Announcing ThinkPad P-Series - P50 and P70

Maybe that's an older model? My Lenovo Settings metro app doesn't have an "adaptive" setting for the keyboard backlight.

 

I have it on my 2015 W550s, and my 2016 thinkpad yoga 14 I bought yesterday has it as well/
??
Its the Lenovo Settings App, maybe you have to download it from Lenovo site if you don't have it. I had to download a few thinkpad programs for my thinkpad yoga 14 from their site as well lastnight?

 

Yea, someone mentioned that way to me before. Problem is, that way adds like $300 to the config, for a small drive I wont use after the fact. And with Lenovo shiptime being 3-4 weeks on my config, i'd opt for the amazon one. Same as my config only 16gb ram vs 8gb and like $80 more. but will ship in 2 days.

 

I have the "ThinkPad Settings Dependency for Windows 10" program and the Lenovo Settings metro app installed. The metro app just lets me manually set the back light level, which has the same effect as if I use Fn-Spacebar myself.

 

Yes that is correct. This has been the case with my P50 Xeon anyway. In hindsight I would have got the 16GB ECC sodimm instead of the 8GB. I'm now going to have to keep going with 56GB ECC RAM and wait for a BIOS update that might allow me to use all non Lenovo RAM or fork out for a Lenovo 16GB chip.

 

Just updated to BIOS 1.17 - still no Turbo Boost.

 

If you're not running at least 3.2/3.3, that should be an RMA shouldn't it? Worked for me from day one for the 6820, which I know isn't the Xeon.

 

Yeah if they cant sort it within the next 2 weeks I'm sending back.

 

Some more notes after using the P50 for a week (6820HQ, FHD Touch, 16GB RAM, 950Pro + 2.5" SSD, Workstation docking).

Pop crackle continues to be annoying. Even if I plugin external speakers, the internal speaker will crackle when a sound first plays.

Bluetooth works better than my Dell 6530. I have some bluetooth headphones that I use for making calls and for listening to music that gave me a ton of issues on the Dell, whereas the P50 / 8260 seems to do fine (Windows 10 on both).

USB ports too close together on side. If you plug in 2 drives, the side USB ports are too close together for a lot of drives to fit together. Jamming them is isn't so good. I wish they had an extra port on the left side.

Screen is just incredibly dim. I had to mention this again. I have the FHD Touchscreen and it's a lot dimmer than my old Dell 6530 screen. Why skimp on this on a Milspec tested laptop? I want 500+ nits!

Fingerprint reader doesn't always work on sleep resume. The fingerprint reader is pretty great when it's active, but it tends not to be when I resume from sleep mode so I have to enter a password instead. Even manually choosing fingerpint doesn't allow it to work. If I then lock the screen the fingerprint reader is back online. This seems to be a resume from sleep issue.

SD card not recessed enough to keep microsd in there nicely. With my Dell, an inserted SD card would not extend pass the frame, allowing it to stay inserted when putting into bags etc. The P50 has a slanted frame and the SD card sticks out a bit, catching on things.

Touch works great on the FHD screen. Good feel and I like the continuous bezel.

I've had one random system reboot in a week full of compiling, running OpenGL video compression/rendering etc. Overall stability seems good.

Docking station still exposes ports on back which is nice. I have the workstation docking station which has a good selection of ports. And since all the ports on the laptop rear are still accessible there are a lot of port options here. The spacing on the USB ports in back is a lot better than the side allowing for the extra USB sticks side by side.

I'm connected to 2 external DP monitors using the docking station with no significant issues with 3 displays total -- it was a little tricky at first to make it not use USB (???) as a display device vs display port. My old laptop didn't do this but apparently with USB3 it can send out video over USB which I didn't want to use. Had no idea my monitor even supported this until this laptop. I have found that I've had to disable hardware acceleration in a few apps (Chrome, Visual Studio) as the Nvidia card has some visual artifacting issues with these apps when they are on the secondary displays (problems go away when using laptop display). I've upgraded to the latest Performance Nvidia driver, but not sure if there's a better option there. I tend to believe its the Quadro cards with the problem as my older 5200M had the same issues as the M1000M does.

The laptop outside finish picks up smudges quickly. Having a touchscreen also gets smudgy fast - it should have come with a microfiber cloth, but those are easily found.

I've had no problems with a 950Pro NVme drive and a 2TB Sata SSD, although of course I had to buy the NVMe tray separately which seems a bit silly.

The fan profile seems pretty great. During big compiles where the processor pegs at the fastest Turbo on all 4 cores, the fan doesn't get very loud at all (much quieter than a Dell Precision M6800 for example). Fan noise is a little louder when using an OpenGL app for a while, but still very quiet. Very nice profile for a performance machine so far. Haven't even looked to see if there are dual fans (CPU/GPU). Either way it seems to manage thermals fairly well. I haven't seen the max fan sleep problem reported by a few people but I'm not digging for it either.

Small nitpick: I wish there were different indicators for the hard drive light for the 3 different ports. Having one indicator for any random drive accessing itself is actually a little annoying, as it's facing to the front, instead of facing upwards. It ends up being a little distracting having it flash all the time. I'd rather have it be a lot smaller, and just indicate disk access that took place in the last 1 second or something, sort of like the "Hot Surface" indicator on an oven. If anything, just don't face it forward.

As a side note, anyone know of any Thunderbolt 3 PCIe docks or 10Gbe Thunderbolt 3 adapters? It's nice we have a port, but there is almost nothing using Thunderbolt 3 yet. I do like that the port is on the rear of the laptop.

I had a 3720 2.7Ghz in my previous laptop, and the performance difference, if any, is not really noticeable with my 6820. 3 years in laptop terms doesn't make for a huge leap in computing power. The IPC gains between Ivybridge and Skylake aren't that great so at the same Mhz it's not noticeable. Faster ram makes a difference in tests I'm sure but in application use you don't see it. I do like the built in H265 encoding in Skylake.

So there you go. A week in the life of the P50.

 

It's still fairly new. Dell is coming with TB15 soon, as well as a bunch of other companies with Thunderbolt3=>Dual Display Port adapter.

This should enable hooking up 2*4K displays @ 60 Hz monitors.

 

Are there any Lenovo employees lurking around here that can answer technical questions?

I tried chatting with Lenovo last week, to find out if the P70's MXM gpu can be upgraded to a Pascal quadro once Lenovo releases updated gpu's for the P70 ( or its successor). The rep seemed pretty clueless and even insisted that the gpu on the P70 is not removable at all.

I might be upgrading to a P70 or a Dell 7710, and right now I'm leaning towards the Dell because of their track record with gpu upgrades. If the P70 can be upgraded with future Lenovo MXM gpu's though, I would definitely get it over the Dell.

 

Here's a few specs/reviews for you:

https://www.thinkworkstations.com/

https://www.thinkscopes.com/2015/09/14/ibc-2015-thinkpad-p70-hands-on-review/

And here's the Service Training video site:

https://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/showcase?sid=1130&key=TGVuZw==

According to the Service Training site, the 20ER, and 20ES model's MXM are "swap-able" although I don't have a clue about the Pascal quadro.

Cheers

 

The big question regarding Pascal compatability is whether future graphics cards will be included on the UEFI/BIOS whitelist. Lenovo routinely will only allow certain components in their systems.

 

Cannot decide between 4k or 1080P with the P70. Been reading pros/cons of both. I do not have a legitimate need currently for 4k, not doing professional photo/video editing, etc. But I want to make sure the machine I buy is future proof for years to come.

I dont cycle machines very often. Currently typing on a 6 year old W701 with an annoying, very temperamental power jack.

Does getting a 4k display mandate going with windows 10? I thought previously that windows 10 with its improved scaling was necessary but reading thru posts some are buying 4k with windows 7. Not sure Im ready to make the leap yet to windows 10. Going 1080p with a 4k external monitor is an option but I do a fair amount of traveling with the laptop. Also the screen flickering/PWM with 4K in some of the reports is worrisome.

Again looking for the best set of options to keep me covered for possibly another 5 years.

Any advice or insights? Thanks!

Edited to add this would be for a P70.

 

It was a really hard decision for me too, but I ended up with the 1080p and here's why:

Brightness: The are both supposed to be 300 nits, and no one has tested 4K display so we can only go by what Lenovo says. Additionally, 1080p should not have PWM while 4K probably will.

Color: Its a gamble. The LG 1080p with 45% NTSC is truly disappointing for such an expensive computer. The Samsung 1080p with 72% NTSC I think is appropriate (like the Dell 7510), as it should be around full sRGB. The 4K won't disappoint in color reproduction.

Battery: The P50 with 1080p has pretty darn good battery life. If the XPS 15 is any indication, I would expect around a 25% drop in usage times (~5-6 hours, still not bad). However, battery life is very important for me.

Resolution: 1080p (IMO) looks very good in 15.6". Obviously 4K will look a lot nicer and be very good in the long run, but at least for me, resolution wise (since I would run at 200% scaling), 1080p offers no reduction in workflow.

Scaling: This one is a hard one. I have a SP4, and when just using its display at 175% or 200% I really don't find scaling an issue at all, even though I use some obscure and non-updated apps. However, if you do use an external monitor, then it is truly a pain. Windows 10 supports different scaling per monitor, but you need to log off. So every time you dock/undock the computer, you need to log off/log in and I don't see them fixing that anytime soon.

Either I was going to get the 1080p or the 4K and run it at 1080p (fixing the scaling and color issues). But battery life is important to me, so it was 1080p. I think (not considering price) get the 1080p if you care about the battery or 4K otherwise. Even if scaling sucks for the next 3 years just run it at 1080p and switch in the future.

 

@changt34x,
I think you are slightly misinformed there in some aspects^^

The Full HD IPS screen(s) are supposed to be 250 nits (220 nits with Touch). All of them do 45 % NTSC (= around 40 % AdobeRGB, 60 - 65 % sRGB). The Samsung screen, which is very likely the one also used in P50, was tested recently in the T560 : http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T560-Core-i5-SSHD-Ultrabook.159108.0.html (sorry, no English translation yet). Its slightly worse then the LG according to their test (I have the LG in my P50, I am fine with it).

The P70 FHD IPS screen is rated 72 % NTSC.

You are definitely right though regarding the battery life. The FHD models perform much better on this front.

 

My bad, I didn't notice that it was the P70. The numbers should be correct for the P50 (300 nits for the FHD Non-Touch and 4K, 270 nits for the FHD touch).

Heres the English translation of the impressions (includes display tests):
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T560-Core-i5-SSHD-First-Impressions.159119.0.html

I checked the parts list and they are the same part number (Samsung AG 1080p displays). Interesting if there is also deviation (LTN156HL01 is the one reported in this thread, and that T560 had a LTN156HL09901, which has no data yet).

 

Thanks for the replies. After much deliberation and consternation I have decided to go with the 1080P. I'll be getting windows 7 with downgrade rights hoping microsoft extends their support past next summer for skylake chips. Can always get an external 4k monitor and improved battery performance were rationalizations. Perhaps 4k on the next go around.

 

Just received my P50 and here are some first impressions:

• Turbo Boost on my Xeon works. I haven't done a longer stress test, but for typical usage scenarios I see it working.
• Fit/finish and build quality seem excellent. The only defect is that the right trackpoint button (above the mousepad) isn't even (may be due to the keyboard install), but I can overlook that. Just holding the computer, there are no creaks, no flex on the chassis, and I am overall very pleased.
• Battery life - Even on first boot the estimates are very good (around 7 hours without any optimizations). Haven't used it long enough to draw any conclusions.
• Screen - I have the LG 1080p. When compared to my U2410, it is clear that the color reproduction is not as good (remember the U2410 is a 100% Adobe RGB screen). However, the brightness seems very even, and there should be no PWM flicker, so I think it will be a keeper.
• Looking forward to getting my 850 Evo M.2 + M.2. Tray + 32GB RAM soon

 

Took the plunge and bought a P70 today. Will be upgrading the memory and drives myself. Followed a link posted on reddit and saved some money. (I think)

Win 10
Intel Core i7-6700HQ
17.3 FHD IPS Non-Touch
NVIDIA Quadro M3000M 4GB
500GB HD 7200RPM
8GB DDR4 2133 SoDIMM
Backlit Keyboard
Fingerprint Reader
No Color Sensor
No Smart Card Reader
2 x ThinkPad M.2 SSD Trays ( P/N 4XB0K59917 )
ThinkPad Workstation Dock w/ 230 Power Supply
Expedited 1-3 day shipping

Total $1947.82

 

Anyone have a P70 with a FHD screen yet? I'm wondering about backlight bleed and color gamut. The Dell 7710 w/ FHD has excellent sRGB coverage but also has issues with backlight bleed, based on the notebookcheck review.

 

That one is specced the same as mine. I think its a good balanced configuration and the 6820HQ and Xeon are not worth the extra money for a couple more percent performance. The Quadro M3000M is definitely the most balanced price / performance of all the Maxwell Quadro's. It even has the same memory bandwidth as the M5000M! It should be a good gamer card as its between a 965M / 970M performance wise, and may be upgradeable to pascal as the P70 uses an MXM slot.

Did you order from the Corporate Perks store? That is indeed a great deal, 30% off I think puts them even less than the TopSeller preconfigured models.

BTW, I don't think the P70 needs M.2 SSD Trays. They should just screw into the mainboard directly, after removing the bottom cover.

Mine is on the truck for delivery today. I will try and post details once I have it. Chances are its the exact same panel as what Dell uses. I think based on the suppliers Lenovo uses its supposed to be either a AUO or Samsung panel. Its an IPS display so expect some backlight bleed.

 

Yeah I think it was. The sales rep via chat couldn't come close to that price.

I assumed they were just like the P50, which needs them. I'll return them if I don't need them.

Anticipating your review. I really wanted the P50, but the 45% color gamut on the FHD screen is really low. The P70 FHD screen should be 72%.

 

Awesome. Let us know how the external video outputs work with linux too

 

I have the P70 with FHD and there is zero backlight bleed. I switched the background of the desktop to black and it is inky pitch blackness right up to all edges of the screen. Fairly remarkable.

While I'm here, I'll offer some other early impressions.

This is the worst keyboard I've ever experienced on a Thinkpad. Just to be clear, it's still outstanding for a laptop keyboard, but no longer offers the kind of nearly transcendental experience that a keyboard like the one on the T60 did. Two issues with it. The key travel is noticeably lower than the T540p. It also has the lowest amount of resistance on key press. The positive about this keyboard is that this is the most quiet Thinkpad keyboard I've used. Equivalent to previous keyboard generations is the height of the upward curvature on the side edges of the individual keys. For reference, I'm sitting here with the P70, T540p, and L512.

What they also changed for the worse are the shortcut keys above the keypad. On the T540p they had dedicated icons for launching the calculator, web browser, and computer browser as well as a button to lock the laptop. On the P70, it's audio controls.....mute volume, volume down, volume up, and mute mic. Yes, these are the same exact functions offered by the F1-F4 keys. So, ya, for this "workstation" they decided to add more media controls.

Although, the media focus makes a little more sense once you hear the audio on this thing. The speaker runs across the entire width of the laptop on the top of the base just in front of the hinges. It makes for a really interesting and comfortable experience watching movies because the sound seems like it's coming from the screen. Again, for a laptop, it has really great audio detail. I have no way to technically measure the decibels, but I put on a song and cranked the volume up to maximum and walked 60 ft away around a corner and could easily hear the song. I have no idea why they put such an emphasis on audio, but you'd find it very easy to do a presentation on this in a large noisy conference room, so I guess that's cool.

One thing people neglect to notice about Thinkpads is how great their touchpads are. A good touchpad is one you don't think about....and that's true of this one. I do lots of coding and audio and there are plenty of tiny icons and files to click on and this touchpad has that totally forgettable precision and consistency that makes working without a mouse a viable option.

As described above, the screen is truly remarkable. Great colors, no backlight bleed, amazing viewing angles, great refresh rate. The screen was a non-factor in my decision to purchase this laptop, yet it's been one of the standout features.

Very very minimal bloatware on this laptop. I'd say, other than McAfee, you could get away without uninstalling anything. I may still do a clean install some day, but that's not a certainty for me like it usually is.

Otherwise, everything is as you've heard and would expect. Built like a tank. Very quiet. Battery life seems great as well. I started at 100% battery charge and have streamed an hour of hi def video and the power manager reports that I still have over 4 hours remaining. I also just realized that while watching the video, the fan hasn't spun up any faster.

 

My P70 arrived. I don't have alot of time to play with it, but so far its pretty nice. The screen is an AUO B173HAN01.0, which is the same panel used in a Acer VN7-792G which notebookcheck has reviewed here:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-A...n-VN7-792G-74Q4-Notebook-Review.154364.0.html

It's supposed to be 72% NTSC, and notebookcheck measured 61% aRGB / 94% SRGB. I don't see much backlight bleed, but its hard to tell these things right away.

I can't wait until I can find out what the M3000M can do and if its going to work better under Linux than the M1000M did.

 

@Hyperluminous,
which keyboard do you have? You can check via the parts lookup: https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/pa...v:Support:Large Enterprise:Parts|Parts Lookup

P50 and P70 use the same keyboards. I have a Chicony (German layout, 00PA259), which is excellent, one of the best ThinkPad keyboards I have used thus far.

Regarding the volume keys above the numberpad, this change was done according to customer feedback from older gens I think. People wanted dedicated volume buttons back (like they were present on the W530/T530), so this is a compromise from Lenovo to fulfill that wish while keeping the cleaner design without the separate set of buttons. The concern with the solution of the T540p was that you can´t use the volume keys without pressing FN at the same time if you use the F keys as the primary function, which many ThinkPad users do.

 

@ibmthink

00PA370 Payton_Walter KBD US English Darfon Backlit

Like I said, relative to other laptops, it's great. Relative to something like the T540p, it's a clear step down.

 

Thats interesting. I had a W550s before which uses the same keyboard as T540p, so we both come from the same keyboard(s). For me its a clear step up. Maybe the Darfon keyboard is worse then the Chicony? Would be interesting to have a direct comparison between the two.

With the W550s, the Chicony was the worse keyboard, and the LiteOn was better. This time around the Chicony might be better.

 

Do you disagree with my assessment of the differences? Travel and resistance for example?

 

Yes, I do. Travel is just as good, and the resistance is even better.

Different manufacturer can make a big difference.

BTW: There is a new audio driver version that solves the sound pop/crack issue: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/pro...eries-laptops/ThinkPad-P50/downloads/DS105255

 

New review on the P70: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-p70

 

I'm using the P70 w/ Ubuntu 15.10 + i3wm. I work almost daily with the internal + two ext monitors 1 in the HDMI port and 1 in the mDP port with a mDP to DVI adapter, all 1080p. After switching to discrete graphics in the BIOS I have had no problems. Before, on hybrid mode there was a small scaling issue on the external monitors.

 

So, objectively, the travel is just as much as the W550? And the resistance is higher than the W550? I know there can be a difference between manufacturers, but the keyboard indentation on the P70 is shallower than on the T540p, so I don't see how the keys could be elevated any more without interfering with the screen.

 

Can some post a pic of a P70 with the bottom cover off. I want to see the internals. Thx

 

I haven't had much luck so far with the M3000M under Debian or Ubuntu. With any version of the proprietary driver enabled, the kernel panics as soon as X starts. I tried both Ubuntu 15.10 and Debian 8, using kernels 4.2 and 4.3 and Nvidia driver 352.63, 352.79, 361.28. I am downloading the Ubuntu 16.04 Beta to see how it runs.

 

I tried the UbuntuGNOME 16.04 Beta this morning with the same problem. I did find another person in the Nvidia Devtalk Forums having the same issue:

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/...nd-system-hangs-with-quadro-m3000m-on-352-79/

I did notice that with hybrid graphics enabled, no kernel panics occur and the system can boot. I may just have to use this system configured this way until another solution is found.

I will note that the bottom panel on the P70 is designed much better than on the P50. No terrifying snaps that seem like they are going to break just to get the panel free. The M.2 SSD's do mount directly to the system board, so no trays are needed. If you order with 8GB of ram, it is installed under the keyboard. Mine came with Micron memory which shouldn't be hard to find a matching stick on ebay for cheap.

Windows 10 loves to randomly hijack the boot process and just boot instead of using my preferred boot order of grub (for Linux) first. I don't know if this is a Windows 10 thing or a bug in the P70 bios but it makes me want to just dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Hmmm. This makes me want to try re-installing Ubuntu once more to see if the M3000M issue would go away if I disable UEFI alltogether and just install and boot it in legacy mode...

 

The Dell M6800 that I'm using right now has no problems with boot order using Windows 10 and Linux, in UEFI mode. Maybe it's a bug in the P70 bios? Edit: The M6800 is using two separate drives, I don't know if that is making a difference here.

With the current GPU issues on the P70 (and P50), I'm leaning towards trying out the Dell 7710...there *shouldn't* be any problems with linux on that one, seeing as Ubuntu (and RedHat?) are both build options for it.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/Notebooks/Lenovo/ThinkPad_P70/Thinkpad_P70_DSC00872.JPG

 

I have the P70 M600M running with Ubuntu 15.10 and nviidia 352.63 and bios set to discrete graphics with no problems.

 

I wonder if it is a GM1xx vs GM2xx issue? (Different Maxwell generations - M600M and M3000M, respectively)

 

Sounds possible. Maybe the 2nd generation has less driver support just because it is newer.

 

At this point the Precision M6800 or 7710 are probably better options. I don't know if this is a Quadro Maxwell issue or a P70 bios issue, but I can't get the card to work with the proprietary driver under any kernel or driver version at this point.

So, I also tried using Ubuntu (with Unity, no GNOME) 15.10 with the 352.63 driver, with hybrid graphics enabled, and I wasn't able to use the external mini displayport. It was behaving just like the P50 did when I would plug in a display, it would just endlessly redetect the display until it was unplugged.

So, I am wondering at this point if trying to install a 970M or such in the P70 might help me get around the issues with the Maxwell Quadro. Or for that matter, even a K3100M Kepler Quadro which I know does work under Linux from previous experiences...

 

Do you have any other MXM 3.0 gpu's on hand? It would be a useful test, to see if the blame lies with GPU+linux or P70+linux.

If you do decide to go the Dell route, I recommend trying the 7710. The M6800 that I have is a good machine, and although the screen has good color gamut coverage (94% srgb) when calibrated, it's still a TN, and the vertical viewing angle stability is a problem. It's also very blue-shifted when not calibrated.

 

New BIOS 1.19 for P50: http://support.lenovo.com/de/de/pro...eries-laptops/thinkpad-p50/downloads/DS106108

This version is supposed to fix the "Turbo Boost" problem, which may have affected you if you are using Windows 7. The changelog:

Summary of Changes

Version 1.19
UEFI: 1.19 ECP: 1.12

• (New) Updated the CPU microcode.
• (Fix) Fixed an issue where turbo mode might not work on Windows 7.

 

Tonight I was finally able to get my P70 to boot into Linux using the Nvidia binary driver with Hybrid Graphics disabled. The key was to boot it up connected to the dock, with the external display (on the dock) set to primary.

I realized that I also have not tried any 14.04 version of Ubuntu yet. So, I went on ahead and downloaded UbuntuGNOME 14.04.4 tonight and am re-installing once more.

 

Strange. They didn't change the buttons on the T560 which is newer than the P70.

 

T560 is based on the same design as T550/W550s, P50 is a new design. Likely T-Series chassis will be changed with the next generation, as the keyboard.

 

I installed the Samsung 950 Pro into my P50. What software do you all recommend for cloning the mechanical HDD onto the SSD so I do not have to reinstall Windows 10?

 

EaseUS Todo backup