Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 laptop review: Traditional workstation with new GPUs

[Redaktion]

The Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 is a traditional mobile workstation with a large chassis and a focus on performance. To this end, it's equipped with the latest 45-watt CPUs from Intel as well as new professional graphics cards from Nvidia. However, the cooling system in particular doesn't fully deliver.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-P15-Gen-2-laptop-review-Traditional-workstation-with-new-GPUs.567734.0.html

[Dorby]

It's disappointing to see that Lenovo hasn't bothered to fix the thermals after what, 5 generations now? My P50 had this exact issue every time.
Any laptop with over 50C temps at the bottom under load should be avoided, despite how cheap or expensive it is.

The longer you have it unchecked, the worse those thermals will get and after a year, temps on idle will be high enough to singe the hairs off your legs while you're just browsing the web. There's not much you can do with a bad thermal design.

[NaaBruv.]

It's not Lenovo's fault. Every x86 laptop has thermal issues. Even ones with only igpu's.

There's a reason why Apple and Nintendo went ARM.

If you care about thermals, buy an ARM device.

[LL]

I think the screen should be praised. Should be included in the pros.

The price is nevertheless excessive for what it offers.

[LL]

Forgot to say, disappointing Cinebench R23 multi core result.

[duzenko]

For this price the laptop has to be near perfect

[Osthof]

Terrible laptop. Failed on first day. Lenovo sent a second one for replacement and then the SSD died.

[Aleq]

Different look with different opinion on this laptop can be seen here:
(Sorry, can't post links, search for "ThinkPad T15g Gen 2 - Live Testing! (ThinkPad P15 Gen 2)" on youtube)
It is an uninterrupted video stream of testing and benchmarking, presending all findings in real time. Very long, only for people seriously interesting in this machine.

[Tristan]

Hello everyone!

As the stresstest provided by the user before me points out: it performs great and keeps on performing great under load. Much better than the P1 Gen 4. That test made me buy it. They also reviewed the P1 and called it a hot mess!

This along with the matte UHD 600 nit panel, the Removable MXM videocard and the four dim slots was reason enough for me to get one.

Lenovo calls it absolute power and they were not kidding. I absolutely love this machine. The videocard switch allows for longer battery life. I've reached eight hours working in Visual Studio without charging a few times now.

There is also a smaller 170 watt charger that is flat and fits in my briefcase rather well.

I can confirm that a 65 wat usb c battery pack does not charge the machine. The laptop charges the battery pack. I will try it with a 90 watt charger in the future.

I'm using the new Thunderbolt 4 dock. The included cable is rather short but it works very well. It also works with my other laptops which have usb c with no thunderbolt. I use the laptop charger to charge so only two cables need to be plugged into the laptop.

Overal I'm very happy with the machine and can't wait to upgrade to 128GB ram with the A5000 in the near future.

[Aleq]

Hi @Tristan
search Reddit for "T15g Gen 2 Preliminary Review" from 1 month ago, there's guy who has tested various PSUs already and reported 90W is not sufficient (charges turned off machine only). 135W might be the smallest PSU keeping the machine alive (and I guess it will discharge under heavy combined load).

Interesting to hear TB4 dock compatibility. Lenovo lists TB3 as compatible, possible because it is shipped with 230W (or is it 240W? not sure) charger...

[Tristan]

Hi @Aleq!

Thank you for pointing out that 90W will not be enough. Are there any 130W USB C battery packs out there already?

I'm using the TB4 dock from Lenovo in combination with the 170W charger that fits in my briefcase. The TB4 dock came with a 135W charger. One time I forgot to plug in the 170W charger and the laptop eventually ran out of juice while only connected to the dock. However, it does charge other laptops. For instance, it does keep my Surface Pro 7 charged, even though it only has USB C (no thunderbolt).

@Notebookcheck Thanks again for the great reviews here on the site!

[Aleq]

Do you say it discharged with 135W PSU? Did you do some intensive CPU+GPU stuff or just normal office (CPU + integrated GPU)  work? This may be essental to know if 135W is sufficient for travels or not and if I should get 170W for travels...
Thanks

[BrendaEM]

Hi All,

I have a Thinkpad P15 Gen2 on its way. The thermals the Notebookcheck found are as I expected: disappointing. Though, I hope that in my application, they can be tamed a bit through software, in my case real-time rendering, sometimes on the CPU, for Rhino 3D.

I am glad that the author cited the thermals. For a day, I had a P17 Gen2 , which didn't seem to cool any better than the 15--in spite of its size. The GPU was cooled well. The CPU hit's a 100c; it should not. Using the Cycles renderer inside Rhino3D, doing realtime raytracing, I was able to lower/scale the CPU until the thermals were under control. It appears that the CPU should have (very) roughly 25% more cooling. The fix is a no-brainer: Use the same larger fan for the CPU. Why do they think that an 8-core processor wouldn't need cooling? Lenovo is living in an imaginary land where CPU/GPU workstation loads are still bursty. Blender Revit, Rhino, all have real-time rendering. The fact is: a workstation needs even more cooling than a game machine!

When configuring the machine, I had thought to just spec it with a 6-core, but that's the Xeon part, and you pay a lot of money for the Xenon. So, I ended up getting a similar machine as the reviewer, but with a 4K screen. So, as a customer, it seems that there is no reason to get a better graphic chip than the A3000, because it's configured in the boat-anchor Max-Q configuration. I also thought that the A3000 was a good, capable part. Oddly, the GPU thermals seemed acceptable, as opposed to the CPU thermals.

The HD only monitor is a strange choice in such a machine in the reviewer's specimen, as a 4k screen reportedly covering all of Adobe's RGB is a available.



As for the styling, Levovo styles Thinkpad computers durable. Over the years, I have carried my aging W540 for over 400 miles in a laptop bag. In every other way it has had a difficult life between design, video editing, and science applications such as Paraview. As far the think bezel. If you really use computers like this, such as in coffee shops, or carrying it, then the thick bezel makes sense.

--BrendaEM

[Tristan]

@Aleq: it does seem to recognize and charge with the 135W charger from the TB4 dock. That charger also comes with the square. I'm not sure if it will maintain the battery under load, but I'm guessing it won't.

@BrendaEM Yes it would be nice if they upgraded the CPU cooling. I think they went all out to keep it delivering about 100W of power at 100 degrees. Thus heavier components like the i9 and the A5000 would make little sense for heavy workloads like real-time rendering. Maybe the next generation will solve this. I think Alienware overcame this by using 4 fans instead of the vaporchamber found in more recent laptops like the P1 Gen 4. However, that Alienware X15/X17 only lasts about an hour or two on battery.

[Bent Mathiesen]

Thanks.

I was considering this laptop, and was looking for specific information on cooling. For me it is a must that the cooling is excellent and silent. I have two older Thinkpad's and they tend to be noisy when under load. It is a no go!