i7 P1 first impressions. Also: why I did not get the Xeon P1

[jayeye]

My venerable T61p released its magic blue smoke a few months ago, so it was time to get a new laptop, now that *finally* Lenovo saw the light and released a 15'' laptop without a numeric keypad.

My first choice was to get a fully-decked-out P1, with a Xeon processor and 32G of ECC memory (could not configure it with 64G of ECC, maybe such sticks are not made?). If you are tempted to do that, don't. The cooling is inadequate, the moment you do anything more than move the cursor, the fans turn on, and they are LOUD. Even under Linux, where I have much better control of the power management profile, I could not get them to where there was a balance of CPU utilization and relative silence.

So it came down to a non-Xeon P1 vs an X1 Extreme. It must have really been my lucky day, because I actually got a knowledgeable Lenovo support droid who detailed the differences between the P1 and the X1Extreme ("they are identical in every respect, except for the video card; the X1 is more for gaming and such").

I finally opted for the slower (if you can call a machine with 12 virtual CPUs "slow"!) of the two i7 versions, put 32G in it intending to upgrade to 64G if necessary (so far, not so), got the smallest SSD disk it could be configured with and put two Samsung 970PRO 512G sticks in (an overkill, but two of them were cheaper than the 128G->256G upgrade from Lenovo), and used the significant price difference between that and the Xeon to get the 3year on-site/international/etc service contract, something that I have found *extremely* useful in the past.

I'm running Kubuntu 18.04 LTS. Installing it was tricky, you need to install 16.04 first and then upgrade. It's a known bug, maybe it will be solved in the next dotted release. Power management, suspend, hibernate, and so on, all work fine. The only thing I haven't gotten to work is the fingerprint reader (it's not detected; see one of my recent posts about this). It's weird, because pretty much every other older thinkpad I have with a fp reader just works with linux.

I still hate the new-style keyboard, but it's no worse than any other manufacturer's, and I rely on the laptop too much when I travel to risk having a frankenpad go bad while I'm 12 time zones away from home! I also hate the fact that my dozen or so old power adapters are no longer useful, and I'll have to spend a few more $$$ on new ones (because, of course, having a new plug is essential... they learned that lesson from Apple). Ah well, I'll just have to consult more If you are willing to meet me in Manhattan, you can have one for free, they are just taking up space at this point.

[w0qj]

<<Note to Forum Moderators: This thread technically should belong to the X1 Carbon Forum!>>

Wow, congrads on your new X1 Extreme!

Don't worry, you'll likely get used to the new chiclet/island keyboard keys soon!
I'm a touch typist, and (eventually) got used to transitioning from a traditional keyboard (T410) to this chiclet/island keyboard.
Life goes on, I guess...

I feel your pain in buying many of these additional 135W power adapters, at least one for each location...

a) Did you know that you *CANNOT* buy additional power adapters same as that slim 135W power adapter that came with the X1 Extreme?
~I actually asked sales staff to telephone ThinkPad HQ, they said that you can only order the regular (larger) 135W power adapters at this time!!
~Personally, I've bought only the minimum number of extra regular (larger) 135W power adapters, until that slim 135W power adapter (the one that came with X1 Extreme) can be bought.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Enjoy your new Thinkpad!!

Don't worry, you'll likely get used to the new chiclet/island keyboard keys soon!
I'm a touch typist, and (eventually) got used to transitioning from a traditional keyboard (T410) to this chiclet/island keyboard.
Life goes on, I guess...

Is it seriously that much of a difference?? I am not a touch typer but I go between my T450 and T520 all the time and don't even blink twice about it.

...Did you know that you *CANNOT* buy that slim 135W power adapter that came with the X1 Extreme?....

So your telling me a few thousand dollar machine designed to be one of the slimmest on the market comes with a fat-@ss adapter. That's Lenovo for you !

[w0qj]

It's the initial week of adjustment when I switched from T410 to X1 Carbon chiclet/island keyboard.
As of today, I literally did lots of typing on both of T410 and X1, naturally switched back and forth today, and didn't even blink twice about it!

Is it seriously that much of a difference?? I am not a touch typer but I go between my T450 and T520 all the time and don't even blink twice about it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[Rant_Mode_On]
A) X1 Extreme came with the new *slim* 135W power adapter, which is *very* nice. I want more!

B) I wanted to place order for four (4) more of these new *slim* 135W power adapters that originally came with X1 Extreme.
~ThinkPad told me that I cannot buy more of these *slim* 135W power adapters at this time.
~ThinkPad suggested that I buy the usual (bigger) 135W power adapters instead, and I did buy a few for now.
~Will wait for the new *slim* 135W power adapters (which originally came with X1 Extreme) to be available before buying more!
[/Rant_Mode_Off]

So your telling me a few thousand dollar machine designed to be one of the slimmest on the market comes with a fat-@ss adapter. ...

[dr_st]

Is it seriously that much of a difference?? I am not a touch typer but I go between my T450 and T520 all the time and don't even blink twice about it.

While I still prefer typing on a traditional and not an 'island' keyboard, it's not the typing that's the problem with the screwed layout - it's the keyboard-based navigation and shortcuts, for users who are into that sort of thing.

[Takeda]

My P1 Thinkpad was delivered 3/20/19. I purchased this system to replace a 5 year old W540, that is a bullet-proof system!

I have been extremely pleased with the quality, and performance of the P1. Photography is a hobby, and I use my laptop to post-process RAW image files, using Nikon Capture NX2. I compared the P1 to the W540 post processing 27 RAW image files. The W540 took 56S, the P1 took 7S.

Here are the specs on both systems:

Lenovo P1 Thinkpad:
1) Intel® Xeon® E-2176M vPro 6 Core Processor (2.70GHz, up to 4.40GHz with Turbo Boost, 12MB Cache)
2) 15.6” 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS multi-touch, anti-reflective / anti-smudge, 400 nits
3) 64 GB (32GB + 32GB) DDR4 2666M
4) Nvidia Quadro P2000 4GB
5) Quantity 2 x 2TB Solid State Drive PCIe-NVMe OPAL2.0 M.2
6) RAID1

Lenovo W540 Thinkpad:
1) Intel I7-4930MX CPU
2) 32GB RAM
3) M.2 50GB CACHE, running ExpressCache
4) 1TB Hybrid HDD

[Pelikan3]

How do you like your ThinkPad P1 keyboard overall?

And how is the battery life? Thanks.

[Takeda]

The keyboard has a great feel. it's like the W540 keyboard, without the numeric keys.

One test I did of battery life, I got 6 hours.

[TinkerMan]

this response is for people that dont have that many models in their collection
1. there is the classic Thinkpad keyboard, W/T 520 and before keyboard, which is probably best for people who worked on these for like 10 years or more, especially coders and developers, especially those that developed muscle memory for the positioning of certain keys like delete.
2. there is the W/T 530 model keyboard, this is THE best keyboard for general typing people who are not that much affected by the position change of certain keys, like myself
3. and there is the post W/T530 model keyboard ( actually several models ), in this category I also put the P1 : this is rubbish keyboard, they look almost identical to the W530 keyboard, but the underside part, the mechanism if you want, is NOT the same, and it feels like rubbish.

I hope this clarifies some of the questions some people have.
look into my signature to see what I have used to type on.

[dr_st]

I hope this clarifies some of the questions some people have.
look into my signature to see what I have used to type on.

You have to be a bit careful when posting your preferences/opinions as facts...

Some folks really care about the layout, not so much about the feel of the mechanism; for others it's the other way around. Personally, I don't feel that the mechanism in the new keyboards is 'rubbish'. The key travel is shorter, but I don't find it problematic at all.

[TPFanatic]

terms
Resistance: the linear friction of a mechanical keypress.
Tactile feel: the initial bump of a keypress.
Click: the audible tactile sound.
Clack: the audible bottoming-out. (this is more common to hear than the Click in laptop keyboards)

Want to share my experience with a **30 series keyboard.

Before I did the classic keyboard mod on my T430 it had the **30 series LiteOn keyboard. This keyboard has a very high tactile feel, high resistance feel, and high clacking. It has higher resistance than the Classic keyboards, so at my fastest my WPM is slightly faster with the Classics. While it is however a very pleasant keyboard to type on, the desegregated fn keys, missing keys, and corrupted layout ultimately inspired its replacement.

[TinkerMan]

Before I did the classic keyboard mod on my T430 it had the **30 series LiteOn keyboard. This keyboard has a very high tactile feel, high resistance feel, and high clacking. It has higher resistance than the Classic keyboards, so at my fastest my WPM is slightly faster with the Classics. While it is however a very pleasant keyboard to type on, the desegregated fn keys, missing keys, and corrupted layout ultimately inspired its replacement.

thats exactly my point, for people who are bothered by the corrupted layout and the missing keys, the classical keyboard is best, for those like me that are not bothered the 30s series is just as good if not slightly better, but the new keyboards ( like P1 ) even if they look identical to the 30s series, they are in fact very very different.