Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 Mobile Workstation Review

We have something a bit different this time, the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 mobile workstation (21KV001KUS). This mobile workstation has a 16-inch screen and is extremely thin at just .67-inches or 17mm. We like the anodized black finish on the aluminum alloy case but will say it’s a fingerprint magnet!

This should be fun because along with the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 mobile workstation, we get a bunch of new acronyms too! Maybe not for all of you though. With support for Intel’s Core Ultra 5, 7, and 9 processor with up to 16 cores, and a little AI Boost thrown in for good measure, this system can be outfitted with up to 64GB of LPCAMM2 memory operating at a theoretical throughput of 7.5GT/s. See what I mean “LPCAMM2”, we’ll get to that. As a workstation, this system is ISV certified, just like the big desktop towers, to run complex programs from Adobe, Autodesk, Dessault systems, AVID, Bently and quite a few others. Once again, this is a workstation…

On the right-hand side there is a Kensington lock slot, USB-C port offering 10Gb/s data transfer rates, a USB-A port offering 5Gb/s data transfer rates and an SD Express 7.0 card reader. Flipping it around to the left-hand side, the power brick connector, Thunderbolt 4 ports offering data transfers of up to 40 Gb/s, then an HDMI slot and combo headphone/microphone jack. Only thing that might be missing from those side ports is an RJ45 LAN port but there is definitely WiFi 7.0 and Bluetooth 5.4 for a wireless network.

This system is also Mil-Spec certified for harsh environments. Essential for the longevity of your laptop. On the outside of the case, Lenovo’s bold branding on top with an integrated red light for the dot over the “i”.

On the bottom you can see the exhaust vents for the dual fan layout. Inside, a 16-inch monitor and basic keyboard with island keys.

It doesn’t have a numeric keyboard extension. Touchpad below that and then a little red TrackPoint button in the middle of the keyboard between “G” and “H”. The TrackPoint button can also be used for navigation if you want a break from the touchpad or just love scrolling through YouTube shorts.

A biometric fingerprint reader is integrated with the power ON button in the upper right for quick and painless login.

There are options for the 16-inch monitor too. You can get the 1920 x 1200, 2560 x 1600 or 3840 x 2400 with an OLED option. That last one is new to this platform and has a contrast ratio of 100,000/1 compared to 1200/1 for the other two screens. Optional touchscreen on that last one too. The touchscreen will drain your battery at a faster rate, so keep that in mind. We don’t have that display.

On this particular SKU we have the FHD+ 1920×1200 display, which is still quite nice. Using those side Thunderbolt 4.0 ports and the HDMI ports you can attach up to three monitors. Well, 4x monitors if you want to count the one that’s included with the system. 

It has a 5MegaPixel camera at the top of the screen with webcam privacy shutter to protect your modesty. For sound, two speakers in front featuring Dolby Atmos for an improved sound quality, which like fine wine and cheese, pairs nicely with the Dolby Vision for vibrant colors and clarity. Dolby Voice provides advanced microphone features for noise suppression, dynamic leveling and the ability to block out additional voices using privacy mode or if you want all those voices in the background, collaboration mode. 

Apparently, laptops have moved on, or are in the process of moving on from SODIMMs or Small Outline Dual in-line Memory Modules. The new kid on the block that maybe you haven’t noticed for months now, is Low-Power Double Data Rate or LPDDR RAM. The LPDDR modules are typically installed in smart phones and tablets but are also finding a home in laptops too because they’re power efficient, fast, small, and can be stacked to achieve greater memory density. LPDDR5X is the latest iteration. Remember, this is 2024. One problem for laptops is the LPDDR chips are actually soldered into place on the motherboard as close as possible to the CPU rather than being pressed into a socket like a standard SODIMM. It’s the modularity, and ease of removal and upgrade that was missing from those LPDDR units.

Solving that modularity issue, is the Low-Power Compression-Attached Memory Module 2 or LPCAMM2. LPCAMM2 incorporates the LPDDR chips onto a circuit board producing a modular memory unit that the end user can easily remove, replace or upgrade. It’s screwed down onto the motherboard with a bracket for protection. The LPDDR chips contained therein can be stacked much more efficiently, and it takes up much less space than DDR5 modules. One more thing, the LPCAMM2 sits on top of a compression connector with delicate little spring contacts that connect the motherboard to the actual LPCAMM2. Remember, Compression Attached Memory Modules.

Intel AI Boost is actually an integrated neural processing unit or NPU. It’s part of Intel’s Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” CPU Architecture. Depending on your choice, supported CPUs can provide up to 11 TOPS. That would be Trillions of Operations per Second or Tera Operations per Second (TOPS). As you may have guessed, TOPS is a measure of how many computing operations an AI chip can handle in one second. In this case 11 trillion operations. Tera means the same thing. Basically (10¹²) 10 to the 12 power or a Trillion.

Because Intel’s latest wonder chips do include an integrated NPU to address AI applications. In this case, CoPilot, and there is a key for that on the motherboard. This additional application seems kind of trivial at the moment but we’re sure it will most likely become a dominant feature for your continued existence. Like your smartphone, or maybe it just fades away.

This system is the 21KV001KUS and there are a bunch more random letters and numbers to combine for the various SKUs that are offered on this system. Ours features an Intel Core Ultra 7 165H CPU with 6x P-Cores, 8x E-Cores and 2x LPE-cores for total physical core count of 16 cores and 22 virtual threads. 12x Virtual threads for the P-cores and 10x more for the E-cores and LPE-cores.   

Maximum memory supported on this system is up to 64GB of LPCAMM2, and it can support up to 64GB so it is indeed upgradable. There is also a 1TB NVMe Opal2.0 performance drive with support for another and a maximum storage capacity of up to 8TB, which you can also upgrade to. The battery has 90-Watt hours and with only 1 hour of Rapid Charge will provide an 80% of full power.

Lastly, maybe not given the features on this system, an NVIDIA RTX 1000 Ada Generation GPU with 6GB of GDDR6 memory. There are a few other GPUs supported as this one is at the bottom of the stack and does include the 2000 and 3000 Ada cards along with a GeForce 4060 or 4070 laptop GPU if gaming is your main priority. 

As far as the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H CPU is concerned, not great performance but not bad either. As we said, this mobile workstation is small and thin. About the size of a spiral paper binder, you might have taken to class as a student. It did render our little breakfast nook methodically and thoroughly with a score of 8122. The larger the box the better the performance. You should see the results we got from the P8 workstation with AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX processor. Literally, 14 times faster at a score of 116,040 points but you’re not going to be lugging that desktop tower around in your backpack. You choose your weapons for use in various situations and nice to know Lenovo has a full arsenal.

Targeting our NVIDIA RTX 1000 Ada generation laptop GPU, we ran TimeSpy using the 3D Mark application and it averaged low 40s to upper 40 Frames per second more or less. As you can see, depending on your game of choice, frame rates did fluctuate. There were some notable artifacts and a little choppiness but still this is the bottom of the line GPU that can be installed in this system and is not necessarily geared towards gaming. It’s considered a “Professional” graphics card. More for creatives, AE & C, Scientific analysis, that kind of thing. Although, this has also been called a repackaged GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU in that they both use the same chip.  

Still, it does have DirectX 12 Ultimate released in 2020 but not necessarily new, new. Still a step up from just DirectX 12 and will run modern games. Performance for this mobile PC laptop GPU is just a hair below the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti edition. 1485MHz base clock, 2025MHz Boost clock, 2560 shading units, 80 tensor cores, 20 raytracing cores and so on. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 mobile GPU offers significantly more in the stats department and is indeed more for gaming than professional applications. And you can expect much better performance as a result. It is future ready for hardware ray tracing, variable rate shading and more for upcoming video games. 

This does rank below the ThinkStation P3 Ultra we did a few weeks back which rounding up from there, ranks below the P5, which then ranks below the P7, which is below the P8, and finally the PX for dual processor guns. But again, choose your weapon. For mobile work flexibility, while still providing ISV certification for use with complex applications, plus a rugged case design that can easily be docked with a few monitors for more graphics capabilities, the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen7 is a worthy piece of hardware. It may not be as fast and powerful as the larger workstations but it will still get the job done. Just a little slower. 

Considering one of these mobile workstations? Contact IT Creations! We have this system and many more.