Our recent review of Lenovo's P52s left us a bit disappointed, primarily with the weak Nvidia Quadro P500. The device is back under our scope today, this time with a better CPU (Intel Core i7-8650U) and a 4K screen. In addition to these changes, our review device today doubles the RAM to 16 GB and quadruples the storage via a 1 TB Samsung PM970 NVMe SSD. All of these options raise the price from USD $1375 to $2125 (via Lenovo's U.S. site). On paper, these specs look to be a substantive improvement over our prior review. We will see what how the improved internals impact overall performance.

The P52s sits in a niche category of "ultrabook workstations." Typically, machines designed for engineering and CAD work use powerful mobile CPUs (TDP typically 45 W or higher) and GPUs which are housed in thicker cases for better airflow and expandability. Due to its unique design, the choice of competition is rather thin. Lenovo's own ThinkPad T580 and P51s are perhaps the closest alternatives. HP's ZBook 15u G5 is another machine to be considered, as are Dell's Precision 5520 and Precision 3520. MSI's WS63VR is also an option.



As this review covers an updated version of the P52s, we will skip analysis of the external features (e.g., case, keyboard, weight) and will instead focus on actual software performance. For more information, please refer to our first review of the Lenovo P52s and the ThinkPad T580, as these machines use the same case as our review device today. Let's dive in.

