P71 vs P72 need advice on what to get

[Whitieiii]

Looking at possibly buying a p71 or p72 for 4k video streaming and editing but don't know what to go for... I'm thinking about the p71 with the i7-7820HQ and i believe the M620 or a p72 with the i7-7850H and p600.. it's about $100 difference before tax and shipping.. for streaming 4k would you want a lower base clock speed with more cores or higher base clock speed with less cores? I couldn't do 4k anything or even 1440p on the i7-940MX i had before.. how would you tell if your getting the 4k screen too as most people don't list or even show the screen resolution... i don't want to spend extra time or money upgrading a 1080p screen to the 4k... i temporarily moved to a T440p with the i7-4900MQ and seems to keep up with 1440p video but would like to get back to a 17 inch machine.. what you think i should upgrade to? I'm going Linux so don't have to worry about win 11 support.. just don't know what to get

[TPFanatic]

i'd advise spend a lil extra money on a listing that clearly states ur getting 4K.

Both those GPU options are the base config, so the laptops likely have 1080p. 1080p panel aint bad but the res is low. Upgrading my sis's P70 to 4K costed us about $200 on top of the machine costing $200, so $400 total. The particular Panasonic 4K LCD used in P70-71 is very hard to find. It only wound up being a good deal since the model had a nice M3000M upgrade (GTX 960 equivalent) rather than the M620 advertised.

My P71 with native 4K LCD, P3000 GPU, and i7 77000HQ plays 4K media with no problem.

I don't recommend P72 because it is less serviceable, battery is annoyingly internal. no bottom dock port, GPU is soldered, no expresscard. Yea it has 2 more CPU cores than P71 but that's it. I'd look at P17 for a meaningful performance upgrade and better case design for a workstation. Otherwise P71 and even P70 should be satisfactory.

[Whitieiii]

Ok thank you for that.. I might just wait for a Xeon P71 then if you think that 4 cores will be significant for 4k video playback over 6 cores.... this thing should get 32gb or ram and a 2TB SSD with a copy of Linux

[TPFanatic]

I think the thing with 4k is modern processors have vp9 and h265 decoding which makes playing 4k an efficient breeze. So in the context of 4k playback, the raw power of a modern processor doesn’t even come into play. The 4-6 core alternative doesn’t matter. So long as the OS knows how to decode with drivers/packages, it will be fine.

It’s good to know intel core 1st gen (your 940mx) is too weak to brute force 4k. Could also be a lacking in the paired GPU. From my anecdote intel core 3rd gen and hd graphics 4000 found in the likes of thinkpad t430 and w530 is powerful enough to brute force 4k playback.

[unix_joe]

I am a big fan of the P71. I carried one for years. In fact I had one with me in the last days of Afghanistan that I am unwilling to part with because it was with me during some strange times. So it is on garage duty right now.

There were four changes with the P72 that I didn't like:
1) speaker location is absurd
2) battery is internal (this is not a deal breaker since these bottom covers are easy to remove)
3) loss of ultrabay for DVD / CD or an extra platter drive
4) loss of dedicated volume buttons above the number pad.

I also think the key travel decreased slightly on the P72, but it's been a few years so I don't remember.

I did a 1080 -> 4k upgrade but I don't recommend this since it's difficult to source the correct panel (which these days costs as much as the laptop itself) and you have to do a partial teardown to replace the 30-pin cable with a 40-pin.

Get a 4k P71. If you do a search for "P71 UHD" or "P71 3840" you will be able to find one with the 4k display. Make sure it's listed as having 4k. If the seller doesn't know, move on. If the seller is as enthusiastic about their laptop as I've been in this post, it's probably a good bet. If none are available except with the 1080 screen, then wait. The 1080 isn't terrible, but it doesn't wow you either. IIRC it is about 300 nits brightness and at 17" you will begin to see the individual pixels.

Here's a fun fact: for about a year, that 4k on the P71 was the highest rated quality display at Notebookcheck. Even higher rated than the MacBook Pro Retina at the time.

So yes I'm biased towards the P71. If I had to buy one today I would get one with a Xeon and UHD display, and then upgrade the rest incrementally.

All those years, I ran OpenBSD on the P71, but now I'm a Debian person and it has run both buster and bookworm with KDE just fine.

[Whitieiii]

I think the thing with 4k is modern processors have vp9 and h265 decoding which makes playing 4k an efficient breeze. So in the context of 4k playback, the raw power of a modern processor doesn’t even come into play. The 4-6 core alternative doesn’t matter. So long as the OS knows how to decode with drivers/packages, it will be fine.

It’s good to know intel core 1st gen (your 940mx) is too weak to brute force 4k. Could also be a lacking in the paired GPU. From my anecdote intel core 3rd gen and hd graphics 4000 found in the likes of thinkpad t430 and w530 is powerful enough to brute force 4k playback.

Yea I've even got dedicated graphics on that machine and still no dice.. 4k pegs the CPU and make it hang and 1440p just lags so bad on it...

[Whitieiii]

I am a big fan of the P71. I carried one for years. In fact I had one with me in the last days of Afghanistan that I am unwilling to part with because it was with me during some strange times. So it is on garage duty right now.

There were four changes with the P72 that I didn't like:
1) speaker location is absurd
2) battery is internal (this is not a deal breaker since these bottom covers are easy to remove)
3) loss of ultrabay for DVD / CD or an extra platter drive
4) loss of dedicated volume buttons above the number pad.

I also think the key travel decreased slightly on the P72, but it's been a few years so I don't remember.

I did a 1080 -> 4k upgrade but I don't recommend this since it's difficult to source the correct panel (which these days costs as much as the laptop itself) and you have to do a partial teardown to replace the 30-pin cable with a 40-pin.

Get a 4k P71. If you do a search for "P71 UHD" or "P71 3840" you will be able to find one with the 4k display. Make sure it's listed as having 4k. If the seller doesn't know, move on. If the seller is as enthusiastic about their laptop as I've been in this post, it's probably a good bet. If none are available except with the 1080 screen, then wait. The 1080 isn't terrible, but it doesn't wow you either. IIRC it is about 300 nits brightness and at 17" you will begin to see the individual pixels.

Here's a fun fact: for about a year, that 4k on the P71 was the highest rated quality display at Notebookcheck. Even higher rated than the MacBook Pro Retina at the time.

So yes I'm biased towards the P71. If I had to buy one today I would get one with a Xeon and UHD display, and then upgrade the rest incrementally.

All those years, I ran OpenBSD on the P71, but now I'm a Debian person and it has run both buster and bookworm with KDE just fine.

Ok I'm wanting the P71 then over the P72? and since these machines don't come with socketed CPU I'm going to need to find a p71 with the E3-1535 and might as well get the 4k display because it's hard to source one of them... i was originally just going to get a base model i7-7850H/P600 P72 but you think I'm not going to benefit from 6 cores vs 4 cores?

[unix_joe]

I would get the one with the 4k screen regardless if it's P72 or P71.

But all things being equal, I would prefer the P71 because of the aforementioned changes (IMO regressions) that Lenovo made with the P72.

In 2018, the addition of two cores was a game changer. Especially at the low end where ultrabooks could now compete with previous generation 45W CPUs. But we are talking about seven year old processors at this point. The performance difference with modern software is going to be negligible.

[independent]

Just a little comment re 4k editing. If you are dead set on 4k editing (99% of people don't need it IMO) then you'll need to first find out how the software you use processes video. For instance Resolve processes on the GPU and requires a decent amount of VRAM. Typically over 8GB for 4k video with Resolve. Other video editors are all different. So, check those out separately or just be satisfied with 1080p and use most any workstation with half decent graphics from the last few years.

Has been mentioned, watching video at 4k is hardware decoded if done properly So anything can do that from the last few years. Actually streaming 4k probably requires a dedicated system to be done properly. I have no idea.