Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 evaluate: Constructed nicely, priced excessive

Greatest Costs Right now: Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is an enormous workstation with a contact of luxurious from its OLED show. It’s constructed to satisfy quite a lot of MIL-STD 810H sturdiness exams, and it has a wide array of {hardware} together with discrete GPU choices and high-performance CPUs. As a workstation, it doesn’t come low cost, although. And the excessive price ticket places it in a bind, as anybody who doesn’t want issues like ISV certifications can get much more for his or her cash. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Specs and options

• CPU: Intel Core Extremely 7 265H (vPro)
• Reminiscence: 64GB DDR5-6500
• Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX Professional 500 6GB
• Show: 16-inch 3840×2400 OLED touchscreen, anti-glare, 60Hz, Dolby Imaginative and prescient
• Storage: 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD – Samsung MZVLC2T0HBLD-00BLL
• Webcam: 5MP +IR
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C with Energy Supply, 2x USB-A 5Gbps, 1x Ethernet, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: Home windows Hi there fingerprint, facial recognition
• Battery capability: 75 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 14.24 x 9.79 x 1 inches
• Weight: 4.27 kilos
• MSRP: $4,218 as-tested ($1,599 base)

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is available in a bunch of configurations ranging in value from $1,599 (or cheaper with Lenovo’s perpetual on-line reductions) to $4,680 for a top-end configuration. Particular configuration choices will differ relying on the retailer.

Our particular configuration has the specs above and was on sale for $4,009 at B&H and $4,218 at CDW. Value noting: although the storage is indicated as a PCIe Gen 5 drive, a pace check confirmed the drive in our system performing consistent with PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds, albeit on the excessive finish of that vary. 

By Lenovo’s customized configurator, the system can include a spread of CPUs from the Core Extremely 5 225H as much as the Core Extremely 9 285H. It additionally helps vPro and non-vPro choices. Whether or not or not the system helps a discrete graphics processor depends upon the CPU, and the top-end CPU doesn’t assist a dGPU. For configurations that embrace a dGPU, Lenovo affords the RTX Professional 500 or RTX Professional 1000.

You will get 16, 32, or 96GB of reminiscence and 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage. The show choices vary from a really fundamental 1920×1200 anti-glare panel that’s at the least brilliant at 400 nits or a 500-nit model that’s low energy and affords extra shade gamut as much as the 3840×2400 touchscreen OLED model examined right here, which affords one hundred pc DCI-P3 shade protection, 400 nits of brightness, and Dolby Imaginative and prescient assist. Lenovo affords some extras like 4G connectivity and a wise card reader. It additionally has an choice for both a 75Wh or 57Wh battery. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Design and construct high quality

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 isn’t any thin-and-light laptop computer. It’s a cellular workstation with the majority it must deliver correct cooling to its internals and match its 16-inch show. The bezels across the show aren’t terribly huge both, so the system couldn’t actually have been a lot smaller with out choosing a smaller display screen. That stated, the thickness is appreciable at one inch with the rubber toes on the underside factored in. This will make it difficult to slide into some laptop computer sleeves. Even with its measurement, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 isn’t terribly weighty at 4.27 kilos. 

The design has the standard ThinkPad stylings with a blacked out colorway. The lid and base of the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 don’t use the standard carbon-fiber strengthened polymer many different ThinkPads do although. As an alternative, it makes use of aluminum. The keyboard deck nonetheless has a soft-touch end. Each supplies present finger oils fairly simply.

Lenovo takes benefit of the house on the keyboard deck to slot in a near-full-size quantity pad and offset its arrow keys, even when they continue to be fairly small. The trackpad is fairly modest in measurement contemplating all of the house it has out there to it. Lenovo additionally stored the audio system on the underside, tucked behind small grilles on the entrance fringe of the bottom, despite the fact that there was loads of house above the keyboard for up-firing audio system.

Beneath, the vents to the 2 cooling followers get a fantastic mesh filter to maintain mud out. Sizzling exhaust blows out the skinny gaps between the bottom of the keyboard and the show hinge. 

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4’s construct feels a lot sturdy, and Lenovo has validated it by way of some fairly excessive testing situations. The keyboard deck doesn’t flex a lot, nor does the show lid. The hinge does wiggle somewhat after shifting and has refined wobble whereas typing, nevertheless it’s not dangerous. Due to the burden of the bottom and the little lip Lenovo places on its show lids, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is straightforward to open one-handed. 

One factor the additional measurement of the laptop computer does get you is a few helpful inner house. The system might include one M.2 SSD put in, nevertheless it has house for a second one (with PCIe 4.0 x4 bandwidth). It additionally makes use of CSODIMM reminiscence, so you possibly can change out the sticks as wanted. It is going to take eradicating eight screws to get inside, although. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Keyboard, trackpad

Foundry / Mark Knapp

Like many ThinkPads, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 has a stable keyboard. It has efficient backlighting and a spill-resistant design, although don’t spill something that may go away sticky residue when it evaporates. The keys have a bit extra resistance than most, which gives additional tactile really feel to every keypress. It could make light-fingered typing somewhat trickier, however I discovered it total satisfying.

I used to be in a position to stand up to a 112-word-per-minute typing pace in Monkeytype with 98 p.c accuracy after some adjusting. The small, offset arrow keys are somewhat tougher to make use of because it’s straightforward to unintentionally hit the Web page Up and Web page Down keys. Having an enormous quantity pad is a bonus for information entry, although it additionally takes somewhat adjusting because it’s not fairly full-width.

The small trackpoint nub in the midst of the keyboard could also be a nuisance for some customers, however for those who get acquainted with it, it may be a fast and correct trackpad various that requires much less hand motion. The trackpad is ok. Its mylar floor is pleasantly clean, and it’s a good measurement, although the bodily buttons on the prime take a piece out of it. Although it’s not small, it feels small on such an enormous laptop computer. For right-handed use, I really feel like I’m reaching somewhat too far throughout my physique to make use of it and infrequently unintentionally right-click once I imply to left-click. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Show, audio

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The show on the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 has a lot to love. It’s huge and sharp, offering very clear fantastic particulars normally. The touchscreen is pretty responsive, although doesn’t really feel as clean as it’d if the show went above 60Hz. The contact digitizer is generally invisible, although it does seem on giant, brilliant sections of the display screen at shut viewing distances. The show reaches 402 nits in our testing and pairs that brightness with OLED’s infinite distinction and full one hundred pc DCI-P3 protection. Shade accuracy was additionally robust with a max dE1976 of two.03.

One stunning element was how dim the show might go, too, with the bottom brightness setting seeing the show attain a white level of 0.9 nits. Visibility might be somewhat higher although. The anti-reflective coating of the show subdues reflections barely, however isn’t as succesful as a matte end. 

The audio system on the system aren’t half dangerous. They put out a very good quantity of quantity, and their mid-focused sound works nicely for speech. For music, their harsher qualities begin to present with some extra sibilance that makes them far much less nice. They don’t present a lot bass both. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 affords a stable setup for video conferencing. The 5MP digital camera can nonetheless wrestle with out excellent lighting, ending up a contact grainy, however it’s nonetheless sharper than most and gives a very good, pure publicity. It additionally has a helpful privateness shutter that makes it clear when it’s hidden away.

It’s paired with a stable pair of far-field mics that work wonders with Dolby Voice noise suppression. This function prompts mechanically when the mics activate, and I used to be shocked to listen to my voice not solely coming by way of very naturally with out noticeable compression, whereas even excessive background noises had been utterly eradicated.

A small fan I turned on in the midst of recording has a defective motor that begins to shriek a second after I flip it on, and the mics on the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 continued to choose up my speech cleanly even because the fan made actually hideous noises that had been nowhere to be present in my check recording. 

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 helps biometric login with fast and dependable Home windows Hi there facial recognition and somewhat bit much less constant fingerprint recognition. It doesn’t assist that the fingerprint sensor is small and barely recessed from the keyboard deck, giving it very restricted contact space with my fingertips.

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Connectivity

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 affords good wired connectivity, although it’s not distinctive for a big machine. You’ll get two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left facet able to deal with most connections, together with energy. These are flanked by a USB-A 5Gbps port, a 3.5mm jack, and an HDMI 2.1 port.

The correct facet provides one other USB-A 5Gbps port, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and a locking slot. Some configurations include a SIM slot and good card reader, however this one doesn’t. With a lot house out there to it, it’s stunning to not see a 3rd USB-A or some type of SD card slot. 

The wi-fi connectivity is stable. The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 comes with an Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE201 card that gives quick and steady Wi-Fi networking. It solely will get Bluetooth 5.4, however that has confirmed dependable in testing at the least. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Efficiency

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 affords stable efficiency, nevertheless it’s not exceptionally highly effective. It brings a potent sufficient CPU with the Intel Core Extremely 7 265H, and maybe what it does finest is let that chip run nicely underneath load due to the scale and cooling of the laptop computer. The Nvidia RTX Professional 500 6GB helps increase efficiency for graphics workloads and might be considerably helpful in AI functions, nevertheless it’s not a powerhouse and its 6GB of VRAM might be limiting for larger AI duties. 

Within the holistic PCMark 10 benchmark, we see that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 has a very good degree of efficiency for many routine workplace duties. It could maintain as much as spreadsheet, video convention, and media modifying duties fairly nicely. The plentiful reminiscence onboard definitely gained’t damage in real-world utilization, as it should assist you to have that many extra applications open and able to bounce between. 

Part of that robust efficiency is coming from the CPU. Lenovo runs the Intel Core Extremely 7 265H nicely. The chip affords robust single- and multi-core efficiency, and it may well actually cruise when correctly cooled. Lenovo’s not knocking it out of the park, although.

The Dell 16 Premium persistently confirmed larger efficiency ranges from its lower-tier Intel Core Extremely 7 255H processor than the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 and even the Lenovo Yoga Professional 9 16IAH10, which has but a higher-tier processor. And although the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 has a powerful lead over the Panther Lake-powered MSI Status Flip 14 AI+, the hole narrows significantly when that laptop computer is about to Efficiency mode

Our Handbrake encoding check helps present not solely the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4’s means to run quick but additionally its means to maintain its speeds. Encoding the big video file takes even the strongest CPUs fairly a while, and that offers them an opportunity to construct up warmth. If they will’t deal with that warmth actively, they’ll have to decelerate, and the check will find yourself taking for much longer.

Right here we see that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 manages to finish the encoding process in somewhat over 12 minutes, which is respectable. In fact, it’s as soon as once more proven up by the Lenovo Yoga Professional 9 and Dell 16 Premium, suggesting that the CPU alternative and cooling resolution aren’t optimum right here. Whereas the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 beat the Acer Swift Go 16 and the MSI Status Flip 14 AI+, each of these programs ran in Balanced mode for these exams, which may limit efficiency significantly on prolonged workloads like this.

One would possibly count on good issues within the graphics division due to the RTX branding, however the RTX Professional 500 is a little bit of a letdown. In 3DMark’s Time Spy graphical benchmark, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is decimated by the Lenovo Yoga Professional 9i Gen 10’s RTX 5050, and it’s solely additional outdone by Dell’s RTX 5070 (although not by as huge a leap as we’d count on). Even gaming machines, the $900 Acer Nitro V 16 AI  (ANV16-42) with an RTX 5050 outperforms the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4.

The Nvidia RTX Professional 500 at the least offers the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 a leg up on programs with latest Intel Arc built-in graphics just like the Acer Swift Go 16 — or, that’s what was true in 2025 anyway. With Panther Lake, programs can include a brand new tier of Intel Arc graphics just like the Arc B390 within the MSI Status Flip 14 AI+. At first look, the MSI Status Flip 14 AI+ underperforms subsequent to the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4, however when it’s utilizing the identical Efficiency mode because the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4, it really comes forward with an total rating of seven,233 factors. And that’s from a 3 pound, thin-and-light laptop computer.

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Battery life

For a laptop computer packing a large, sharp OLED display screen and discrete graphics, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 affords pretty respectable battery life. In our offline video playback check, which runs a 4K video file on repeat with the laptop computer’s show set to 250-260 nits, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 lasted for simply shy of six hours. Numerous gaming laptops wrestle to hit that form of runtime. The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 might have managed a bit extra if it had opted for a much bigger 99Wh battery. Because it stands, the 75Wh appears a bit small for such a big laptop computer. 

The difficulty that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 runs into is that loads of different productiveness machines can run for longer. The Lenovo Yoga Professional 9 16IAH10, which persistently knocked out the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 in efficiency benchmarks, additionally takes the lead in battery life with about 4 additional hours of runtime. It’s the same story for the Dell 16 Premium, which lasts even longer nonetheless and boasts the same 3840×2400 OLED show.

However maybe the largest upset is the exhibiting from Panther Lake with the MSI Status Flip 14 AI+, which merely ran circles across the lot with its runtime over 34 hours. Even in a extra demanding PCMark 10 battery check, MSI’s machine greater than doubled the runtime that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 achieved within the simpler video playback check. That’s to not say the compact MSI laptop computer is an efficient various to the big Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4, nevertheless it exhibits that the technology leap that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 misses out on would possibly put it at a crucial drawback.

As all the time, real-world use is even much less favorable than video playback. I discovered the laptop computer operating on monitor for about 6 hours in my testing. Whereas that’s not terribly lengthy, it’s at the least not the form of precipitous drop from the video playback runtime that different laptops are inclined to exhibit. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is a stable tank of a laptop computer. The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is a stable tank of a laptop computer. It’s sturdily constructed and serves nicely as a workstation, providing a stable keyboard with a quantity pad, a clean trackpad, and a pointy, great-looking show. For such a big machine, there are definitely just a few issues it might have finished higher like offering some additional I/O or becoming a bigger battery.

However maybe its largest disadvantage is that you could simply discover extra highly effective {hardware} for a lot lower than the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 4’s asking value. And with new Panther Lake {hardware}, you possibly can even get comparable efficiency together with considerably improved effectivity.

That places the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 in a tough place, the place it’ll solely be wise for people who undoubtedly want the skilled components of the system, like its ISV and MIL-STD 810H certifications. So long as these aren’t laborious and quick necessities for you, there are way more wise choices.