Lenovo ThinkPad P52 review: A big, heavy chassis packed with workstation performance

Lenovo's ThinkPad line is designed for the corporate and business crowds, and it offers specialized workstations on top of an already impressive choice for those who need extra ability for design, editing, and development software.

The 15.6-inch ThinkPad P52, accompanied by a larger 17.iii-inch ThinkPad P72, focuses mainly on operation and durability, and sacrifices some portability to attain its goals. I used the ThinkPad P52 for most a week to run across what it'southward all about.

Powerful, thick workstation

Lenovo ThinkPad P52

From $i,349

Bottom line: It'south thick, information technology'due south heavy, and the battery life is underwhelming, only the ThinkPad P52 brings a powerful collection of hardware focused on design and development, a cute 4K display, outstanding keyboard, and plenty of ports.

Pros

• Vivid 4K screen
• Oustanding keyboard and touchpad
• Runs quiet and absurd nether load
• Varied port selection
• Stiff performance
• Easily upgradeable

Cons

• Chunky, heavy chassis
• Short battery life

Lenovo ThinkPad P52 tech specs

Lenovo supplied Windows Central with a P52 review unit complete with 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8850H vPro processor (CPU), 16GB of DDR4 RAM, NVIDIA Quadro P3200 Max-Q dedicated graphics card (GPU), and a 512GB 1000.2 PCIe solid-land drive (SSD) coupled with a 1TB vii,200 RPM hard-disk bulldoze (HDD). This exact model starts at about $3,487, merely bottom models can be had starting at about $one,349.

Category	Spec
OS	Windows x Pro
Processor	8th Gen Intel Cadre i7-8850H vPro Six cores Up to four.30 GHz
RAM	16GB DDR4-2400MHz
Graphics	NVIDIA Quadro P3200 Max-Q 6GB GDDR5 VRAM
Storage	512 GB PCIe M.e SSD 1TB 7,200 RPM HDD
Display	xv.6 inches 3,840 x 2,160 (4K UHD) IPS, touch, glossy
Ports	Three USB-A 3.1 Ii Thunderbolt iii HDMI 2.0 SD card reader Mini DisplayPort 1.iv RJ45 Ethernet 3.5 mm audio
Audio	Dual ii W speakers Dolby Premium Audio
Wireless	Intel Wireless-AC 9560 802.11ac (2 x 2) Bluetooth v.0
Camera	Front-facing 720p IR for Windows Hello
Biometrics	Fingerprint reader
Keyboard	Backlit with numpad
Touchpad	Precision with physical buttons TrackPoint system
Battery	90 Wh 170 W AC adapter
Dimensions	xiv.86 inches x 9.93 inches x 0.96 inches (377.iv mm x 252.3 mm x 24.five mm)
Weight	From v.4 pounds (2.45 kg)

Lenovo ThinkPad P52 blueprint

The ThinkPad P52 has a traditional ThinkPad design, with a black stop, dual silver hinges, and a logo on the lid with a red status LED. The main portion of the chassis is made from a durable aluminum alloy, with a carbon-fiber blend for the lid. Lenovo put it to the exam, and it passed multiple MIL-STD 810G certifications to prove it can stand up to a off-white share of abuse.

You might recollect that this laptop is relatively lightweight thanks to the materials used in construction, simply this is not the case. Models without a 4K brandish or beefy Quadro P3200 GPU start at about 5.iv pounds (ii.45 kg), climbing noticeably when you spec up. The P52 is besides nearly an inch thick, so while it is portable, information technology's not something y'all want hanging off of your back or over your shoulder for extended periods.

Ports are split up up forth the sides and the rear edge of the laptop along with ample exhaust. The left side has a unmarried USB-A and a full-size SD card reader, while the right side has two more USB-A and Mini DisplayPort. Along the back are two Thunderbolt three (both with 4x lanes PCIe), Lenovo's proprietary charging port, HDMI, and RJ45 Ethernet. Working with multiple external accessories should non be an consequence thanks to proper spacing, and mixing in a Thunderbolt 3 docking station can provide further connectivity.

Hinges are stiff and practise a skillful task of keeping the beefy lid in place even when working in a moving vehicle, and along the bottom, between the hinges, are two status lights for network and bulldoze. Information technology's a overnice touch that'south not often seen. Above the display, centered in the thick bezel, is an IR camera for facial recognition through Windows Howdy, which ups security and convenience. Lenovo has also embedded a fingerprint reader in the right palm residue, which also works promptly with Windows Hello. It's out of the fashion of the correct paw while typing, so no worries there.

Lenovo ThinkPad P52 brandish

The review unit I have here includes the optional 4K touch display — Lenovo also provides an FHD option — and it is beautiful. Correct out of the box it hits 100 percent of the sRGB and AdobeRGB colour gamuts and fifty-fifty hits 96 percent NTSC. If y'all're using this laptop for design and editing work, you're no doubt going to love it.

I wish Lenovo hadn't gone with a glossy end (no doubt due to the touch display) because working in a well-lit room causes some glare issues. Brightness hits somewhere betwixt 300 and 400 nits, but even attempting to take pictures of the laptop without directly sunlight was a bit of a claiming.

Bezel along the meridian and bottom of the display is about the same thickness, and forth the sides, information technology's thinner merely likewise matching. There's no denying that there's a lot of bezel here, though the brilliant display does distract from information technology. The overall theme of this laptop seems to be thickness, so while it does stick out, the bezel kind of fits.

Lenovo ThinkPad P52 keyboard and touchpad

Lenovo made great utilise of space with the keyboard, fitting in a number pad without sacrificing key spacing on the rest of the board. There's plenty of key travel and keys bottom out softly, and if you're using this laptop for a lot of typing, you're in for a pleasant feel. It brings everything we honey about ThinkPad keyboards, including a ThinkPad TrackPoint with cherry pointer and physical buttons.

In that location's a second prepare of smaller buttons below the sandwiched Precision touchpad, and in that location's no physical click to the pad itself. This might be a fleck of an annoyance if you're non used to clicking separate buttons, but it shouldn't sway your conclusion. The touchpad tracks precisely, information technology'due south smooth, and though it might be slightly smaller due to spacing for buttons, it'due south non ineffective.

Instead of the common speaker placement on the bottom sides of the laptop, the P52 has a bar — with dual two Due west speakers — above the keyboard. Sound gets quite loud without distorting, and while it'south not as full as some laptop audio, information technology's actually not bad.

Lenovo ThinkPad P52 performance and battery

Part of the elevated cost of mobile workstations comes from Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certifications, which guarantees essential design and development software will perform optimally on a system. Not only is the ThinkPad P52 Lenovo'due south only 15-inch laptop certified for VR rendering, but it also includes certifications for applications from Autodesk, Siemens, Adobe, ANSYS, and SOLIDWORKS, to name a few.

The ThinkPad P52 comes with plenty of ISV certifications and is easily upgradeable, making information technology a great pick for developers and designers.

There'southward a lot of room inside the thick chassis, and Lenovo makes the most of it with space for two Thou.2 PCIe SSDs, a two.five-inch drive slot, and iv sticks of RAM. There'south a quick-admission panel on the dorsum that lets you swap out hardware for like shooting fish in a barrel upgrades. An effective cooling system also takes upward space, but information technology'south worth it. The laptop runs absurd and quiet nether load, even while stress testing.

The P52 does have a removable 90 Wh battery, but there's no internal backup to let for hot swaps. If you're working in the field, you can bring forth a couple of backups, just you volition have to shut downwards the device earlier switching. With the 4K display option, the P52 lasted for merely more than than iv hours from a single charge when going about regular computing tasks. With fans running and GPU humming, that number will drop significantly. The FHD model no doubt gets better battery life, only in whatsoever example, you won't desire to go far without taking the 170 Due west AC adapter with you.

CPU GPU PCMark VR SSD

CPU

Geekbench 4.0 Benchmarks (Higher is better)

Device	CPU	Unmarried core	Multi core
Lenovo ThinkPad P52	i7-8850H	5,001	18,468
Lenovo ThinkPad P1	i7-8850H	4,926	eighteen,230
HP ZBook 15u G5	i7-8650U	4,835	16,075
MSI PS63 Modern	i7-8565U	4,909	14,466
Huawei MateBook X Pro	i7-8550U	4,706	xiv,342
Lenovo Legion Y740 fifteen	i7-8750H	4,975	22,294

The review model does not have an Intel Xeon CPU, but the Cadre i7-8850H is a beast that can handle a heavy workload.

GPU

Geekbench 4.0 OpenCL (higher is better)

Device	GPU	Score
Lenovo ThinkPad P52	NVIDIA Quadro P3200 Max-Q	126,842
Lenovo ThinkPad P72	NVIDIA Quadro P5200 Max-Q	164,026
Lenovo ThinkPad P1	NVIDIA Quadro P2000 Max-Q	76,554
HP ZBook 15u G5	AMD Radeon Pro WX3100	42,071
MSI PS63 Mod	NVIDIA GTX 1050	74,815
Huawei MateBook X Pro	NVIDIA MX250	45,365

The NVIDIA Quadro P3200 GPU is the highest option Lenovo offers for the P52, only it'southward capable of handling VR rendering and other intensive tasks. It understandably posted an impressive score here.

PCMark

PCMark Dwelling Conventional iii.0

Device	Score
Lenovo ThinkPad P52	4,165
Lenovo ThinkPad P1	3,134
HP ZBook 15u G5	3,323
Lenovo Legion Y740 xv	4,789

I also ran PCMark Creative Conventional test to see how well the laptop handles video and photo editing, gaming, video chat, and spider web browsing. The P52 scored 5,417, which is also a stellar number that puts it among the top 10 percent of all laptops that have run the benchmark.

VR

VRMark Orangish Room

Device	Score
Lenovo ThinkPad P52	6,645
Lenovo Legion Y740 fifteen	8,537

The ThinkPad P52 is certified equally VR-fix, meaning information technology can be used to render and develop VR applications. The half-dozen,645 score is superb, even if it only measures how well the laptop tin can handle Rift, Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

SSD

CrystalDiskMark (Higher is better)

Device	Read	Write
Lenovo ThinkPad P52	3,120 MB/s	1,551.5 MB/s
Lenovo ThinkPad P1	three,499.iii MB/southward	2,289.9 MB/southward
HP ZBook 15u G5	3,448.0 MB/south	1,566.4 MB/southward
MSI PS63 Modern	iii,300 MB/s	ane,875 MB/s

No issues with the Intel SSD here, as it offers up fast read and write speeds. Cheers to like shooting fish in a barrel access and dual M.2 slots, you can upgrade storage every bit you run into fit. The P52 too includes a 1TB HDD for bulk storage, though its speeds are understandably much slower.

Should y'all buy Lenovo's ThinkPad P52?

This laptop was designed from the start to be a workhorse, sacrificing some portability for raw power, and in that regard, information technology'due south a success. The ThinkPad P52 might weigh in at more than v pounds, and it might be an inch thick, simply it's hands upgradeable, it comes with ISV certifications, it'southward secure cheers to IR photographic camera and fingerprint reader, it remains cool and relatively tranquility under load, and at that place's a varied port selection. The 4K brandish option is a knockout, also, with stellar color reproduction and affect functionality, and the keyboard is a dream.

The biggest downside hither other than the fact that you probably won't want to behave information technology along with yous for extended periods is bombardment life. The 4K model but lasts near four hours on balanced functioning when going about lightweight tasks, with that number cut significantly when the GPU and fans are bustling. As long as you don't mind bringing along the Ac adapter and can alive with the weight, the ThinkPad P52 volition put upwards a strong performance and volition take a beating without much issue.

Powerful, thick workstation

Lenovo ThinkPad P52

Trade performance for portability

The ThinkPad P52 trades portability and battery life for outstanding performance. The 4K display is beautiful, there are plenty of ports, the keyboard is superlative-of-form, and you can upgrade hardware downwardly the line to keep the laptop relevant into the hereafter.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-thinkpad-p52

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