Lenovo Launches New P50 And P70 Mobile Workstations With First Mobile Xeon Chips
by Brett Howse on August 10, 2015 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Lenovo
- Xeon
- Quadro
- Workstations
Today at the SIGGRAPH 2015 Conference and Exhibition, Lenovo unveiled some new mobile workstations. The new ThinkPad P series are aimed at high-end professionals who need a lot of compute on the go. There are two models, with the P50 being a 15.6-inch version, which is a follow-on to the W541. The larger P70 features a 17.3-inch display. Both can pack some serious specifications under the hood, starting with the processor.
Both models will feature a new processor from Intel, which is going to be the first official mobile version of their Xeon line. Intel has not released much information yet, but the Intel Xeon E3-1500M v5 is going to be powering these workstations from Lenovo. While we don’t have exact frequencies yet, the v5 version is going to be based on the just released Skylake architecture, which brings a lot of new technology to the plate. Lenovo will offer the new P series with up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory, arranged in 4 SODIMM slots. One of the reasons to use Xeon is that it supports ECC memory, and these workstations leverage that for the workloads they will be expected to run Also part of the new Xeon will be Thunderbolt 3, and both models have this connectivity. We're not sure yet if Thunderbolt is built into the Xeons, or if something like the Aipine Ridge as an IO controller for this.
On the GPU side, Lenovo has included a Quadro card, however the exact model is not known yet.
There is also up to 1 TB of PCIe SSD storage available, and up to a 2 TB hard drive. In addition to the Thunderbolt, there will also be HDMI 1.4, mini DisplayPort 1.2, ExpressCard, SDXC, and of course what workstation would not have Gigabit Ethernet, so the P Series has this as well.
Wireless is a new card from Intel as well, with the Intel 8260 card which is an 802.11ac model, and Lenovo will be offering it with Bluetooth 4.1 and vPro as well. For those that need connectivity on the go, Lenovo is offering a Sierra EM7445 LTE-A option as well.
| Lenovo P Series Mobile Workstations | ||||||
| P50 | P70 | |||||
| CPU | Intel Xeon E3 1500M v5 Quad-core Skylake ~47W TDP |
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| GPU | NVIDIA Quadro Model number unknown |
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| Memory | Up to 64 GB DDR4-2133 ECC | |||||
| Storage | Up to 1TB PCIe SSD Up to 2TB HDD |
|||||
| Display | 15.6" 1920x1080 IPS w/optional touch Optional 3840x2160 IPS X-Rite Pantone Color Correction |
17.3" 1920x1080 IPS w/optional touch Optional 3840x2160 IPS X-Rite Pantone Color Correction |
||||
| Ports | USB 3.0 x 4 Mini DP 1.2 HDMI 1.4 Thunderbolt 3 Docking Connector Smart Card Reader ExpressCard SDXC Headset |
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| Networking | Intel 8260 Wireless-AC 802.11ac WiFi Bluetooth 4.11 Optional vPro Gigabit Ethernet Sierra EM7445 4G LTE-A |
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| Dimensions | H: 0.96-1.02" (24.5-25.9 mm) W: 14.86" (377.4 mm) D: 9.93" (252.3 mm) |
H: 1.17-1.2" (29.9-31.5 mm) W: 16.4" (416 mm) D: 10.8" (275.5 mm) |
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| Weight | Starting at 5.6 lbs (2.5kg) | Starting at 7.6 lbs (3.4 kg) | ||||
| Battery Life | 4 Cell 66 Whr Optional 6 Cell 90 Whr |
8 Cell 96 WHr | ||||
| Price | $1599+ | $1999+ | ||||
Other than the larger display, the P70 can also be had with a DVD-RW drive, but hopefully but the time it launches they will at least offer Blu-ray as an option.
Speaking of the displays, Lenovo has packed some pretty impressive sounding displays into both models. The P series will offer a 1920x1080p as the base, with optional touch, and there is also a UHD 3840x2160 IPS offering as well. All of the panels are IPS models, and Lenovo has turned to X-Rite to offer Pantone color calibration out of the box, and over the lifetime of the device.
The P series can be had with a good choice of operating systems too, from Windows 10 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro, or downgrade rights to Windows 7 Professional. If you need Linux for your workstation, they will also be offering Ubuntu and RHEL.
These MIL-SPEC tested and ISV Certified professional workstations will be available in Q4 2015 with the P50 starting at $1599, and the P70 starting at $1999.
Source: Lenovo
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hodakaracer96 - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Man this thing is a beast. Ethernet, docking port, LTE, thunderbolt 3, skylake quad core xeon, ddr4, 4k, 1tb pci-e SSD. I'm pretty satisfied with my HP laptop with docking station at work. I don't have very heavy usage though. Would love this PC even though its way overkill for me.hodakaracer96 - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
I find my self touching the screen (wishing I had touch) when I undock my HP and use as a laptop. Would be nice if the 4k panel had touch as well.KateH - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Hah, I do the same thing. Using a Surface Pro as my main computer has ruined me; every single time I use a laptop now I find myself poking at the screen and being confused why nothing is happening. I booted up my circa-2004 Powerbook the other day and was trying to tap-and-drag to scroll web pages, sheesh.boeush - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
The P70 sounds interesting, yet still not perfect in my view. Main deficits:1) 16:9 screen - on a "workstation"?? Puhlease!
2) using the same keyboard as P50 (15.6" form factor.). Wasted space on left/right margins - wasted opportunity for more key spacing/size or more keys.
Sadly, both of the above are persistently recurring themes - even, apparently, when it comes to super-premium duper-professional so-called "workstations". My DELL Precision M6400 from 2008 has a full keyboard spanning its width and a 1920:1200 screen. Sad, that 6 years later the industry is still mired in chronic feature regression.
boeush - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
That is to say, 7+years later... Even sadder. At least we finally get a high-DPI screen at 17" as an option. Not that it helps a whole lot when shortage of screen vertical real estate is what's actually the major PITA for anyone working on content creation as opposed to consumption...lilo777 - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
I see your point but I would expect that the vast majority of content creators work at the desk and thus would not care about the display size too much (while still enjoying that 17" real estate however crippled by a bad form factor on occasions where they have to go mobile)icrf - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
I agree completely. I also have very find memories of my M6400 (died in a house fire).raiseApint - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Ditto on the 16:9 obsession. Ordered a 17" zbook two weeks ago as attempting to work on a 15.5 raises the blood pressure.nerd1 - Monday, August 17, 2015 - link
16:9 works just okay if the screen is large enough, and there are enough vertical pixels.Oh and you can ALWAYS attach huge external displays when you work.
lilmoe - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
Do these come with battery bridge tech (changing batteries without turning off the device)?