Lenovo ThinkPad P70 With Skylake CPU Packs Power for Enterprise Apps

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad P70 runs on Intel’s Skylake processors, making it a high-powered notebook capable of running power-hungry business apps.

At the center of Lenovo’s sales pitch is power. So, it’s only fitting that we start with the processor built into the ThinkPad P70. Lenovo’s workstation will ship with the latest Intel Skylake 14nm Xeon processor that Intel says will deliver improvements in performance, power efficiency and battery life compared with the previous generation of mobile workstation CPUs. With Xeon, Lenovo says companies will be able to run any application at any time with processing power to spare.

Since the P70 is a workstation, it’s perhaps no surprise that the device comes with a big screen. The P70 features a 17-inch screen that will provide ample space for everything from Web browsing to serious applications. Lenovo says the big screen will be particularly useful to the finance world, which has historically relied on big displays connected to desktops. It’s an interesting sales pitch.

The Quadro GPU line from Nvidia is arguably the best option available for a high-end notebook. The GPUs are capable of handling heavy graphics processing for virtually any applications. It should perform admirably, whether users are editing video or designing a new corporate presentation.

No surprise here, but Lenovo is offering customers Windows 10 with the P70. However, since this is the enterprise and some companies may be slow to adopt the new operating system, Lenovo has also said that it will allow for downgrade rights to Windows 8.1 Pro or Windows 7 Professional. Microsoft likely won’t be happy about that, but if the enterprise is slow to adopt Windows 10, Lenovo needs to provide the software companies want.

Surprisingly, this relatively small device is capable of accommodating up to four storage devices. Lenovo is offering hard drives of up to 2TB in size, but the ThinkPad P70 also comes with support for 1TB PCIe/SATA solid-state drives.

It’s hard to not be impressed by the number of ports built into the ThinkPad P70. The device has four USB 3.0 ports, including one that can handle charging. The device also has HDMI 1.4, Mini DisplayPort and the standard options of Gigabit Ethernet, among others. Most importantly, the P70 comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports, making it capable of accommodating a handful of extra displays or storage drives. Image 6: Please use this image:

Lenovo didn’t skimp on the quality of its ThinkPad P70 screen. In fact, the company said that customers can choose up to a 4K UHD display featuring a resolution of 3,840-by-2,160. Those who don’t want such a high-resolution display can opt for the standard full-HD model or bump that up to a full-HD with touch capabilities.

To truly be a mobile workstation, the ThinkPad P70 must come with Web connectivity wherever a person goes. That’s why Lenovo has bundled not only WiFi, but also LTE connectivity into the computer. So, if a user cannot access a WiFi signal, he or she can move over to a carrier’s network and keep working on the Web.

Cooling systems don’t always get attention, but when one is talking about a high-end mobile workstation capable of doing just about anything a desktop can do, it’s important. The ThinkPad P70 comes with a dual-fan system that Lenovo calls “Flex.” With Flex, Lenovo is promising that the P70 will last longer on a single charge and be able to handle resource-intensive tasks that may push its processor and graphics card to the limit.

It may take some time for enterprise customers to get their hands on the P70. The new P70 will be available starting in the fourth quarter of 2015 through Lenovo business partners and on its own Website. The P70 starts at $1,999, but can go up very quickly if more storage devices and the higher-end screen are added in.