Lenovo ThinkPad P53 Mobile Workstation Power Tests
We ran the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 mobile workstation through a series of battery tests to find out just how long the 90 WHr battery would last. After each test, the battery was again fully charged and then the next test started.
PowerMark tests would run until the battery was at 15% charge.
Battery life is lacking with the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 mobile workstation, our tests show the ThinkPad P53 is at the bottom of the charts due to its higher-end power-hungry components. This is to be expected considering the ThinkPad P53 load-out. Most users would operate the ThinkPad P53 while plugged into an AC power outlet since the battery life, even with the large battery is not great.
Perhaps this should be considered “mobile” in that it is designed to be taken on the road. It is not, however, designed to last on a cross-continent flight or a flight across an ocean without power.
Boot-Time
BootRacer is an app that will tell you how long your computer takes to boot. It will measure the actual time your PC takes to get to the windows boot process, then measure the actual windows OS boot time.
BootRacer is a free download for personal use and can tell you if your PC is booting slower over time or after you have installed apps.
We ran Bootracer on the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 mobile workstation after we set everything up before any other apps were installed. Over time and use, installing other apps, you might find that the laptop might start to slow down or take longer to boot. The best practice is to keep your laptop clean of unwanted applications that affect booting times.
The Lenovo ThinkPad P53 mobile workstation boots with a usable time of 26 seconds to start working on the desktop, however, most will put the unit to sleep by closing the lid, opening the lid results in almost instant use availability.
Pricing and Availability
A Lenovo ThinkPad P53 mobile workstation starts at $1,179. Our review sample came close to $4,500 on the Lenovo US site. You are getting an incredibly powerful laptop that can rival mid-range desktop workstations that cost more.
Final Words
Over time we have looked at several of NVIDIA’s new RTX graphics cards for desktops which have impressed us with new levels of performance. Now with the new Lenovo ThinkPad P53, one can get a mobile workstation with a Quadro RTX 5000 installed. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 is a significant boost to performance in CAD/Render applications and provides the necessary driver certifications that many applications require for professional use. Given the Quadro RTX 5000 used in the ThinkPad P53 is a Max-Q design for lower TDP and power use for a mobile workstation, one would expect to see similar performance to a Quadro RTX 4000 desktop card, from or past review samples we found it very close to an NVIDIA RTX 2060 desktop GPU.
To provide CPU power Lenovo uses the Intel Xeon E-2276M (6 core / 12 Thread) processor which provides excellent multi-threaded capabilities. Xeon class processors also allow the use of ECC memory which many enterprise users require. In the case of our review sample, 64GB of 2666 MHz ECC memory is installed. There should no shortage of memory with the ThinkPad P53 as it has a maximum capacity of 128GB.
Our review sample came equipped with a 15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, 500 nits, anti-glare with Dolby Vision HDR 400 display. Some users might prefer to use the 15.6″ UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) OLED, 400 nits, multi-touch, AR/AS with Dolby Vision HDR 500 display for more detailed creator experience. We have used 4K displays on mobile workstations in the 15.6” form factor and even larger which we find can be hard to read and cause eye strain. It is a personal preference. Higher resolution displays can also come with X-Rite Pantone factory color calibration which is only available on UHD displays. Those higher-end displays we would also expect to lower already meager battery life.
Mobile workstations with higher-end components can see battery life challenges. At close to 4 hours in productivity mode, without heavy GPU usage, the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 can be away from an AC power outlet for brief periods of time. Do not expect to ramp up hard-hitting render applications or heavy GPU accelerated workloads unless you are plugged in. The battery is large, as is the power adapter, but the battery life is far from an all-day affair.
Overall, so long as you are OK with the battery life, the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 is a high-performance mobile workstation with ample performance for the professional creator.
Great Review Mr Harmon !!
These little workstations just keep get Better and Better, Truly Impressed !
Eric (owner)
Life Safety Systems
Burbank Ca.
Any information on cpu throttling? For instance, say I want to know if multi-core workloads will be any faster compared to a max spec 6 core Lenovo x1/p1 thin and light workstation.
The extra thickness of the p53 should help cooling and thus maintain higher clocks, but it is hard to find any actual tests of this. Could you add this? Perhaps time to do Linux compile for example on different laptops?