Lenovo Thinkpad P40 Yoga Review

I’ve wanted one of these since I laid hands on a demo at CES in Las Vegas. It seemed so likely to fit into my workflow. I could feel the love poured into it, just holding it in my hands. When my own P40 arrived, it seemed even better than I remembered it.

I purchased a P40 with:

• Intel Core i7-6600U Processor (4MB Cache, up to 3.40GHz)

• Windows 10 Pro 64

• 14.1” WQHD IPS Glossy Touch, 720p HD camera

• ThinkPad Pen Pro

• 16GB PC3-12800 DDR3L 1600MHz SODIMM

• NVIDIA Quadro M500M 2GB

• Keyboard Backlit

• UltraNav (TrackPoint and ClickPad) with Fingerprint Reader

• 512 GB Solid State Drive, SATA3

• Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC (2x2) 8260, Bluetooth Version 4.1 vPro

It’s hard to describe how solid this device feels in your hands. The most ready comparison is having a Glock handgun resting against your palm. The materials have a similar feel to the touch, while being super light and extremely durable. When Lenovo says this device is MIL-SPEC tested, it isn’t just marketing. There’s no flex anywhere it shouldn’t be.

My expectations for Ultrabooks have been changed forever by this device. I had resigned myself to own 2-3 different machines to handle all my personal and professional computing needs. I’ll be putting three laptops on eBay after I’ve got my P40 all burned in and set up the way I want. Not having to make compromises on power, portability, and a certain standard of quality is very liberating.

It’s been eight years since I felt like I could work and play entirely from a single portable machine.



Set Up

There’s no bloatware, unless you count McAfee. I had to update the drivers for the M500M GPU, Synaptics fingerprint reader, BIOS, and download the usual things via Windows Update. Otherwise, all the input drivers are already in place, and the machine is ready to go.

You don’t have to sync your AES stylus to the machine. There’s a notification that pops up once when you first use it, telling you about how to charge it, and then it is good to go thereafter. This was probably the most painless set up I’ve done with a new computer.

P40 Support Page

Input

If you need a compact device that has as many input options as possible, the P40 is an excellent choice.

The P40 has the best keyboard I’ve used on an Ultrabook. It’s better than what’s in my S1 Yoga, and probably owes the expansive key travel to being just slightly thicker in the chassis. It’s just as good and accurate as typing on my Lenovo W530. It has adaptive and manual backlighting, depending on what you prefer and a good sized delete key.

The P40 is equipped with a touch screen and stylus input that uses Wacom active electrostatic technology. AES has some advantages over ERM. It eliminates that annoying parallax effect and allows for better accuracy at the edges of the screen. Pen hover distance and general accuracy toward the center of the display is about the same. If you’re used to ERM, you’ll adapt quickly to AES.

Pen latency is very good, but you’ll want to go into the NVidia settings and make sure your drawing programs are making use of the dedicated GPU. For most things, it sets and detects properly every time. I only had to make a single change with one program. Everything else just worked.

I did struggle to set up my Wacom Intuos Tablet with the P40 without knocking out the onboard touch and stylus input. It seems like I’ve battled with this in the past, I just have to remember how I overcame it. For some things, it’s just nice to have your hand out of the way when you draw.

Lenovo’s signature trackpoint nub and touchpad are back, with mechanical buttons. I had the version that lacked buttons on my S1 Yoga. I adapted to both with equal ease, I’m not sure why the uproar about the buttons, but they are back if you missed them. They are excellent, comparable to the best the rest of the market has to offer.

There is pre-installed software to adjust the pen input, trackpoint, and trackpad. You can tune these inputs to your preference, and I recommend giving that a try. I don’t feel like these additions were obligatory, and users will get a lot of value out of making the machine comfortable to use.



There are no programmable mechanical buttons in tablet mode. If you are comparing this to a Cintiq Companion, that’s something you’ll have to take into consideration. I’ve largely adapted to not having them, but if Lenovo made a USB module or similar device that would give me 4-5 mechanical buttons in tablet mode, I’d be in pixel-poker’s heaven.

Performance

The Intel Core i7-6600U processor in the P40 screams for a 15w ULV. I’ve been using the i7-4600U primarily for the last couple years, and expected only the 5-10% (Skylake over Haswell) bump advertised increase. I suspect it is just a small part of the whole package that contributes to that experience.

Samsung’s client edition SSD (serial ATA 6.0 Gbps) does sequential read at up to 540MB/s, and sequential write at up to 500MB/s. The boot time is faster than anything I’ve ever owned and saving even really large, for print, images in Photoshop resolve in less than a couple seconds, 2-3 times faster than what I’m accustomed to.

The M500M Quadro has certified drivers, was designed for power efficiency, and based on the Maxwell GM108. All the websites list it as an entry level dedicated chip, but it handles Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, and Unity3D with relative ease. My previous experience with workstation grade GPUs lies entirely with my W530 and the NVIDIA K1000M on board. They feel about the same, even with the 15w difference, because the M500M has twice the rendering pipelines of the K1000M.

I am not an expert on these chips, but my experience with my creative programs feels about the same. However, gaming is far more enjoyable with the M500M, making it a more versatile GPU. Also, being able to watch Netflix on a second monitor while working on a 300 DPI book cover without any perceptible performance hit is super nice.

Fallout 4 is almost unplayable on my W530, but it runs at 720p, with medium settings at 30FPS on my P40 workstation. I thought gaming performance would be about the same, having similar SSDs, and 2GB GPUs. I was expecting slightly better performance from the W530, because it has a fast Ivy Bridge Quad-Core processor. I suspect that with newer games, newer cards have an advantage and my older games will probably play about the same on both.

Performance does not get cut if you close the lid to game on an external monitor. This was a major gripe with my Y40-70, with that power-saving “feature” being baked in by Intel. I’ve struggled to get it to push sound to external speakers using the OneLink+ Dock during gameplay, but headphones work fine.

Note: I’m used to gaming on a Lenovo 40-70 Gaming Laptop, sporting last year’s fastest ULV processor. They didn’t seem to sell those for very long as a consequence, but I enjoy gaming on a slightly slower machine. Nostalgia from the before times I guess. I don’t buy top of the line gaming machines, so if you’re a serious FPS snob, the P40 is not going to deliver the UX you’re probably used to.

Power management on the P40 is just great. It comes with Lenovo’s own power management driver and software, and a custom profile in Windows itself. Basically, someone at Lenovo went in and ticked all the little boxes and set all the settings I would normally have to alter myself. The laptop boots, shuts down, goes to sleep, holds a charge, and manages power usage very well.

My battery life varies, but even pushing every core, GB of RAM, radio, and input on this thing I haven’t sunk below five hours. I’ll have my development software, emulators, Photoshop, email, and thirty browser windows open while I’m chatting with someone via Skype and the laptop stays cool and even, sipping power without a lot of effort on my part.

The exhaust vents are placed well, for all modes.

Build & Ports

Left Side: 1 x USB 3.0 (w/ Always on USB), 4-in-1 card reader, Audio combo jack, OneLink+ Docking, Power Port, included Thinkpad Pen Pro charging silo, and charging LED indicator

Right Side: 2 x USB 3.0, HDMI, mDP, Volume Rocker, Power Button, Lockpoint

Front: Web Cam, Fingerprint Reader, Haptic Windows Button

The ports are all solid with very little jiggle, the SD card reader only reveals a sliver of the card when inserted, and the audio jack is clean and clear for use with headphones. This is a nice change from my S1 Yoga where the card stuck out an eighth of an inch, and I had to give the headphone jack a twist to get a clear sound.



Oh, and the speakers are pretty good!

I love the indicator light. It goes between yellow and green depending on whether the device is charged or charging. It isn’t rational, but I like that sort of visual feedback with products designed to be used mobile.

The Web Cam is very good compared to what I’m used to. It, coupled with the integrated mic, worked very well for Skype. The power button, and volume rocker are both very stiff making it hard to bump them in tablet mode, or have your laptop turned on accidentally in your bag. I dislike Haptic Windows buttons intensely on these devices, but I haven’t tripped this one once while I’ve been drawing. Lenovo has it tuned just right it seems, kind of like on the Thinkpad 10.

The Fingerprint reader doesn’t lean on flawless Lenovo software like on my W530. Unfortunately, it uses “Windows Hello” to log you in. I’d really like to say “Windows Goodbye” to that software and have Lenovo make their own. The only thing bundled with Windows 10 that doesn’t suck is the Edge browser. Fortunately, Lenovo has gone to great lengths to fill in the gaps where Microsoft was lazy or careless. Hardware side, the Fingerprint Reader is my only gripe.

Note: This is a known issue at Lenovo, and they are working on a fix, because Lenovo is awesome.

I have the Lenovo OneLink Dock+. It works, as well as you’d expect any dock. Worth getting if you have a ton of extra things to plug in or like the convenience of just hooking up a single cable when you sit down at your desk with your P40.

Content Creation

The P40 was crafted and manufactured for digital artists, 3D modelers, and similar. Like I said before, if you’re used to having a Cintiq at your desk, this probably won’t replace that experience as there are no programmable buttons in tablet mode. But, if your desk is wherever you happen to be, and your feet often take you wandering, this device is pretty hard to beat.

The 2540 x 1440 WQHD display is very clear, with excellent light distribution, and bright enough to overpower the glare of the glossy finish. Blacks are very black, colors vibrant, and there’s no screen burn issue like with the S1 Yoga’s display. There’s a very wide disparity in the screen brightness settings and you should be able to get it just how you want regardless of environment. Bright café by the window, or sitting in a dark closet listening to death metal, the display performs well in both.

I have read that there is some concern that Lenovo didn’t apply a film to the larger display. I tried a screen protector designed for the X1 Yoga, and while it works, I think it is made thin as to not interfere with AES input. It bubbles up under pressure, and I’m still on the lookout for the best screen protection/drawing surface.

The glossy screen offers very little in the way of resistance. If you’re used to that textured slate feel of an Intuos or a little extra grab on the nib from a matte screen film, you’ll have to find something. I’ll be exploring those options myself, and will update this post when I’ve found some things that work.

Once you’ve got Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, or whatever you use set up how you like it, there very little hardware side to be concerned with. The pen input just works well, the hover distance is good, and accuracy is what you’d expect with ERM input. As I said previously, you’ll not get the parallax effect or have the offset toward the edges of the screen, making AES input a nice upgrade.

I find that my handwriting isn’t quite as accurate or neat in OneNote, but I think that’s because of the very low amount of friction between screen and stylus currently. I bet that corrects itself with the right screen protector.

As for drawing, inking, and doing pixel art, I can’t say enough good things. It’s amazing what you’ll tolerate when you want something portable and versatile and I made a lot of compromises with my S1 Yoga, both in the display and the performance. Little ticks and mannerisms I employed to deal with pen latency and screen burn just melt away when using the P40. It feels like I’ve been creating in a fog that sort of distorted and slowed down what I’ve been doing for the last two years, and it is suddenly gone.

My inking is far better, thanks to the improved cursor accuracy and pressure sensitivity. I find myself shaving far fewer lines. Even when doing pixel art, I’m not having to move the canvas around dodging screen burn and adjusting for the parallax of the ERM pen input. Everything is faster, cleaner, and better than it was before. Rendering filters in Photoshop is twice as fast, and I can paint layer over layer as many as I like without worrying about impacting system performance. If I’m doing a very large 300 DPI landscape or building a deep .PSD sprite file with hundreds of layers, I don’t have to close all my other programs and browser windows to make the experience tolerable.

Unity3D runs great on it, and I think I’ll be making a lot of games with the P40.



Buy the full size Thinkpad Pen Pro ($39.99 USD). It’s worth having a second stylus that’s closer to the size of a pen for long drawing sessions. As I write this, there is no other option that I’m aware of. However, Wacom is supposed to be releasing a Bamboo Smart pen compatible with the P40 Yoga, like, yesterday. It was announced at CES it would be out in February I think, so it should go on sale any day. It is supposed to have additional nibs, both hard and soft tip.

Wacom Bamboo Smart

That stylus is available overseas, and a friend is arranging to send me one. I’ll post more about the different pens when I have all of them in hand. All three of these pens appear to take the same nibs.

UPDATE: US customers can get the Wacom pen! CLICK HERE

The included Thinkpad Pen Pro, that fits in and charges in the silo, comes with three extra hard nibs, and a nib puller. The larger one you have to order doesn’t come with nibs, even though the consumer branded N-Trig version does. I’m not sure why Lenovo did that, but you may be better off with the Wacom pen as it is supposed to come with all that included. Also, my Thinkpad Pen Pro didn’t come “Thinkpad” branded like it is pictured in promotional shots.

Yeah, I’m one of those people that cares about the details.

Design

I was a little worried that I’d miss the dedicated screen rotation button and dislike the pen silo placement. They are ideal with my S1 Yoga, but with the increased screen landscape I don’t find myself changing orientation much while I draw. The pen silo being on the left hand side is somewhat bothersome being a right handed person.

However, in a lot of the promotional shots, I see people holding it with the curved corners of the device down. Could be the way to go, for right and left handed people because the haptic Windows button will be away from your wrists. It wasn’t something I had to adapt to with the S1 Yoga because that Windows Key was mechanical, and the stylus slid out from the right.

Here’s a recent blog post from Lenovo about the P40. In the first shot, the guy is holding it, in my humble opinion, upside down. But, that might be the way to go.

Minor quibbles aside, the minimalist aesthetic of the Thinkpad endures.

Lenovo has done a good job making the rubber bits, chassis, hinges, and glass display flow together nicely. The multi-mode design is suitably disruptive keeping your workflow fresh and adaptable depending on your needs. I spend most of my time in laptop or tablet mode, but it’s nice to have options when consuming content or cramming myself into an airline seat. There’s just the right placement and number of rubber baby buggy bumpers to keep the P40 from sliding around regardless of the mode.

They’ve added a little texture to the lift and lock keyboard bits in between the keys. This is a nice contrast, and just one of several small cosmetic changes Lenovo has made since the first Thinkpad branded Yoga 2-in-1 was released. I thought the 14” P40 would be noticeably larger than my 12.5” S1 Yoga, but held side by side, it looks like you have a slightly roomier palm rest and that’s about it. They are very similarly sized.

Being made of carbon fiber and magnesium alloys, the P40 disperses heat efficiently. After a couple of hours of gaming in presentation mode, it’ll get pretty hot, uncomfortably so if I were to turn it over and put in my lap in laptop mode. I’ve found that this isn’t a long lasting situation, as heat disperses relatively quickly. A quick trip to the kitchen for a drink is usually enough time for the bottom of the laptop to be cool to the touch once more.

For people who really like Thinkpad devices, this is one of the best Lenovo has made.

Conclusion

A fully loaded Lenovo Yoga P40 workstation costs about $2274.00 USD. By the time you add the full size stylus, a reversible Thinkpad sleeve, and OneLink+ dock, you’re in the $2500 territory. It’s worth it. Sell your other gear, give blood for six months, and stock up on cup-o-noodles.

Also, buy a 2-3 year replacement/onsite warranty if you plan to travel quite a bit, or the depot variety if you don’t. I’ve had to make use of Lenovo Warranty Services a couple of times, and I’ve been very glad I paid the extra for more coverage. In my experience, Lenovo US just handles it when things go wrong.

I usually get about 18 months out of a laptop before I’m looking for something newer and shinier. I log a lot of hours on my devices. My S1 Yoga lasted about 27 months, not counting the first one I burned up. I’d probably still be using it if not for the screen burn issue. The P40 Yoga far more sturdy, and is dialed in to exquisite sensitivity with regard to inputs and the display.

I’m confident my P40 will last for 4-5 years at least.

For more observations on the P40 Yoga, check out what Black Thorne over at Rugged Gamers had to say here.