Lenovo P51s Review: A Versatile Workstation Laptop

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Lenovo P51s: At First Glance

Lenovo is a brand well-known in the tech world for offering laptops with awesome specifications and features. Furthermore, the brand has quite a number of popular laptop series, such as the ThinkPad laptop series.

A laptop among this ThinkPad series is the Lenovo P51s. With this laptop, Lenovo offers versatility and durability at a decent price.

Speaking of price, the Lenovo P51s had a starting price of $640 as of the time I wrote this review article in November 2022. Despite featuring such as decent price tag, this Lenovo laptop comes with outstanding specs that can handle most computing tasks.

Are you curious to find out about these specs? Read on!

Lenovo P51s: Design, Display, Ports, and Connectivity

When you take the Lenovo P51s out of the box, you’ll notice that it follows the historical design of Lenovo’s ThinkPad series. This doesn’t come as a surprise, though; this design has gained the ThinkPad series a certain level of popularity.

Undoubtedly, the design has been working for Lenovo. Hence, I don’t think Lenovo has any plans to change it anytime soon.

That said, if you’re a fan of the Lenovo ThinkPad series, you should be able to guess what the Lenovo P51s look like. To start with, the entire chassis of the Lenovo P51s is made with glass-fiber-reinforced plastic material.

The only exception is the laptop’s base which is made of aluminum and magnesium. Impressively, with this build combination, the Lenovo P51s looks and feels sturdy.

In fact, the laptop passed various MIL-STD 810G tests. Hence, it should be able to withstand extreme conditions like vibrations, shock, travel hazards, and e.t.c.

In addition to passing various MIL-STD 810G tests, the Lenovo P51s also passed Lenovo’s very own bump and stress tests. Honestly, this Lenovo laptop should be able to survive most forms of abuse and torture due to its rugged build.

However, unlike most laptops out there, the Lenovo P51s is only available in one color – matte-black. Nonetheless, its lid features a slanted “ThinkPad” inscription at the top left corner that gives it a bit of elegance.

Moreover, two silver metal hinges connect this lid to the base of the laptop. These hinges are very rigid and prevent the lid from wobbling too much when pushed.

Also, the hinges allow you to open the lid up to 180 degrees. Speaking of which, when you open the Lenovo P51s’ lid, you will see a 15.6-inch display.

This display supports two resolution options – FHD (1920 x 1080) and 4K UHD (3840 x 2160). With either resolution option, the Lenovo P51s’ display should offer impressive picture quality and color accuracy.

However, images on the laptop’s display will appear clearer, sharper, more realistic, and more colorful with the 4K UHD resolution option. This is because the resolution offers more pixels compared to the FHD resolution.

Nonetheless, regardless of resolution, the Lenovo P51s’ display is made with an IPS panel. Thanks to this panel, the display offers wide viewing angles.

Thus, watching the display from the sides shouldn’t be a problem as colors won’t lose accuracy, and images won’t lose quality. In addition to the IPS panel, this laptop’s display also features an anti-glare coating that aids with reflection handling.

Basically, the coating reduces the intensity of the reflection and sun glares on the Lenovo P51s’ display. In terms of brightness, the laptop’s display offers a maximum brightness of 250 nits with the FHD resolution option.

However, with the 4K UHD resolution option, the display records a maximum brightness of 300 nits. Thus, the version of the Lenovo P51s with a 4K UHD resolution display is best suited for outdoor usage.

Nonetheless, with either resolution option, Lenovo offers an optional touchscreen functionality for the Lenovo P51s’ display. Essentially, you can purchase the Lenovo P51s with a touchscreen display regardless of the resolution you choose.

Sadly, the laptop’s display is surrounded by somewhat thick bezels made of plastic with a matte-black finish. At the center of the top bezel, you will find a 720p HD webcam that supports face recognition technology.

Impressively, this webcam captures bright and colorful images with less visual noise. Also, it is ideal for conducting video calls.

Moving on, the Lenovo P51s offers a full-sized keyboard with smiley-shaped keys and a dedicated NumPad. Performance-wise, this keyboard delivers an impressive typing experience thanks to its well-spaced keys that are responsive and accurate.

Moreover, the keyboard is backlit with two brightness levels. Thus, typing in dark areas shouldn’t be a problem.

Besides, as with most ThinkPad laptops, you will find a red TrackPoint in the center of the Lenovo P51s’ keyboard. In case you are wondering, this TrackPoint serves as an alternative to the touchpad – it can be used to navigate the cursor.

Speaking of the touchpad, the Lenovo P51s’ precision touchpad can be found at the bottom of the keyboard. This touchpad features dedicated click buttons on its top and bottom that works well without issues.

Also, the touchpad features a matte surface Lenovo calls “crystal silk” that allows for smooth navigation and finger gliding. As a matter of fact, the touchpad supports multitouch gestures like pinch-to-zoom.

Impressively, you will find a fingerprint sensor on the right side of this touchpad. With the help of this sensor, you can log into your computer with your finger via Windows Hello.

Port-wise, the Lenovo P51s is brilliant. Specifically, the laptop offers an impressive port selection.

However, most of the ports are on its back. These ports include Thunderbolt 3, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, and two USB 3.0 ports.

Meanwhile, the right side of the laptop accommodates two USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort connector, an audio jack, and a Kensington lock. Hence, you will only find an SD card reader and an optional smart card reader on the laptop’s left side.

For wireless connectivity, the Lenovo P15s supports Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2×2).

In terms of size and weight, the Lenovo P15s measures 365.8 x 252.8 x 19.9 – 20.2 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 1990 g. Apparently, this laptop is somewhat heavy and thick, meaning it won’t be easy moving it around.

Compared to the HP Spectre x360, the Lenovo P15s is slightly heavier and thicker. To be specific, this HP laptop measures 359.9 x 226.4 x 19.9 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 1920 g.

In conclusion, the Lenovo P15s come with a decent design and a rugged build. Also, it features a great keyboard and offers multiple resolution options with optional touchscreen functionality.

Thus, I will rate the Lenovo P15s a nine out of ten to conclude this design review section.

Lenovo P51s: Processor (CPU) Performance

The Lenovo P15s supports various processors up to the Intel Core i7-7600U processor. For this review, we will focus on the laptop with the Intel Core i7-7600U processor.

This 7th-generation Intel processor has two cores and a cache memory of 4 MB. Also, it offers a 2.80 GHz base frequency and a 3.90 GHz maximum frequency.

Considering the specs of this CPU, the Lenovo P15s should be able to handle most tasks thrown at it. As a matter of fact, the laptop shouldn’t have any issue performing heavy-duty tasks, like video editing, with this processor.

To give you a better insight into the laptop’s performance with this CPU, I will highlight its result on the Cinebench R15 test. Before that, I would like to explain what this test is all about and how it works.

To start with, the Cinebench R15 test is a benchmark test that gauges the overall processing performance of a computer. It does this by putting the cores of the computer’s processor through intensive workloads.

Due to this, the test involves two separate tests – the single-core performance test and the multi-core performance test. The single-core test measures the computer’s processing power when one of its CPU cores is in use.

However, the multi-core test evaluates the processing ability of the computer when all the CPU cores are in use. Notably, high scores on the Cinebench R15 tests represent good performance.

On that note, the Lenovo P15s delivered a score of 162 points on the Cinebench R15 single-core test. Meanwhile, on the multi-core test, the laptop recorded a score of 379 points.

Sadly, the laptop was outperformed by the Dell Precision 5520, which uses an Intel Xeon E3-1505M v6 processor. Specifically, this Dell laptop scored 170 points on the single-core test and 654 points on the multi-core test.

All in all, I will rate the Lenovo P51s an eight out of ten in this section.

Lenovo P51s: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Lenovo P51s comes with a standard 8 GB DDR4 2133 MHz RAM. Also, it has two memory slots and supports a maximum memory of 32 GB.

Thus, you can upgrade the laptop’s memory up to 32 GB. However, that might not be necessary.

This is because the standard 8 GB RAM is sufficient for the laptop to handle most computing tasks smoothly. In actual fact, the Lenovo P51s should be able to multitask effectively with the standard 8 GB RAM.

Speaking of which, this laptop with 8 GB RAM can run about 15 Chrome tabs simultaneously while streaming a YouTube video without lagging. In fact, switching between the Chrome tabs and the YouTube video won’t cause the laptop to slow down.

With that being said, I will now share the laptop’s PCMark 8 test result to further assess its performance with 8 GB RAM. Briefly, PCMark 8 measures a device’s overall performance by simulating various productivity tasks.

Additionally, a high score on the test signifies good performance. So, according to the test results, the Lenovo P51s scored 3232 points.

Although this score is impressive, it isn’t high enough to outperform the 3262 points scored by the HP ZBook Studio G3.

Nonetheless, I believe the Lenovo P51s deserves an eight out of ten rating in this memory review section.

Lenovo P51s: Storage Options and Performance

Regarding storage, the Lenovo P51s offers multiple storage options – 5400 RPM SATA HDD and M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD. Impressively, with either storage option, the laptop supports a maximum storage capacity of 1 TB.

In addition to that, the Lenovo P51s features an SD card reader for storage expansion. That said, I strongly suggest you purchase this laptop with the M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD storage option.

This is because SSDs are very fast and offer rapid boot time. Gladly, this review focuses on the Lenovo P51s with 256 GB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD.

To determine the storage performance of the laptop, let us discuss its CrystalDiskMark test result. CrystalDiskMark evaluates a computer’s storage performance by measuring the read and write speed of its storage drive.

For your information, read speed refers to how fast it takes a storage drive to open files. On the other hand, write speed is how fast it takes the storage drive to save a file.

Besides, the higher the “MB/s” value on the CrystalDiskMark test, the quicker the read and write speed of the computer. In that regard, the Lenovo P51s with 256 GB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD delivered a read speed of 1189 MB/s and a write speed of 1138 MB/s.

In comparison, the HP ZBook Studio G3, which also uses SSD, recorded a faster read and write speed. Specifically, it recorded a read speed of 1578 MB/s and a write speed of 1557 MB/s on the CrystalDiskMark test.

In conclusion, the Lenovo P51s offers multiple storage options with sufficient storage space and an SD card reader. However, the laptop with the SSD storage option was outperformed by one of its major rivals on a storage benchmark test.

As a result, I will rate the Lenovo P51s an eight out of ten.

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Lenovo P51s: Graphics Card Performance

In the aspect of graphics, the Lenovo P51s features a default Intel HD Graphics 620 GPU. This graphics card has a base frequency of 300 MHz and a maximum frequency of 1150 MHz.

However, as an integrated GPU, the graphics card is built into the laptop’s processor and lacks a dedicated VRAM. Thus, it shares the system memory with the CPU to perform graphics-related computing tasks.

Hence, with this GPU, the Lenovo P51s won’t perform well while handling graphics-demanding tasks or running title AAA games. Gladly, this Lenovo laptop offers an optional dedicated graphics card – NVIDIA Quadro M520.

This GPU has a base and a boost frequency of 756 MHz and 1019 MHz, respectively. Also, as expected from a dedicated GPU, it comes with a 2 GB GDDR5 dedicated VRAM.

Therefore, with this dedicated GPU, the Lenovo P51s should be able to handle graphics-demanding tasks like video editing seamlessly. Also, it will be able to run some title AAA games effectively.

For instance, while playing BioShock Infinite, it should deliver a frame rate of 76.9 fps.

Having said that, let us now discuss the laptop’s 3DMark 11 test result to further evaluate its performance with the optional dedicated GPU. This test measures the 3D graphics rendering ability of a computer – a high score means good performance.

According to the test results, the Lenovo P51s scored 2568 points. In comparison, the HP ZBook Studio G3, which uses an NVIDIA Quadro M1000M GPU, scored 4225 points.

Conclusively, even though the Lenovo P51s isn’t a gaming laptop, it offers a dedicated GPU option with good performance. Thus, I will rate the laptop an eight out of ten in this section.

Lenovo P51s: Battery Life and Performance

Concerning the battery, the Lenovo P51s offers three battery options. These include a 3-cell 24 WHr battery, a 6-cell 48 WHr battery, and a 6-cell 72 WHr Li-ion battery.

This review focuses on the Lenovo P51s with the 6-cell 72 WHr Li-ion battery. According to Lenovo, this battery can last up to 18 hours and 30 minutes after a full charge.

To confirm that, I will now highlight the laptop’s result on a battery rundown test. This test involves continuously surfing the internet on a laptop over a Wi-Fi connection until it dies.

Also, the laptop’s brightness level is set to 50% on the test. At the end of the test, the Lenovo P51s with a 6-cell 72 WHr Li-ion battery lasted for about 11 hours and 52 minutes.

Although this battery life isn’t on par with Lenovo’s claim, it is very impressive. In fact, the laptop has longer battery life than most of the laptops in its category.

For instance, the HP ZBook Studio G3 only lasted for 3 hours and 46 minutes on the same battery rundown test.

To conclude this section, I will rate the Lenovo P15s a nine out of ten.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

With the Lenovo P51s, Lenovo offers impressive overall performance with durability. To give more details, this laptop has multiple display resolution options, including a 4K UHD resolution.

Furthermore, the Lenovo P51s comes with an outstanding keyboard and an awesome port selection. It also offers an impressive battery life, multiple storage options, and an optional touchscreen display.

However, the Lenovo P51s is a bit heavy, weighing about 1990 g. Apart from that, this laptop is almost flawless.

Thus, if you need a durable Lenovo laptop with adequate performance, you should consider the Lenovo P51s.

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