Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 is an improvement on what was already a successful formula with the first ThinkPad P15. This improvement comes in the form of improved performance as well as outstanding battery life for the 1080p edition. A true workhorse of a workstation thanks to its 11th Generation Intel Core i9-11950H CPU, Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU, and 32GB of RAM, the laptop in question is a portable device.

After screwing up the nerve to push the buy button with that intimidating price tag above it, the ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 is going to be difficult to match if sheer performance is what you’re looking for in a laptop.

The display is the only thing that should be of interest to creatives, however if it’s very important to you, you might think about getting an OLED screen or even an external display. The performance of the Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 easily earns it a position among our best workstation laptops and best ThinkPad pages. It outperforms the competition in almost every category, and the minor shortcomings aren’t expected to have an effect on the majority of customers.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Design

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 is so big and heavy that you would know immediately if you forgot to put it in your laptop bag because the bag wouldn’t burst at the seams. The matte black finish and overall design are very classic ThinkPad. Just imagine if a ThinkPad X1 put a quarter in the Zoltar machine and wished to be big.

On the top of the laptop, the only things that break up the matte black are the Lenovo logo, which is carved into a small silver rectangle in the top left corner, and the ThinkPad logo, which is at an angle in the bottom right corner with a blinking red LED dot in the “i.” I was happy to find that, unlike the previous ThinkPad P15, the matte finish did its job and completely got rid of fingerprints. Vents take up most of the space on the bottom of the laptop. Large rubber strips at the front and back give the vents space to work.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Keyboard and touch pad

The plastic and fiberglass structure and the familiar magnesium roll cage at the base unit continue to be very stable. It’s almost impossible to damage the base unit, and even typing quickly doesn’t make a difference.

Only the bottom left of the keyboard gives a little, but we’ll discuss that later. Above the smart card reader, the plastic is also slightly bendy. The two hinges are still in good shape (180 degrees is the most they can open), but they can no longer hold the screen at very narrow angles.

On the other hand, the lid is very sturdy, and the screen has no problems, even when we put pressure on certain parts of it. When you compare the ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 to other devices of the same size, it’s easy to see that it’s quite big, since it’s the heaviest and biggest device in our comparison group.

In addition to the device’s weight of almost 2.9 kg, you should also think about the power adapter, which weighs about 900 grams. You can get this laptop from its official website.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Display

This is the P15 Gen 2’s second-best screen. If your work depends on images, you might want to consider the top-of-the-line 4K OLED HDR500 touchscreen display instead. The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 seems like it could have used a 16-inch laptop screen to help reduce the size of its bezels, which are much bigger than any modern laptop should have.

But if you can get past the bezels, the display is not bad. When watching the trailer for Marvel’s Hawkeye, which is mostly dark, the ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 display does a good job, but the 1080p image stretched across that 15.6-inch display isn’t as sharp as it could be and doesn’t have as much color punch as some of its competitors.

In a foggy scene on the rink at Rockefeller Center, the lights on the Christmas tree don’t stand out against the dark background, and in the next shot, Hawkeye and Kate Bishop’s clothes and bows aren’t as detailed as they should be.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Audio

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2’s speakers are a big letdown in general. Even though the top of the keyboard looks like it has a large speaker grille running the length of it, there are only two small holes for the speakers there. They were able to easily fill my 18-by-12-foot listening space, but there is no bass, so it sounds far away even though the volume is good.

I listened to Giveon’s “For Tonight,” and the vocals don’t have the rich tones they should. Even if you are just watching a video of the song, you will be disappointed by how thin the sound is. Basically, if you want to do more than just make a video call or watch a short YouTube video, you should buy some wireless headphones instead of using the onboard speakers.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Graphics

In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the ThinkPad P15 did well, reaching 76 frames per second (fps) at 1080p with high graphics and 67 fps with ultra high graphics. The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro gaming laptop was just behind the Razer Blade 14, which also had an RTX 3070, with 67 and 61 frames per second.

The Legion 5 Pro got 82 fps at 1080p and 73 fps at ultra graphics, while the Blade 14 got 115 fps at 1080p and 96 fps at ultra graphics. The ThinkPad P15 got 106 fps at 1080p and medium graphics and 59 fps at ultra graphics.

Lastly, the ThinkPad P15 did well in Fortnite, getting 138 fps at 1080p with high graphics and 104 fps with epic graphics. The Legion 5 Pro got 120 fps and 101 fps, while the Blade 14 got 114 fps and 96 fps.

We also played Civilization VI. At 1080p and medium graphics, I got 218 fps, and at ultra graphics, I got 155 fps. The next fastest laptop in our database is the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with a Ryzen 7 5800H and an RTX 3070, which got 127 fps and 114 fps, respectively. Clearly, the ThinkPad P15 does well at this game, which is hard on both the CPU and the GPU.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Performance

Workstations are all about performance, and the ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 came to play. With 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, the Intel Core i9-11950H processor was more than up to any task I could throw at it.

Trying to make a day like mine I opened 40 tabs in Google Chrome, including three YouTube videos and two Twitch streams. As expected, everything ran as smoothly as silk, but the fans did sometimes get as loud as a harrier jet. Turning to more useful workstation tasks, I turned on Adobe Creative Cloud, started some Premiere Pro projects, and then went through my Lightroom library.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Battery life and heat

If there was one thing I didn’t expect much from before the review, it was the battery life. Even when doing simple productivity tasks, I had no idea that the ThinkPad P15 would last even close to a full day. Let’s just say that I was a bit surprised. Inside the huge chassis are 94 watt-hours of battery, which helps.

The Full HD display does, too. Even so, I was surprised that the ThinkPad P15 lasted 9.5 hours on our web-browsing test. That’s a half hour longer than the Dell XPS 15 and more than two hours longer than the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4.

The ThinkPad P15 lasted about 11.5 hours in our video test, which looped a local Full HD Avengers trailer. This isn’t a great score, but it was better than the XPS 15 by six minutes and the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 by more than two hours (again). That’s not too bad for a desk.

Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 review: Price

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 isn’t cheap, but it’s worth it because it’s a powerful mobile workstation. Starting at US$2,759 and going all the way up to US$12,759, our review unit as configured will cost $7,352 before any savings. Lenovo is having a sale right now, with systems starting at $1,600. This makes our review configuration less expensive, at $4,264.

Most of the other options are marked down by 42–50%. As you can see, the ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 can be as cheap or expensive as you need it to be for work, depending on your needs. Once you order your system, you may have to wait a few months. This is likely because of problems with the supply chain. Also, you might want to upgrade if you know you might have to wait a while for your system.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 could be used as an example of a workstation in a dictionary. The frame is big and heavy, so it won’t win any beauty contests. However, it has performance that is unmatched by almost anything else on the market.

This laptop is easy to recommend to a wide range of users because it has a comfortable keyboard, a solid build, and issues with the screen that can be fixed. People have good reasons to complain about the size and price of this laptop. However, when you look at how well it works and what a workstation laptop is used for, both complaints can be put aside.