Lenovo Announces P-Series Workstation Laptops With Xeon CPUs & Thunderbolt 3

Quick on the heels of Intel’s latest mobile Xeon launch, Lenovo has announced its own series of workstation laptops, bringing with it 64GB of DDR4 ECC memory, two(!) Thunderbolt 3 ports, NVIDIA Quadro graphics, and a 4K display. That’s a lot of premium tech in a small package.

It wasn’t going to take long for various OEMs to start planning their next kit after Intel dropped a bombshell yesterday, announcing its first real Xeon processor for mobile markets. Since details on that are limited due to Intel holding its cards close to its chest ready for next week’s IDF, details about some of the specifics with the Lenovo laptops are also limited.

What we do know is that the ThinkPad P70 will include some very desirable features. Workstation ready Intel Xeon processor? Check. A 17″ calibrated 4K display? Check. Gobs of RAM? Check. NVIDIA Quadro graphics? Check. Up to 4 storage bays? Check. Thunderbolt 3? Double check. Even PCIe based storage. This is one monstrous workstation.

Full (slightly incomplete) details are available from the relevant PDFs on Lenovo’s website. Specifics as to which Quadro GPU will be used is unknown too – the fact one isn’t mentioned likely means that a yet unannounced mobile Quadro refresh will be gracing the ThinkPads.

A slight cheaper and smaller ThinkPad P50 will also be available, keeping many of the features, just with a small display and one less Thunderbolt 3 port.

Both the P50 and P70 come with 4x USB 3.0 ports, one with dedicated charging. If there was any point of contention it’s that the external display ports are HDMI 1.4 (instead of 2.0) and DP 1.2 (instead of 1.4a). At least with the Thunderbolt 3 port and a display dock, you should be able to make use of a proper external 4K display.

Pricing for the laptops start at ~$2000 for the P70 and ~$1600 for the P50. Bear in mind that these are minimum models, the good stuff will likely cost a lot more. Lenovo will be making these available in the 4th quarter, so expect to see them late this year, early next.