I Did Not Expect This AT ALL - Thinkpad P51

[@Tyler-gb8il]

I actually managed to get one a P51 just before college. At first I just had a cheap wireless mouse but over time I upgraded to a dock with a monitor and mouse/keyboard. Off the dock I would carry it everywhere, in my backpack to class, my friends' places, home during breaks, camping, etc. Its led meetings, done homework, had long video calls, hosted movie/game nights, did all of my homework and personal gaming, completed a CS degree, all without complaint (except a lot of heat lmao). With Dolphin and a gamecube controller adapter and wii remote sensor bar my friends and I have played tons of wii and gc games flawlessly on it. I'm still using it right now, such a great laptop :)

[@breathforvoid]

I buy a ThinkPad for college tho

[@GrantLackey]

I actually bought one because of this video. I already had a t430s and t430, but wanted something with better gaming performance. Got my P51 4k i7-7820hq m2200 16gb with a dock for $215 to the house. It plays everything I've tried to run on it at low settings 1080p 60fps, other than Project Zomboid. Very impressed with this machine.

[@aChairLeg]

Awesome deal! Love these things, I need to try the p70 next haha

[@wznzgq1354]

why is P51 refurbished are so expensive on amazon??

[@hugeslacker]

@@wznzgq1354 I think the sellers are money laundering lol

[@HydrantTV]

I’ve got ThinkPad P51 from my dad after he bought P16 Gen2. This P51 is a great machine. Quite powerful with i7 7820HQ, 32 gigs of RAM as well as Quadro M2200 graphics card. The UHD screen is gorgeous, keyboard is fantastic and IO is… well, nothing to complain about besides the size and weight. But I can understand that when I get 4 RAM slots, 4G connectivity - which is handy - and 3 places to put hard drives in. It is not as sleek nor powerful as my daily driver XPS 9520, but for a cheap workstation machine it is absolutely amazing deal. And actually, I recommended similar ThinkPads to my grandparents. They’ve got P70 and P52, grandfather wanted a big screen, so he got one with P70. Grandmother on the other hand, needs to carry her laptop to and from work, so she got smaller one. Absolutely can’t complain about these laptops too. They are built like a tank and will last a long time - just like P51 that my dad used.

[@x0rZ15t]

P72 user here, my squat stats are growing in geometrical progression, truly a laptop for anyone trying to get into powerlifting!

[@gennadykupava5666]

I am also enjoying P series of Lenovo. Back in 2015 i bought new P50, and was enjoying it for a long time... I know it had big disadvantages - like overheating, but everything else is so good - keyboard, 4k screen. I looked for a while to get replacement but price tag for modern 4k notebooks is simply not cool, so this summer i decided to do strange operation - but perfect 1080p P51 and use my P50 screen with that. Buying new one i wanted to repaste it anyway. It took me around 4 hours to switch the screens (and i did not even assemble back screen on P50 with 1080p screen from P51), but now for 495£ i have 4k xeon-based P51 with 64GiB of ram, Quadro M2200 made in 2019. It is really cool, and I totally understand people who like it.

[@totoplopp6630]

I LOOOOVEEEE these laptop reviews!!!!! I'm a computer science student and have been heavily into tech my whole life, I consume tech reviews on a DAILY. but ur laptop reviews are by FAR the best I've seen. they're so HUMAN and honest and real. All the shit actual people care about.

[@devisals]

Same here bro, just found this channel. Now I'm hooked!

[@apmespinosa]

solid machine. funny story on my P51. this came as a trade for my Legion Y530 (i7 8750H/1050 graphics) straight for the P51 seller was like, why are you trading a much newer and powerful gaming laptop for this old P51? i just told him i like the P51 more and be done with it. i loaded my P51 with 2x1tb nvme ssd in raid0 then another 2tb sata ssd at the 2.5 bay max out at 64gb ram plus added a mobile lte module to complete the package. very happy overall. this laptop is more snappy than my 10th gen X13 and T14 machines. only downside is its heavy but overall i'm happy

[@aChairLeg]

Awesome setup! If I kept my p51 I probably would have done raid 0 as well, was very tempting.

[@mikekelly86]

So crazy thing, got a P51 off ebay as a Linux machine so I don't have to dual boot my main. The crazy part was I was buying a P50, the screen said P50 but the parts were screaming 51. Less than 200 dollars later, I've got a great condition P51 with 7820HQ M1200 and a touchscreen that says P50 on the bezel...machine is working great so far. O and great review!

[@81Alfetta]

These reviews are fantastic: actually informative and not just the specs regurgitated, plus highly entertaining to boot. The subject matter doesn't hurt either.

[@OutlawJJ80]

1st step in Addiction is admitting you have one. Good Job. LoL

[@aChairLeg]

Lol I haven't bought a thinkpad in over a month! Although those thinkstations look interesting...

[@tvthecat]

@@aChairLeg bro hasn't relapsed in a month lmao.

[@miketyson1717]

Congrats on ur 30 day chip

[@mfrankel8321]

This is turning out to be one of the best channels on KZbin!! I love your commentary which mixes humor, deep technical insight and honesty.😀❤

[@aChairLeg]

Thank you!

[@Hard_7_Iron]

Yep! A really great ThinkPad. I loaded mine up with 64GB memory. I bought it in 2018, and I cant retire it…it’s awesome. Last year, I added Linux as well. It pretty much does ANYTHING I ask it to do.

[@danielchaffin2420]

Humor AND knowledge? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE? *Subscribed*

[@mohammadjuma4757]

I rarely to comment on videos but this one is exceptional! First of all I liked the flow of narretive, as most other review are almost identical, your revew is more reflecting a true first hand experince not just going through the specs and benchmarks. I wonder why there are so much viewers for this video and subscribers to the channel! Please keep what you are doing, it's unique! :)

[@aChairLeg]

Thank you! I always wonder if I should pace my reviews the more traditional way. I just think it is not the best for showing the strengths and weaknesses of each product. It's also boring to write lol. I appreciate the feedback!

[@aChairLeg]

Haha thank you. I read a script for every video, It just works the best for my style and workflow

[@djessejamesb]

I would love to see a test of the P51 using an external GPU into its thunderbolt, to see what the max frame rates for gaming are.

[@TechDave]

I do this! P51 with amd rx 6600 8gb in a lenovo legion booststation.i got a couple of videos on my channel and a gaming performance review coming soon!

[@borat1]

these things are great, I have owned it for over a year and only really switched to a gaming laptop because I wanted to play games. If you're just doing work, this is a no brainer. buy it.

[@AI-Idiot]

its now at 300 dollars, and I think this is gonna be my next laptop, upgrading from a 13 year old Lenovo thinkpad base with a second gen dual core quad thread i5 and 8gb of ram. it served quite no, really well during its whole lifetime, 2 HDDs, 1 SSD, 3 different ram kits, and 6 CPU repastes.

[@VirtueInEternity]

super real yt potential. while seeing the video I thought this was from some 100k+ tech channel. great job!

[@GamingHelp]

What I love about the thinkpads is just how much more flexible some variants are compared to other typical laptops and how powerful of a machine you can whip up with some models. I recently built a project T440P and pretty much hammered everything I could into it. It has three SSD's (One for OS, two for a raid for swap) and the fastest 4 core chip Lenovo ever put into that machine. I compared the performance to my older daily driver (A T440S) and holy cow. The old machine took roughly 33 minutes to render out my video editor test file. The new machine? 3 minutes flat. And right now, I probably have less than 500 bucks into the machine. Heh. I suspect the quality of these machines is why every time my local vendor gets a pallet of a couple hundred refurbed units, they're gone in a few weeks to a month.

[@Gurpreetsinghpreet1]

T440p with i5 4th gen processor just takes 3 minutes in rendering? Unbelievable

[@GamingHelp]

@@Gurpreetsinghpreet1: It's still my daily driver. It runs hot though. That i7-4910mq is about as hot a chip as it'll take. Even then I had to add surface area for cooling, do airflow changes, undervolt it, etc. But for an older machine, ZOWIE! SMOKING fast.

[@StefanBacon]

Alright, you got me. I finally pulled the trigger on one. I make bad choices, but I'm most sold on the trackpad you dislike. 3 buttons is the required number for CAD.

[@aChairLeg]

Hey even though I don't like it, I'm glad other people find it useful

[@manuel-xax]

Seems like a very good model. 4 years ago I bought a x230 (250€) and turn it into an hackintosh. Build quality was good, giving the age and wear this little boy had endured ! Love the inside (msata + sata ports), the backlit keyboard & webcam led, amount of ports including always on USB 3. I hate the trackpad, as much as I hate most (all ?) pc trackpads. For the last 2 and a half years this 230 is running my quickly and dirty set up Piwigo photo server (and a bit more!) based on Linux YUNOhost. Love your video, and the way your voice is put over, good work and entertaining.

[@rainernilsen1967]

Awesome series from Lenovo - so about that Express Card/PCMCIA port: I've used it for decades now with the Creative Audigy 2 ZX and later the brilliant X-Fi Extreme Notebook cards. These audio cards were aimed towards professional use like playing soft-synths and VST nstruments live, recording studio quality audio as well as the laptop addicted audio connoseur, and: ... These two are hands down still(!!) the best audio one can get from a laptop without dragging along external audio cards, power adaptors, usb stuff and what not.. Both have combo minijack/optical I/O (and also breakout boxes for THX certified 7.1 audio that are totally useless and counter to the main reason these cards still makes sense on any laptop). Their advantage is still that no internal laptop audio comes close to these, 10 years ago and for certain today, as audio components are ruthlessly cheaped out on even on the pricy laptops and compensated with software... and NO, Apple, stop it - your internal audio also suck bills, you might fool most ppl by adding DSP-tweaks and whatever software makeup needed to pass the loudness and frequency aim a tick above the majority even, but it's still a cheap fake compared to anything with quality audio hardware These cards were made as good as Creative could manage with the best available hardware (within reason) that would fit inside (X-Fi's plastic holster does not impress in any way though, but that's irrelevant as both cards operate up to a frankly unbelievable 24BIT/196KhZ top tier studio rendering and will play true to most reference studio headphones as well as playing all the fancy Hi-Res audio your cans or speakers are able to forward. The 6.1 Dolby and 7.1 THX certified hardware decoding might actually be regarded useful by now, e.g. when watching huge MKVs with original surround encoding, no need to decode in the player, send the raw audio to the card and let it do the job with bespoke hardware, and improve audio quality as well . It's even worth getting an adaptor from Express to regular just to get to use the old Audiogy 2 ZS, in my opinion (and on paper) the best card of the two, but the Extreme is a bit faster and playback optimized. Both do use ASIO drivers with sub 8ms input-output delay, using the CPU to boost performance where needed. The Extreme express card version lacks that insane X-Fi processor but compensates by using some more CPU-cycles. An issue 10-12 years ago for sure, not so much by today. The card sounds even better when feasting on the CPU for all it's needs, although not even noticeable on a readout now. Sorry for this oversized rant, but there you go: laptop audio really sucks and these cards brings uncut studio grade audio quality to anything rocking these old cardslots almost for free. And finally, yes I do suspect that several portable computers have high quality audio natively but these are solely oversized gaming outfits by e.g. ASUS. Those usually need 2 power bricks and a number of bags to move around and as such, aren't laptops.

[@Astro75mm]

you can use the express card port to install an adapter which will let install a 2242 NVME SSD , like the 500GB, 1 TB and 2 TB models of 2242NVME SSDs from Sabrent.

[@akbarumar1382]

Thinkpads are super durable, we have thinkpads in our office, and everyone is using thinkpad. Even we have the thinkpad T520 and still works fine

[@ndhikaatube]

I love my p50, i got it maxxed out 3tB 64gB and LTE, also put in a $1 protector for touchpad since it's pretty grippy that my wet fingers can't slide on it.

[@Sphyxx]

I had a T430S a decade or so ago I got it from my dad when he upgraded and used it for everything thing was a beast.

[@archygrey9093]

I got the X270 and P71, a great combination, one is portable and has great battery life and the other is bigger and more powerful for all the heavy lifting, it's 17inch screen is also big enough to serve as a second monitor to the 24 inch monitor on my desk. My P71 doesn't overheat either, i assume due the the gpu and cpu having their own dedicated fans.

[@danielhoppes3934]

This laptop has done me good with my daily field job for engineering. I have 96gb of ram and it runs smooth

[@jocazjoejo]

I remember at the office I worked the T430 series and another one used to heat up excessively because the thermal paste issues. Other than that Lenovo makes really solid machines for the office.

[@thetablue8507]

After hearing the way you were speaking about your T470s n the previous video, I had a feeling you'd pick up a ThinkPad habit... it's inevitable! Great videos, prod quality, writing. Your channel deserves more attention!

[@aChairLeg]

Thank you! And I'm satisfied on laptops now, looking at those thinkstations now though lol.

[@thetablue8507]

@@aChairLeg I've been obsessed with finding aThinkstation to run my NAS from. I love the look of them. Make a video if you end up finding one.

[@undersc0r]

Yoooo I bought the ThinkPad p50 at 10:25 that costs 161 dollars, but I got it for 127 back in September (It said parts only, but works fine lol). I'm watching this video on it right now. absolute steal, especially with the better m2000m inside.

[@of_the_stone]

I swap a USB expansion or second wifi in the express card slot. You can also use it for an external GPU....

[@KiraSlith]

I imagine with a BIOS mod to fix the fan curve, this'd be a really cool portable server laptop for classic LAN style gaming, especially with so much STORAGE on board!

[@MrKillswitch88]

I honestly prefer the five and six button trackpads over the clunk stuff anyday of the week and yes I am a blue collar guy who has gotten by just fine with much smaller trackpads. All in all what I don't like about almost all Thinkpads is the cooling often isn't up to par as well lacking an mxm slot never mind one that didn't have a whitelist. My daily machine is an M6800 with the usual upgrades along with an slice pack as well an wx 7100 installed to keep with the times gaming wise.

[@agoodun]

Dang .... Very nice. I just got a Dell e6320 and it was running very hot. So I replaced the thermal paste and cleaned out fan. Omg I literally had to take it ALL the way apart down to the motherboard, screen, hinges, keyboard, bezels. I didn't realize this until I already started the process and we'll just had to finish. Lol.

[@shatteredonthesidewalk]

I know people have said this but I'd really love to see an affordable t series with a capped out processor and ram and all that trash running an egpu. Super sick content. I actually felt the subscribe was totally worth it.

[@sajanator3]

I think that the t480 (not s) is the perfect laptop under £500, (the i7 model) but can be had for about £380, (the i5 model), and you can get lucky if you start bidding. It's got a hot swappable battery, so battery life is no issue. Unlike the t470s, it has a quad core CPU which holds up much much better. It's essentially the t470s, but without a lot of the problems it had, such as the awful battery life as well as soldered ram (one stick) and a Quad-Core processor, that is much more usable.

[@reoencarcelado5904]

The T480 came with its own share of problems, including a power-port that was soldered onto the motherboard (and therefore it can't be replaced for a functioning one if it stops working). If it ever got damaged or broken or otherwise did-not work anymore, the laptop becomes essentially a fancy paperweight. kzbin.info/www/bejne/d2KYd5mbf9ZpprM

[@jaredgarbo3679]

@@reoencarcelado5904 Depends on your soldering skills.

[@reoencarcelado5904]

@@jaredgarbo3679 currently?, nonexistent. (I’ve never tried - let-alone attempted - Soldering before).

[@theydid2759]

I currently have a X230T and now I'm really looking into the P51. I just need a bigger screen and something a bit more powerful. Nice and helpful review!

[@TrimeshSZ]

I had a P51 that ran really hot - I eventually fixed it by replacing the heatsink fan assembly with a new one. The replacement HSF looked identical, but did a much better job of cooling the machine. I also noticed that with the original one the air exhausted on the right side was a lot hotter than on the left while on the replacement both sides were very similar, which makes me suspect there was a problem with the heatpipe.

[@chandlerm4]

I think the weirdest thing about this laptop, and I don't think you covered it, is that some models came with a color calibration sensor built into the palmrest. I've heard it's not accurate enough for the work that a color-calibrated monitor would do, but it's something I haven't seen in any other laptop.

[@aChairLeg]

I actually was planning on specifically getting a model with that color calibration sensor. After looking into it a little, I wasn't able to get a solid answer on how good it is, or if it really does much of anything, and I don't have the proper equipment or budget to test it properly. It is for sure something I really want to visit in the future when I can properly take a look at it.

[@rijaja]

This is the perfect laptop for me Except for the 1920x1080p display. Only 1920x1200p has a place in my heart. The worst part is that, as usual, there's plenty of room above and under the display but manufacturers can't be bothered to go 16:10.

[@troubledpickle5986]

Hey bro, I just stumbled upon your channel and you are just downright awesome. I love the high quality of production you put into your laptop videos. I know you just made one, but I'd love to see another laptop video.

[@aChairLeg]

Thank you! I do have one coming in the next 2 months and possibly one more newr the end of the year, but that's all that's planned for now. Next year I'd like to tackle a macbook or too and see how that goes. If there's anything else you'd like to see, always let me know!

[@chrisbullock6477]

Its hard to beat at ThinkPad. One thing with this laptop 1080p - High Bit rate performs amazing in trans coding.

[@hit0midesuuue]

Loving your videos about thinkpads already!

[@henryschafer3942]

Just won a near max spec on on an Ebay auction for $150. Exciting!

[@ethanrivers4057]

Wait till you try the p52. It's my daily driver for work and I’m pretty sure that if I leave the company I’m gonna get my own.

[@Nuggery]

I have the P52; great workstation. Paired with an external gpu; it’s a nice little gaming machine.🎉

[@ethanrivers4057]

@@Nuggery my work one has a quadro and since I have kids I only do some light gaming on it (since it has so many SSD slots I slotted in my own) and it’s been amazing so far.

You are a natural on this, good stuff

[@Mar8308]

That's why I love Lenovo you can upgrade almost everything. I had Lenovo T580 I upgraded the memory RAM to 64GB DDR4, storages SSD 8TB each other is PCIe 1TB that's a lot space, minimum you can do 5TB still is enough, with Windows 11 Pro, Intel i7 and fingerprint ready i gave to my wife. Then I got Asus Rog X13 a powerful gaming laptop RYZEN 9 and 32GB RAM DDR5, 1TB storage and NVIDIA 3050Ti, and eGPU Radeon RX 6850M but still love Lenovo I'm planning to get another Lenovo laptop

[@kemi242]

Thanks for the review. I'm considering buying a used ThinkPad as a portable gaming machine, because today's consumer laptops are quite poorly built, while ThinkPads are legendary for their build quality. I was a bit in doubt having a Quadro rather than a GeForce GPU, but if it still can play games, I'll buy one.

[@iansimpson7966]

I just scored a 7700hq 64gb and q1200 off eBay for 240usd shipped, so excited about this upgrade from my current T440p 🎉🎉🎉

[@horaceinfiji]

awesome upload Guy......I had no idea these Thinkpads were so action packed.........i reckon they should have put a "Mustang" after that "P51" if you know what I mean!! Gonna have a look around to see if I can get my hands on one these.

[@hugeslacker]

I just bought a t495 ryzen 7 with 16gb ram for 200 bucks on ebay to be my new work laptop. Thinkpads are the best deal in used laptops.

[@hugeslacker]

and 8 months later, I'm waiting on a p15s in the mail and considering buying a xeon p51 lol... I have an addiction to slightly used laptops.

[@BJSteigner]

The Thinkpad P series is the best for school. I have the P15 Gen 2 and this works for me.

[@thepuzzlemaster64]

Man, I should check-out some of these newer Thinkpads. Linux nerds keep saying the last good thinkpad was the T420 or T430, but no one ever talks about the T580 or this one the P51. Both of them feel right up my alley in terms of power, features, and repairability. Really the only downside is the lack of disc-drives and think-light (it just feels better than backlit keyboard)

[@milescarter7803]

A lot of the Quadro cards, especially the higher end ones, use more slower clocked cores and have more VRAM, so their performance per watt is better, thermals too. And they don't get as memory bound.

[@OmDesk]

thinkpad lover here, very good video about p51. I was looking for a thinkpad for highend windows xp build to play 2000s games with. The only critique I had aboutthis videos is that you showed half of the screen and more of the keyboard.

[@conanbdetective]

I use a x200T and I've used that expresscard port for a few things. More USB ports, egpu, legacy ports in enterprise settings. Since my laptop is old it's much more useful but the P51 tries to hit as many use cases as it can; as niche as those can be.

[@aChairLeg]

Egpu with express card slot? I'd love to know more about that

[@conanbdetective]

@@aChairLeg it's nothing special anymore with the proliferation of Thunderbolt egpu enclosures, open air setups and smaller cards. But, at the time, space and ports were a premium and the cards were quite bulky so it kinda worked like a test bench. It's by no means the best solution as you still need an external monitor to use the card. But it also worked as a serviceable alternative to going through opening the laptop and "sacrificing" the network card with an adapter. Since the x200T laptop has an Core 2 Duo CPU, there's that bottleneck on top of the expresscard transfer speeds. Even first and second gen i series CPUs definitely got more mileage out of that type of process. I don't advice for the use of these nowadays as far as buying one as a daily driver. But if you were "dumpster diving" for it, it's free why not. But with prices for all these RTX gaming laptops with Thunderbolt 3 plummetting, it's just a matter of time before these old laptops (pre 09 like the x200t) become obsolete for a power user.

[@archygrey9093]

@@aChairLeg On an old laptop the expresscard port can be useful, but on a semi modern laptop its pretty useless as thunderbolt does everything better

[@Mito505s]

​@@aChairLeg you can connect one GPU (eGPU) to your laptop in two ways: 1-where is connected the Wi-Fi card, you can use an USB for the Wi-Fi. (you have to disable the PCI-E LAN to boot in the bios, I don't know exactly for those that don't have that option showed in the BIOS). 2-In the ExpressCard slot. Of course, for run the GPU you'll need one adapter to connect it, the power supply and one HDMI cord (with head ExpressCard or for WiFi card connection "mini PCI-E or NFCC" I guess). The problem with the first #1 is that the Lenovo white list blocks some GPUs, so if it doesn't work, you can use the ExpressCard port. I used these 2 methods, I have one T530 Type 2429 with the RX6700 XT connected with an ExpressCard.

[@gunner75171]

Daily drive the Thinkpad 701c for 1 month.

[@airborneranger-ret]

"I might have a problem buying laptops" - You and me both :)

[@areldcookie5581]

*Who needs dumbbell if you have p51*

[@LaurentiusTriarius]

You can't beat a P line for that ThinkPad feel, just too bad most people don't get to experience it. It's a select club lol

[@beatspopo]

thinkpad is like a cult a good kind of a cult and im still rocking my t450 🤣 for documents, presentation, engineering softwares and many other heavy working/learning and assignment tasks

[@dzenanperla3955]

There is workaround for fan speed on p series. Not an expert but there is program or bios update that push fan speed enough to cooldown chips, apparently standard p series issue

[@rizali8369]

old laptops may underperformed or easily throttles while on intense usage but you can do something that is critical for portable machines, undervolting. I have an old laptop too (MSI GS63 from 2016 with intel 6th gen) but i undervolted that thing and surprisingly almost match your cinebench scores

[@marauder7751]

Bought this Laptop a month ago from second hand. first purpose for gaming, I could finish Witcher 3 setting high, and now Playing Fallout 4 setting medium. a bit struttering or fps loss sometimes in Fallout 4. I need a vacuum fan cooler for effectiveness of cooling. and I tried for my office work like ms team, working on bloated report usually always heavy on gaming laptop. but in this P51, it ran smoothly. mine is 8 GB Ram, i7, Nvidia Quadro M1200M. minus is, it's a bit bigger than X230, I doubt to bring it to my office because I use bicycle for work. so I still keep my x230 for mobile purpose. but this P51 never disapointed me until now

[@shApYT]

Your first ThinkPad video is what gave me the nudge to look into ThinkPads, and now I have a t480s(8250u 16gb ram, 1080p), and it is the best laptop (not powerwise) I have bought for only what would about 400usd if I converted. Has all the features that even modern laptops don't. SD card slot, Ethernet, headphone jack, windows hello facial recognition, fingerprint scanner, a touchscreen, and a keyboard that feels good to type on. In a form factor that apple would say is impossible to fit that much IO into. The battery is at 80 percent of its original capacity (you can check through the vantage commercial app) but it could be replaced if I ever find it lacking. The two m.2 and sodimm slots are also nice to have for upgradability (the wwan slot is 42 mm, so you need a not commonly found SSD, but cant complain about having more expansion). My only major gripes are that the screen is not bright enough for my satisfaction though very usable, and it does get a bit warm even under light use. I would have like the version with the mx150, even if it is a very anaemic GPU. The express card slot is just PCIe, so it can be anything, external GPU, extra storage, etc.

[@aChairLeg]

I've heard a ton of good things about the t480! For sure on my list of laptops to check out.The screens are one of the weak points in a lot of Thinkpads, but they're still pretty usable for my needs

[@shApYT]

@@aChairLeg The reason I looked for the 80 and 80s is for the 8th gen CPUs which are 4 cores with hyperthreading unlike the 7th gen with have half the cores. I think this was intel's response to zen. Aside from that I think they are basically the same.

[@blind_judiciary]

Bro 400$ is too much, 300$ max for this machine

[@shApYT]

@@blind_judiciary Brother, you are 2 years late. I think it is like 250 now.

[@aquarianselfreliance2223]

excited to have one still on the way from ebay!!!! "can break a damn brick"... Hahaha funny! love that :)

[@bigdogdaddymedia]

You lucked into a great upgrade with the P51 vs the P50. I have 2 P50s that I use for work producing KZbin videos. Don't get me wrong the P50 is amazingly powerful and capable. Especially when you have it maxed out. Mine are running SSDs and 64gb of ram so they have served me quite well in video editing. I shoot my GoPro footage in 2.7k, and occasionally in 4k. Render in 1080p mostly with the occasional video in 4k. They can render in 4k quite easily but I do 1080 to minimize the render times since my instructional videos are usually 30 to 45 minutes in length. I've been using my GoPro 7, 8, and 9 for my work. I recently upgraded to GoPro Hero 11s and this is where the brute that is the mighty P50 started to show its limitations. GoPro 11 uses HEVC codec exclusively. My two P50s, one Xeon based, the other i7 based cannot handle the new H.265/HEVC codec well at all. So now my work flow includes converting my GoPro 11 footage to H.264 before editing can begin. That is a long process, just like rendering before rendering. Just trying to view the footage using any media player results in choppy, stuttering video until its been converted to H264. I researched a solution. Thought I'd found a solution which was I found some forum posts that said the P50s can actually run 128gb of ram rather than the official 64gb limit. So I was about to pull the trigger and spend a few hundred dollars to upgrade one laptop to 128gb to test but I stumbled on a thread on some forum talking about HEVC and P50s. Apparently the P50s processor, 6th generation Intel, cannot handle HEVC no matter how much RAM you throw at it. The processors, code name Skylake are just not capable of rendering HEVC at all hence the stuttering video. To handle HEVC you need Kabylake processor or better which is 7th gen i7. Skylake is 6th generation. So I just purchased a P51, equal specs to yours. 500gb SSD, 32gb RAM. UPS just dropped it off today and I have a 2TB SSD, as well as 32gb of additional RAM being delivered tomorrow. Super excited to see what this baby can do. I use Lightworks Pro for editing for which my perpetual licenses are tied to my hardware. So I need to wait on LWKS support to transfer one of my licenses before I can do some editing but I'm sure I'll be up and running soon. I suppose I could use proxies and get by but I'm too lazy and overworked to learn how to use them. Besides it gives me an excuse to buy more stuff. Oh as for the fingerprint reader, that is absolutely indispensable! If I'm at the office its easy enough to type in my password but I do a lot of my editing away from work sitting on the couch. Its not so easy to type in xxxxxxx-xxx every time while I'm on the couch to keep the kids, girlfriend, or wife out of my stuff. Wouldn't have a laptop without one. Max out your RAM brother, you'll be amazed. Might even try going to the 128gb I hear is possible if things go well. Not ashamed I'm such a nerd! 😁

[@aChairLeg]

To be honest, for editing video I've never really had much issues with just running 16gb of ram. I recently upgraded my main PC to 32gb, but I rarely go above 20gb with premiere. Rendering proxies is your friend. I resisted for a while and regret it. I normally I dump all my footage into premiere before I go do something else while they render out. After a few hours, they're all rendered out and you're ready to never worry about performance drops again

[@bigdogdaddymedia]

@@aChairLeg Yes, I suppose running 16gb may not make much of a difference if I'm using proxies but as I said, learning that method would change the pretty nice work flow I have going. Now if my Kabylake Thinkpad doesn't solve my issues I'll be deep diving into proxies. Thanks for the reply brother.

[@hackinghifi4247]

Really enjoy your videos. I really hope your channel continues to grow!

[@aChairLeg]

Thank you, I appreciate it!

[@Sedic_Namsu]

Wow, that is some serious port selection right there. If the battery life was good i definitely would have bought this laptop.

[@Secna]

Came for the P51, stayed for the humor.

[@emteiks]

You can use express card slot for external GPU for example.

[@bassplayer2011ify]

Welcome to the cult of Thinkpad. Sadly the current ones aren't even made to this quality anymore. That aside I also have a P51 my is equipped with a xeon 1505m, Nvidia M2200 graphics, and 32gb of ram. Its my daily driver and primary gaming machine. And despite the fact that devs have completely forgotten how to optimize game. I can run current titles without issue.

[@reoencarcelado5904]

1:45 to 2:35 Touchpads used to be created with dedicated separate physical left-&-right mouse-buttons, for left-clicking and right-clicking. Second: To drag-&-drop you need to press-&-hold the mouse-button while at-the-same-time dragging the mouse-cursor over to the new-location where you want the file to be. It’s much tougher to do that on a touchpad that has no physical dedicated separate-buttons. - All these “clickpad” touchpads are-just imitating Apple. P.S. Did you know that you can “tap” on a touchpad (even one that has physical dedicated separate left-&-right mouse-buttons) to do a LEFT-click ? (And likewise, you can “double-tap” on the touchpad to do a “double-click”). Thirdly and lastly, at-least now you have this knowledge for future reference. And here’s a video in which the inventor of the touchpad was interviewed, if you want to know more about the touchpad: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iaDRnH6qrb-rbtk In regards to the pointing-stick (the “red button”), the physical-buttons below the keyboard are the physical dedicated SEPARATE left-&-right mouse-buttons for the pointing-stick. Here’s a small video by IBM (now Lenovo, who bought IBM’s Computer-division) explaining how-to-properly-use a pointing-stick: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXmboJJjbMd-f7c And here’s a short-video explaining how it was invented: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGW2pGl8ZtZ8frc

[@swankmode]

I have this laptop and I've loved it for over 5 years. At $400 this is a banger of a workstation. It will overheat if you play games, however. It's a hot boi. This is my development machine that runs VMs. I would not recommend this laptop for someone who wants to play games unless you enjoy thermal throttling.

[@JessicaFEREM]

the Macbook air M1 is frankly amazing. I could play windwaker for like 9 hours straight at native res with everything maxxed out, and it would only be slightly warm to the touch, no fans. also realize that the native res of the Macbook is 2560x1600. that's some seriously impressive battery life for a laptop that slips into my bag. I put on a rugged case because I noticed that I was scratching it up with normal use.

[@techno-sorcery9852]

Awesome laptop... got one in pretty good shape (i7 7820HQ, Quadro M1200) from an ewaste scrapper at a swap meet for $50... actual insanity. Replacing my T530 which has been great, but I'm in need of more power for FPGA development.

[@ryanmccutcheon0904]

expresscard egpu with a gtx1060 6gb runs vr well and i used it on a thinkpad t430 i7 hd4000

[@vimh7171]

higher quality reviews than most huge channels, how is this channel so obscure

[@aChairLeg]

Thank you! It's probably my horrible upload schedule haha

[@vimh7171]

@@aChairLeg that'd explain it lol, or maybe people found you through thinkpad stuff and didn't sub because they don't care for cameras

[@magcs6233]

you calling a Kabylake i7 ancient makes me feel old as hell, and im only 19 haha. I remember when the 6700 and the 1080ti was the dream setup

[@aChairLeg]

Haha my dream was the OG titan and then Titan Black. I think mobile processors age worse though, my PCs are always a few generations old, but I don't like using a laptop more than about 2 years old as my daily.

[@dstinnettmusic]

You ever looked at the T430? If you kit it out fully, it is a nice little machine. I have one with an i7-3840QM, 16GB of ram, two SSDs and a 1080p display. I turned it into a hackintosh and I have it updated to Ventura and it is beautiful. It feels like the wet dream of a nerd in 2012. Idk about video editing, but it is a perfect laptop for what I use it for, which is school notes and showing off to Linux nerds. (Oh cute, you installed Arch. Hold my plist) Also, lol @ that express card slot. I only hear about those being used to force an external GPU on T430’s and T420’s. It is kind of cute they kept them for so long.

[@ryanjay6241]

Same here! Though in hindsight the 3632QM might be a better option. Not being designed for a 45 watt CPU the 3840 gets toasty :) Absolutely use Windows however. The reason the T430 has such a strong modding community is because it's the last ThinkPad to fit the classic 7 row keyboard (from the T420) which is why I got it as well. It only takes a bit of dremeling to get one of the best laptop keyboards ever made inside it. Also, if you get a hacked BIOS, you can also upgrade the WiFi/BT to a modern card and get AC. This is why some prefer to just start with the T420 as the BIOS is not locked to certain expansions, but the 3xxx series and upgraded dGPU on the T430 make it a better system. With the discrete GPU version you can easily play most games up to ~2012 on it with good results. Fully modded it's actually competitive (excluding GPU and disk access with no M2) with high end laptops up to 2018. The 7700HQ in the P51 is not significantly faster than the 3840QM (the GPU in the P51 however, will be). Sadly, in the last few years there have been massive improvements in both single core speeds as well as 8 and 12 core laptops becoming common from die shrinks, and I've had to move on as the T430 can no longer compete and I was using it for work. However, it was fun modding out my T430 and playing with the unlocked BIOS until it beat a $2800 2017 MacBook Pro on both CPU and RAM benchmarks - even with the 3840QM the Apples crap engineering got far hotter far quicker and throttled much quicker :) (both of these machines hit 100C under load, as the T430 was only designed for 35 watt TDP yet we put a 45 watt CPU inside)

[@blackskyel]

I'd love to see a follow up with an eGPU through the ExpressCard port vs ThunderBolt

[@mekoleko3942]

love my thinkpads, never been disappointed with one but my use for laptops is very little, so i just went to thinkstations lol

[@JessicaFEREM]

I had an HP elitebook 840 G1 and that thing survived a kick off a table. that's another rugged laptop. I have it to my friend back in 2020 and he just now stopped using it. a laptop from 2013 lasting 10 years.

[@justinb1389]

Great Video. Minecraft and GTA5 test are good decisions :)

[@AG-pm3tc]

The express card port can be used for a cheap egpu

[@wrybread]

Good review. What does it mean to use proxies when video editing? Is that converting clips before using them? If so, what do you convert them to?

[@Ash-bx6kq]

I saw your other Thinkpad review before this one, they are both great and inspired me to buy a cheap Thinkpad. I got a t470s for $108 with a 7th gen i5. I'm gonna try it out and use it to try Linux. I would love to see a x1 carbon (7th/8th gen Intel)/x390/t470s comparison! They are all in the 150-250 range on eBay, and I'm not sure which is best. Looks like the x1 and x390 both don't have upgradable ram, and they all have different screens, but that's the only differences I could find. Also "I'm not sure if people still play Minecraft anymore" lol, you could say its popular

[@aChairLeg]

That's awesome, love to see other people jumping into thinkpads. I've been looking at the X1 carbons, but currently am working on a couple budget desktops and some apple stuff. It's in the list though, may just be a while

[@Ash-bx6kq]

@@aChairLeg thanks! I've got a heavy and powerful gaming laptop rn, think it will be nice to try something smaller. I might just end up getting a could of them and seeing which I prefer with how cheap they are, lol

[@andrievbastichy8551]

if i had one.. id use the express port.. to add a external video card.. using a GDC dock!

[@wiskdee]

normie , i’m using an IBM Thinkpad from 1989 vintage used by stocktraders on wall street. get gud all jokes aside great review. These machines are insanely good for data science or so i’m told due to the build quality and specs , surprised how well they can game

[@milescarter7803]

For Expresscard put a ThinkMods NVMe 2242 m.2 adapter in there 🙃

[@GraniteFaun]

Refurbed business Laptops are the Goat (and you can say you support green IT) Some p51 even come with 32gb of RAM and quadro M2200 for 400 bucks. Also you can look out for their successors like the P52/P53 which arent much more expensive. And youre right collecting gems found among old corporate hardware and breathing new life onto them is kinda addicting and feels rebellious xD

[@John-ys4ji]

I think the fan curve is due to it being a business laptop but I agree, my T490 throttles but stays silent

[@aChairLeg]

Funnily enough, both my T14 and T495 don't throttle, and will happily blast the fans...that is once it's just about to throttle and burning my leg already haha

[@bitman32x]

This is the kind of reviews which I like if premier can run then virtual machines will run also smoothly here, and base on the available upgrades, this is going to be my next laptop to buy and upgrade. Like others mention, you speak or narrate stuff like in a manga channel, its a bit on the serious side enjoyable, but if you could add a little humor it would be nice. I really with the battery of this beast could run a little bit longer. Can you recommend or make a Lenovo laptop review that has the longest battery life, with decent upgrades on it? Thanks in advance. Still awesome video review.

[@aChairLeg]

To be honest, my t14's battery lasts a long time, but there isn't much upgradability. I know the t430 is extremely upgradable and you can even get a bigger battery, but it's not as powerful as a decent p50. I would suggest just getting a good laptop battery bank for a p series if you need lots of power and good battery life, or a newer high end ryzen thinkpad if you can deal with the downsides of newer thinkpads. Unless you're willing to go apple m1, that will give best battery life and least upgradability.

[@bitman32x]

@@aChairLeg Thank you so much, I would definitely scout for the P series especially this one, I'm glad that I asked and explaining the pros and cons, just in time for the holiday season and was looking for the best performance and battery life. Keep up the good work Bro.

[@felixfromgeoview5181]

Great review! thanks! Me and my business have p51 for 4 years now, this is the best laptop we had! I noticed that Lenovo not selling them anymore, do you know what is the model that replace the p51?

[@aChairLeg]

The P52 replaced the P51. I believe Lenovo is on the P15 gen 3 now for their high-end no compromise workstation laptop

[@hamstereater821]

Nice video man :) I’ve been looking into Thinkpads recently for a good workstation. This video definitely solidified the P51 as a good choice for me!

[@BackyardBuilds-ly5wv]

I just picked up a p53 recently....I paid $499 for it initially from Ebay, then splashed another $250 on another 80gb of ram......so I'm only $750 into it so far and the closest one to my specs that you can currently buy is around $1500 and only has 32gb ram....... I have 96gb,lol..... I was going to pump it all the way out to the 128gb max just because I can...... but after a second thought I decided against it....... I've only got the core i7 processor so the 96gb I have now is probably already overkill...... I believe there were two faster processor options above the i7....i9 and Xeon I believe.....they were way out of my price range though so i didn't care to research them too much.. Peace

[@mikek.9980]

Hi, Great video! I would like to ask if you can do one video about your emulators and sources of roms.

[@aChairLeg]

Most likely not since I generally don't focus on software and most emulators are pretty straight forward nowadays anyways. I also don't plan on opening myself up to the liability of discussing roms, but for GCN/Wii it's really not too difficult to rip your own disks.

[@mikek.9980]

@@aChairLeg I understand. What websites would you suggest for both?

[@snowthearcticfox1]

I can confirm I have legit dented the floor with my p50 XD these things are fucking bulletproof

[@snowthearcticfox1]

Yes I know this sentence doesn't make any sense.

[@mcscotty325]

Great video, but the Black Screen of Death made my heart stop a couple of times.

[@aChairLeg]

Haha sorry about that, I've since stopped using it