Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 evaluate: Dependable however falling behind

Greatest Costs At the moment: Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is a giant workstation with a contact of luxurious from its OLED show. It’s constructed sturdy to satisfy a wide range of MIL-STD 810H sturdiness exams, and it has a big selection 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: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: Home windows Whats up 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 fluctuate relying on the retailer. Our particular configuration has the specs above and was on sale for $4,009 at B&H or $4,218 at CDW. Although the storage is indicated as a PCIe Gen 5 drive, a pace take a look at confirmed the drive in our system performing according to PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds, albeit on the excessive finish of that vary. 

By way of Lenovo’s customized configurator, the system can include a variety 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 is determined by the CPU, and the top-end CPU doesn’t help a dGPU. For configurations that embody a dGPU, Lenovo provides the RTX Professional 500 or RTX Professional 1000. You may get 16, 32, or 96GB of reminiscence and 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage.

The show choices vary from a really primary 1920×1200 anti-glare panel that’s a minimum of brilliant at 400 nits or a 500-nit model that’s low energy and provides extra coloration gamut as much as the 3840×2400 touchscreen OLED model examined right here, which provides one hundred pc DCI-P3 coloration protection, 400 nits of brightness, and Dolby Imaginative and prescient help. Lenovo provides some extras like 4G connectivity and a sensible 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 is not any thin-and-light laptop computer. It’s a cellular workstation with the majority it must convey correct cooling to its internals and match its 16-inch show. The bezels across the show aren’t terribly massive both, so the system couldn’t have been a lot smaller with out choosing a smaller display. That stated, the thickness is appreciable at one inch with the rubber ft on the underside factored in. This will make it tough to slide into some laptop computer sleeves. Even with its dimension, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 isn’t terribly heavy 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 dimension 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 effective 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 lots sturdy, and Lenovo has validated it by means of some fairly excessive testing situations. The keyboard deck doesn’t flex a lot, nor does the show lid. The hinge does wiggle just a little after shifting and has refined wobble whereas typing, but it surely’s not unhealthy. Due to the burden of the bottom and the little lip Lenovo places on its show lids, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is simple to open one-handed. 

One factor the additional dimension of the laptop computer does get you is a few helpful inside house. The system might include one M.2 SSD put in, but it surely has house for a second one (with PCIe 4.0 x4 bandwidth). It additionally makes use of CSODIMM reminiscence, so you may change out sticks as wanted. It should 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 depart sticky residue when it evaporates. The keys have a bit extra resistance than most, which offers further tactile really feel to every keypress. It might probably make light-fingered typing just a little trickier, however I discovered it general satisfying.

I used to be in a position to stand up to a 112-word-per-minute typing pace in Monkeytype with 98 % accuracy after some adjusting. The small, offset arrow keys are just a little tougher to make use of because it’s simple to unintentionally hit the Web page Up and Web page Down keys unintentionally. Having a giant quantity pad is a bonus for knowledge entry, although it additionally takes just a little 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 if you happen to get aware of it, it may be a fast and correct trackpad different that requires much less hand motion. The trackpad is okay. Its mylar floor is pleasantly easy, and it’s a good dimension, although the bodily buttons on the high take a piece out of it. Regardless that it’s not small, it feels small on such a giant laptop computer. For right-handed use, I really feel like I’m reaching just a little too far throughout my physique to make use of it and sometimes unintentionally right-click after 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 lots to love. It’s massive and sharp, offering very clear effective particulars generally. The touchscreen is pretty responsive, although doesn’t really feel as easy because it might need if the show went above 60Hz. The contact digitizer is generally invisible, although it does seem on massive, brilliant sections of the display at shut viewing distances. The show will get lots brilliant, measured at 402 nits in our testing. That mixes with the infinite distinction of OLED and the colourful colours of one hundred pc DCI-P3 protection. The colour was additionally correct with a max dE1976 of two.03.

One shocking element was how dim the show may go, too, with the bottom brightness setting seeing the show attain a white level of 0.9 nits. Visibility might be just a little 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 unhealthy. They put out a superb 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

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 provides a stable setup for video conferencing. The 5MP digicam can nonetheless battle with out good lighting, ending up a contact grainy, however it’s nonetheless sharper than most and offers a superb, 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 routinely when the mics activate, and I used to be stunned to listen to my voice not solely coming by means of very naturally with out noticeable compression but additionally even some excessive background noises getting 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 select up my speech cleanly even because the fan made really hideous noises that had been nowhere to be present in my take a look at recording. 

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 helps biometric login with fast and dependable Home windows Whats up facial recognition and just a little 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 provides good wired connectivity, although it’s not distinctive for a big machine. You’ll get two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left aspect 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 best aspect provides one other USB-A 5Gbps port, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and a locking slot. Some configurations can include a SIM slot and sensible card reader, however this one doesn’t. With a lot out there house, it’s shocking 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 a minimum of. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Efficiency

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 provides stable efficiency, but it surely’s not exceptionally highly effective. It brings a potent sufficient CPU with the Intel Core Extremely 7 265H, and maybe what it does greatest is let that chip run nicely below 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, but it surely’s not a powerhouse and its 6GB of VRAM might be limiting for greater AI duties. 

Within the holistic PCMark 10 benchmark, we see that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 has a superb stage of efficiency for many routine workplace duties. It might probably maintain as much as spreadsheet, video convention, and media modifying duties fairly nicely. The plentiful reminiscence onboard actually gained’t damage in real-world utilization, as it’ll help you have that many extra packages open and able to soar between. 

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

The Dell 16 Premium persistently confirmed increased 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 robust 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 take a look at helps present not solely the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4’s skill to run quick but additionally its skill to maintain its speeds. Encoding the big video file takes even the strongest CPUs fairly a while, and that provides them an opportunity to construct up warmth. If they’ll’t deal with that warmth actively, they’ll have to decelerate, and the take a look at will find yourself taking for much longer.

Right here we see that Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 manages to finish the encoding process in just a little over 12 minutes, which is respectable. After all, 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 MSI Status Flip 14 AI+, each of these programs ran in Balanced mode for these exams, which may prohibit 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 massive 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 a minimum of provides 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 that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 makes use of, it really comes forward with an general 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 and discrete graphics, the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 provides pretty respectable battery life. In our offline video playback take a look at, 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. A whole lot of gaming laptops battle to hit that type of runtime. The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 may have managed a bit extra if it had opted for an even 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 further 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 take a look at, MSI’s machine greater than doubled runtime that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 hit within the simpler video playback take a look at. That’s to not say the compact MSI laptop computer is an effective different to the mammoth Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4, but it surely reveals that the era leap that the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 misses out on would possibly put it at a vital drawback.

As all the time, actual world use is even much less favorable than video playback. I discovered the laptop computer working on observe for about six hours in my testing. Whereas that’s not terribly lengthy, it’s a minimum of not the form of precipitous drop from the video playback runtime that different laptops are likely to exhibit. 

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is a stable tank of a laptop computer. It’s made sturdy, and it makes a superb workstation with a stable keyboard, quantity pad, trackpad, and a great-looking show. For such a big machine, there are actually a couple of issues it may have completed higher like offering some further I/O or becoming a bigger battery. However maybe its greatest hassle is that you may simply get extra performant {hardware} for much lower than the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4’s asking value, and within the case of latest Panther Lake {hardware}, you will get aggressive efficiency alongside 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 positively 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.