeping battery saver on when on battery is advised.

The thermal performance however, is immaculate, its incredible. The performance is high and the laptop remains cool. The connectivity is great with the 2 thunderbolt 4 ports, and the windows hello biometrics work flawlessly.

The chassis is thinner and shorter than other 15 inch laptops, but it is thicker, which is a welcome trade off, and the angled keyboard is a nice touch. The expandable storage is amazing and works flawlessly.

This workstation is an amazing machine and lives by the mantra, work hard, play hard. It games well, and the RTX 3070 performs well and runs at the max clock for a mobile GPU, as does the CPU. Overall, a very solid laptop that I would pick over may other workstation grade laptops.

IšverstiShow in original languageSetup of the computer was quick and easy. I chose to stay on windows 10 as my applications require it but windows 11 upgrade was presented on initial start up. The computer has some built in lenevo software but it isn’t completely loaded with bloatware.

Battery life is respectable for the size and processing power of the computer. Appears to be about 5 hours. The finger print scanner works well and is a quick way to unlock the computer. The AMD processor is plenty fast for most computing tasks.

I haven’t tried anything to taxing but it has handled everything I needed with ease. The overall build quality is high and the keys and track pad work decently. The buttons and keys provide a nicer feedback than previous laptops.

So far I haven’t encountered any issues and would recommend the laptop to anyone looking for a no frills, reliable, workhouse laptop. The size is also quite compact making it easy to store. The screen is decent and colours and contrast look sharp and it manages glare decently.

It is worth the upgrade to the thinkpad line of computers from the ideapad lineup.

IšverstiShow in original languageI’m previously a gen3 owner so given my positive experience I had this on pre-order excited with its release. The speakers are improved in this model. This keyboard was improved with a lower profile, but the space bar feels and sounds really cheap.

It’s a couple steps forward in improvement but one step back in the quality and feel of the keyboard. I have the IPS display. The 16” LCD has a warmer more natural backlight to it than gen3’s IPS display’s blue tint and they somehow crammed an extra inch of display space without increasing the size of the laptop by more than a few mm.

The anti-glare coating on it is too aggressive on this creating a lot of colorshift when you move your head. Even if you stare in the middle of the screen the corners are color shifted. Once again, another couple steps forward but one back.

I deducted a star in my rating for these two minor disappointments. A couple build quality issues that was my other rating star deduction: Also increase in size is the massively oversized power brick lets off a lot of chirpy coil noise.

When you are in a quiet room, the faint noises from the power supply can be hard to ignore. Maybe mine is an isolated incident. There is an oil residue behind the camera pane. You can see it ooze around when sliding the privacy shutter.

This creates a misty glare on webcam reminiscent of 1980s glam shots. In my opinion the fan noise is not any louder than gen3 and quieter than the gen4 I tried. Maxing the cpu/video card did not make the laptop as hot to the touch as gen4 Bottom line, this is a solid feeling laptop with a bit of an identity problem.

It’s lightweight and portable around the house but if you want to slip it into a bag you have to toss in a power supply that is 1/3rd the size of your laptop. The finish also scratches easy so handle with care compared to the T-series but it has an improved video card for gaming… but isn’t quite a full out gaming laptop.

On a side note, the new environmentally friendly packing is very impressive. Even the plastic wrap on the computer was replaced with paper. I think you will like this laptop a lot. Just don’t expect build quality perfection that was seen in areas of previous generations.

I was so impressed with my Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 workstation from work that when I found out the X1 Extreme Gen 3 is the same chassis with a gamer GPU instead of engineering GPU, it was a no brainer! Very well scalloped membrane keyboard without a mushy tactile feel.

I picked up the 4K display with touch and stylus support. I travel weekly, so this is a great compliment to my Lenovo Legion C730 cube PC as I have background syncing turned on via OneDrive. The 135W power supply is technically larger than what a plane supports (100W), but I also have never run down the battery to zero on multiple 5hr flights.

Multiple strangers have commented how stunning the screen looks, especially when watching HDR video content. I typically use engineering workstations, and this laptop has never overheated on me. It is very noticeably well built / ruggedized compared to similar HP Elitebooks and Dell workstations, while still feeling very slim in hand.

The 720p camera sounds light on the spec sheet, but I can confirm the image quality has much improved over the 720p camera found on the ThinkPad P1 Gen 2. I ordered mine with a single SSD and installed a second SSD on my own.

It’s very easy to remove the bottom enclosure and its screws are captured in their screwholes, so there’s minimal chance you’ll lose them. I was surprised to see there’s a thermal gap pad already installed for when you do choose to add that second SSD.

The built-in slide over the webcam is a nice touch. There is also no shortage of ports, and it even has an SD card reader. The only time you would want to use a dongle is if you need an ethernet connection.

Overall, this feels way more balanced of a product than a Macbook Pro. Good job, Lenovo!.

My Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 is an outstanding computer. It is configured with the Intel Xeon W-11855M Processor; 64 GB ECC Memory; 2 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, OPAL; 16. 0″ WQUXGA (3840 x 2400) IPS Touchscreen, 600 nits Display; NVIDIA RTX A2000 4GB Graphic Card; 170W Power Adapter; Windows 11 Pro 64 for Workstation Operating System; and including Microsoft Office Professional 2021.

I replaced a Lenovo ThinkPad W510 with my new P1 Gen 4. The W510 was still running very well after nearly 12 years of continuous use, but I wanted more processor power and storage capacity, as well as additional features that the P1 Gen 4 offers.

The ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 provides exactly what I was expecting: great CPU performance; device attachment flexibility with Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2. 1, and USB 3. 2 ports; and a Touchscreen Display with the sharpest images I have seen.

I operate the CPU in a balanced power mode rather than in high performance, and the machine runs very cool. Even running many simultaneous tasks (Firefox browser with several open tabs; Streaming video; Microsoft Access data base processes; Microsoft Word; Outlook E-mail functions; Adobe Acrobat operations; etc.

), the Xeon processor is never taxed. I am still learning the finer points of Windows 11 and Office Professional 2021, as well as the specific operation of the P1 Gen 4. The feel of the keyboard is somewhat different from my W510.

I still prefer the keyboard on the W510, which had more key travel and a better “feel” in my opinion. The placement of the TrackPoint mouse buttons on the P1 Gen 4 is not what I prefer. The buttons are too difficult to easily distinguish from the space bar, and they are too close to the space bar.

Some of the problem with being able to use the mouse buttons efficiently will hopefully go away with regular use and familiarization with the exact location and feel of the buttons. The layout of the keyboard is also slightly different from the W510, and that is a matter of familiarization with use.

I also miss the “second set” of mouse buttons which were on the front edge of the W510 keyboard. One other item I miss greatly is the indicator lights that existed on the W510, visually displaying disk activity and the state of wireless connections.

I realize that the same information can be selected on the screen, but I liked the display lights below the screen. The Touchscreen on the P1 Gen 4 is wonderful! I debated about ordering this display, but I am very happy that I have it.

It works perfectly in every respect, and I would not want to return to a non-touchscreen system. Overall, the P1 Gen 4 fits my requirement very well, and I only hope that it runs as well, and for as many years, as my W510 did over its lifetime.

Thank you for continuing to build quality ThinkPad computers!.

The laptop is great. The exterior finish was a nice surprise: I did not realize the ThinkPad designs for the P series had changed like this, and I like the result, especially with the subdued/minimal style of much of the branding and the way the lid’s carbon fiber style doesn’t show fingerprints as much as on my older T14.

Audio, video, and performance are all great so far, and the built-in, manually operated physical camera shutter is a key selling point. An electronically operated shutter like they advertise for the Z series would not meet my standards.

I wish there were physical cut-off switches for the microphone and wifi, though. I ordered the laptop with Ubuntu, but received it with some kind of Windows auto-install setup on it. This is a definite detriment; they did not deliver exactly what I ordered.

Thankfully, installing my own Linux distribution was part of the plan in the first place, and I did not have to play stupid games with a Windows secure boot to get it set up. The mishandling of the included OS is the biggest detriment, and the reason this review gets four stars instead of five.

As side notes: The way the shipping situation kept changing, and ultimately shipped before I was given an updated estimate of when it would ship/arrive, was quite inconvenient. I know parts acquisition and shipping have been seriously screwed up worldwide in the last couple years, but it would have been nice to be able to plan a little better for arrival.

The laptop for work arrived at home while I was away on a business trip, and there was nothing I was able to do about that other than inform my wife that it was on the way. Ideally, I would have liked to have it delivered to me at the hotel.

I also ordered something labelled as a “dock” for the laptop, and it is not only an annoying USB-C style dock (not a surprise; I just wish there were still docks that did not require the OS to be aware of the dock hardware to work) but also does not provide power to run the laptop — which is a huge annoyance, because it means I need to carry around the rather large/heavy (by today’s standards) power block even when it’s docked.

I’m not sure “dock” is the right word for the device in any reasonable sense, these days.

I’m going over the pros and cons of this workstation after 3 weeks of usage: Pros: 1. Handles high quality renders perfectly (tested with SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2021) 2. Plenty of RAM, can run multiple heavy programs without slowing it down, but Windows will be much more generous distributing your ram to programs such as web browsers.

3. nice battery life for such a high performance system, extremely fast charging 4. camera cover switch and microphone enable button provide further control of privacy Cons: 1. The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) has been showing up quite often, crashing the system and interrupting my work.

The errors happen mostly when I switch power saving modes (from high performance to battery saver) or when I unplug the charger. The main errors are “video_tdr_failure (nvlddmkm. sys)”, and “video_memory_management_internal”, which are likely due to driver incompatibility of the RTX 3080.

Upon switching power states, it seems like the laptop fails to deliver sufficient power to the GPU or properly turn its power consumption down, which causes it to crash. I have tried a few driver updates so far (NVIDIA Studio drivers), none have helped.

I hope that this issue will be fixed in an update soon. 2. Weird keyboard layout – The fn key is on the left side of ctrl, which takes some time to get used to. It also doesn’t have a number pad, which could be a problem if you need to keep typing in numbers fast.

The touchpad is nice, but the force needed to click it feels above average. 3. The red TrackPoint button (ThinkPad’s joystick for cursor navigation) sometimes decides to point left on its own, which causes a slow but consistent drift on the cursor.

It doesn’t happen often enough for me to want to send it back for a fix though. 4. The laptop is thermally stable and has powerful fans. There is sufficient air flow through the bottom vents when it’s placed on a flat desk, you probably won’t need external fans or cooling pads.

However, it won’t do well on your lap or on a cushiony surface, it gets pretty hot. 5. While the soft-touch rubbery material on the main body is very comfortable, it very easily shows marks from sweat/skin oil.

Note: Don’t attempt to use the laptop GPU for crypto mining, it’s not designed for it! you can damage all sorts of components in the system (GPU itself, battery, cpu, fans,. ). Instead, use this beast for creative stuff, coding, cool designs, engineering simulations, and machine learning.

These activities can potentially make you a lot more money without wearing out your system!.