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Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review: It’s hard to hold a bulky workstation on the street, but the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s (beginning at $839; $1,537 as examined) is Lenovo’s effort to mix portability and performance. It weighs just 5 pounds, which is light for a laptop of this size and excellent for road warriors. However, it eschews a highly efficient Intel Xeon CPU for a Core i7 (although you still get a Nvidia Quadro M500M GPU with 2GB VRAM for AutoCAD or Photoshop). Whether the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s is for you depends on how much power you want versus how often you’ll want to take the machine away from your desk.
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Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review – Specifications
Processor 2.6-GHz Intel Core i7-6600U CPU
RAM 16 GB
Storage 512 GB SSD
Display 15.5-inch, 2880 x 1620
Operating System Windows 10 Pro
Graphics Nvidia Quadro M500M GPU with 2GB of RAM
Dimensions 16 x 10 x 0.9 inches/ 5 pounds
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Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review – Design
The ThinkPad P50s shares the identical black, boxy design you will find on every other ThinkPad available on the market. The plastic and glass fiber chassis is built strong, and I wouldn’t assume twice about throwing this notebook in a briefcase. Both the ThinkPad and Lenovo emblem are stamped on the lid.
Lift the lid, and you will find the 15.5-inch, 2880 x 1620 screen and the island-style keyboard with number pad. Another ThinkPad logo is printed on the palm rest, situated to the right of the touchpad and fingerprint reader.
The edges of the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s are lined with ports for peripherals, hard drives, and different productivity accessories. On the left, you will discover the power jack, a headphone jack, a single USB 3.0 port, an SD card slot, and an Ethernet jack. Along the right aspect, you will discover two more USB 3.0 ports, a Mini DisplayPort, and a lock slot.
At 5 kilos and 16 x 10 x 0.9 inches, the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s is bigger and heavier than the HP ZBook Studio G3 (4.6-pound and 14.8 x 10 x 0.7 inches). It’s far lighter, however, than the regular ThinkPad P50 (5.8-pound and 14.9 x 10 x 1.2 inches) and the Dell Latitude E5570 (5.6-pound and 14.8 x 9.9 x 0.9 inches).
Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review- Keyboard, Touchpad, and TrackPoint
I typed rapidly on the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s, but the keyboard didn’t have the snappy responsiveness I count on from a ThinkPad. There was no flex, however the keys, despite having a superb 2.2 millimeters of the key journey and requiring 63 grams of actuation force required to press, felt a bit mushy.
The laptop’s 3.9 x 2.2-inch touchpad is correct, and it instantly responded to Windows 10 gestures together with three-finger swipes and two-finger scrolling. Longtime followers of ThinkPads will admire the red TrackPoint, which helps you to navigate without shifting your fingers from the home row. Buttons for the TrackPoint are positioned above the trackpad.
Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review – Keyboard, Touchpad, and TrackPoint
The P50’s 15.5-inch, 2880 x 1620 panel is good and vibrant, with fine details and vivid colors. With the maximum brightness of 347 nits, the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s is much more luminous than the competitors. The category average is 298 nits, and the HP ZBook (241 nits), Dell Latitude (242 nits) and the regular ThinkPad P50 (276 nits) weren’t as bright.
The P50s’ panel covers an excellent 106 % of the sRGB color gamut, although other desktop replacements are even more vibrant. The category average is higher, at 126 %, and the Dell Latitude (107 %), HP ZBook (169 %) and regular ThinkPad P50 (183 %) provide more evocative hues.
However, the colors on the P50s are more exact than these of the competitors. The panel turned in a Delta-E rating of 1.3 (closer to zero is best), matching the category average and beating the HP ZBook (2.4) and ThinkPad P50 (3.6). The Dell Latitude (0.7) had the most efficient rating of the group.
Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review- Graphics and Audio
Being integrated with Nvidia Quadro M500M GPU with 2GB RAM, the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s isn’t strong enough for hardcore gaming. The P50s ought to provide a boost in programs like AutoCAD and Photoshop, though. The ThinkPad P50s notched 90,874 on the 3DMark Ice Storm graphics test. The category average is a much more potent 130,600, and the HP ZBook and regular ThinkPad P50 came closest, with 117,745 and 120,890 scores respectively. The Dell Latitude walked away with 91,399.
The audio system on the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s get nice and loud, however, don’t produce rich, and detailed sound. When I listened to Sum 41’s “88,” the vocals and leading guitar were exceptionally clear. However, the bass was distant, and the percussion often got lost among the other instruments.
Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review – Hardware and Performance
Our review unit of Lenovo ThinkPad P50s comes with a 2.6-GHZ Intel Core i7-6600U CPU, 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD and a Nvidia Quadro M500M GPU with 2GB of VRAM; the P50s has no problem dealing with multiple apps at once. When I had 30 tabs open in Google Chrome, together with one streaming a Full-HD episode of SUITS, there was no noticeable lag.
The Lenovo ThinkPad P50s earned a rating of 7,213 on the Geekbench 3 performance test, falling far short of the category average of 17,520. The competitors, outfitted with more powerful CPUs, left the P50s in the dust. The HP ZBook (Intel Xeon E3-1505M, begins at $1,800), original ThinkPad P50 (Intel Xeon E3-1505M, begins at $1,322) and the Dell Latitude (Intel Core i7-6820HQ, begins at $780) scored 14,316; 14,276; and 12,148, respectively.
The ThinkPad P50s took 23 seconds to copy 4.97GB of mixed-media information on our file transfer test, registering transfer rate of 221.3 megabytes per second. Once more, it fell behind the category average (541.6) in addition to the ZBook (508.92MBps) and regular ThinkPad P50 (457.1MBps). Only the Dell Latitude was slower, at 159MBps.
It took the P50s 3 minutes and 42 seconds to pair 20,000 names and addresses on our OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro test. Once more, that’s slower than the typical (3:35), ZBook and P50 (both at 3:23), and Latitude (3:29).
Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review – Battery Life and Heat
The P50s is among the few workstations you could feel comfortable using unplugged. It lasted 7 hours and 49 minutes on our Battery Test, which includes regular internet browsing over Wi-Fi. Only the regular ThinkPad P50 lasted longer, at 8:25, whereas the Latitude (7:17) and ZBook (5:08) tapped out sooner.
We don’t just call the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s a desktop replacement because of its power. It also gets hot enough that you should keep it on a desk at all times. After I had streamed 15 minutes of HD video from YouTube, the bottom of the laptop hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit, surpassing our consolation threshold of 95 degrees. The middle of the keyboard was cozier, at 85.5 degrees, and the touchpad reached only 84 degrees.
Lenovo ThinkPad P50s Review – Configuration Options
Our $1,537 review configuration of the ThinkPad P50s includes a 2.6-GHZ Intel Core i7-6600U CPU, 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, a Nvidia Quadro M500M GPU with 2GB of VRAM and a 2880 x 1620 display. The base model prices $839.25 and comes with an Intel Core i5-6300U CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB and 7,200-rpm HDD, a Nvidia Quadro M500M GPU with 2GB of VRAM, and a 1080p display. In contrast to the original P50, the P50s doesn’t include an option for a more powerful Intel Xeon CPU. That’s the trade-off for how thin and light-weight it is.
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Conclusion
Whether the Lenovo ThinkPad P50s is the workstation for you all comes down to at least one choice: Do you want something more portable or something more powerful? This laptop is thinner and lighter than most 15-inch workstations. However, it also lacks an Intel Xeon CPU. A result is a machine that’s easier to fit into a backpack however not as speedy as the competitors.
With its vibrant display and adequate keyboard, the P50s is a reliable alternative for working on the road. If you want a bit more powerful laptop, then the regular ThinkPad P50, beginning at $1,072, is the better alternative. That notebook’s 8-and-a-half-hour battery life, option for an Intel Xeon CPU and excellent keyboard will probably be more to your liking. However, the display is dimmer.