Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#41

Post by alkonaut » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:00 AM UTC

adamors wrote: post #10

> 7-9 hours of typing, browsing and some programming. > 3-4 hours of video/audio conferencing or other CPU intensive tasks. This is one of the primary reasons I can't even consider moving away from an M1 Mac. I used to love ThinkPads but not being able to use the machine for 10+ hours without charger is a dealbreaker in 2022.

On most laptops I find using a battery for any kind of heavy work a non-starter anyway. I might send an email or take a call on battery but I wouldn’t even launch a heavy IDE. Without aggressive power saving (I.e CPU sits under 1GHz even att full load meaning less than half the performance) then battery is often less than 30 minutes. I should add that this is for scorching hot “desktop replacement” (45W) laptops. But I also wouldn’t want to compromise on perf while plugged in, in order to get more battery time.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#42

Post by hef19898 » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:01 AM UTC

notemaker wrote: post #32

plafl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a usually cited concern for so many people and I'm curious to know why because I rarely unplug my laptop, like most people I know.

This mindset is similar to what people with wired headphones think of Airpods et al. It's not an apparent benefit when you're in the bubble of thinking it's normal to have a wire going across your torso all day and hearing the thuds and bumps propagate through the wire to your ears. But when you buy a pair of wireless buds and have them for a week - you don't go back. You've discovered freedom. Likewise, with battery…

>> wired headphones think of Airpods et al.

Funny, people accept limited (I don't use Bluetooth headsets, but I assume battery life isn't an issue in real life) battery life for fancy headsets but complain about it with laptops. I'm the opposite, I embrace the limited battery life of my laptop (running purely on the nVidia GPU and sporting a i9, on Linux, the most I get out of it are 6 hours, less when playing games), but use wired headphones. Not judging neither side, just a funny when you think about it.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#43

Post by byefruit » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:01 AM UTC

adamors wrote: post #10

> 7-9 hours of typing, browsing and some programming. > 3-4 hours of video/audio conferencing or other CPU intensive tasks. This is one of the primary reasons I can't even consider moving away from an M1 Mac. I used to love ThinkPads but not being able to use the machine for 10+ hours without charger is a dealbreaker in 2022.

For what it's worth this is comparing against a 10th gen Intel. The 12th gen ones look like they'll outperform the M1s on a similar battery life:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-Plus-with-i7-1280P...

Note that that is a 12th gen P. I suspect the U CPUs won't perform quite as well but will offer much better battery life than the MBP.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#44

Post by frant-hartm » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:02 AM UTC

gaasdggasd wrote: post #12

frant-hartm wrote: post #8

For developers, going with Intel only (no Nvidia discrete card) is the most sensible choice. I have P15 and it's riddled with issues - not that they are not solvable, but it needs workarounds, restarts of X (logout/login), or running discrete only (which eats battery). The problem is they don't make the larger workstation laptops with Intel only.

all-amd systems are a solid alternative as well. if you only have an igpu, it's effectively the same experience as an all-intel system. if you additionally have an amd dgpu, offloading work to it is as simple as setting DRI_PRIME=1 in the target process environment

Yeah, AMD would be the way to go (I switched to AMD on my desktop when Ryzen came out) only if there were reasonable laptops available.

AFAIK there are no AMD laptops with 128 GB RAM. Quickly looking at Lenovo site, I couldn't even find one with 64, only 48.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#45

Post by gabereiser » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:02 AM UTC

I find it rather peculiar that tech folks think a plastic laptop is good build quality considering what we have from Apple and others.

I wish more linux laptops had the build quality and support of macbooks. This isn't a rant from an Apple fan, this is a rant from a laptop fan. ThinkPad's aren't good laptops despite what the guy with the pocket protector says. They are flimsy and feel cheap. They still have 20th century tech (eraser mouse, c'mon!). They are my grandfather's laptop.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#46

Post by JodieBenitez » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:03 AM UTC

notemaker wrote: post #32

plafl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a usually cited concern for so many people and I'm curious to know why because I rarely unplug my laptop, like most people I know.

This mindset is similar to what people with wired headphones think of Airpods et al. It's not an apparent benefit when you're in the bubble of thinking it's normal to have a wire going across your torso all day and hearing the thuds and bumps propagate through the wire to your ears. But when you buy a pair of wireless buds and have them for a week - you don't go back. You've discovered freedom. Likewise, with battery…

While I do share the general idea and I do enjoy the battery life of my M1, I can't relate about earbuds, at least not those I tried. Until then, I'm happy to keep my DT-770 wired.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#47

Post by abxytg » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:05 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #41

adamors wrote: post #10

> 7-9 hours of typing, browsing and some programming. > 3-4 hours of video/audio conferencing or other CPU intensive tasks. This is one of the primary reasons I can't even consider moving away from an M1 Mac. I used to love ThinkPads but not being able to use the machine for 10+ hours without charger is a dealbreaker in 2022.

On most laptops I find using a battery for any kind of heavy work a non-starter anyway. I might send an email or take a call on battery but I wouldn’t even launch a heavy IDE. Without aggressive power saving (I.e CPU sits under 1GHz even att full load meaning less than half the performance) then battery is often less than 30 minutes. I should add that this is for scorching hot “desktop replacement” (45W) laptops. But…

What?? I use mine for all heavy work (ide, video editing, Ableton) on battery. Why would you ever purchase a laptop you can't use lol.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#48

Post by hef19898 » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:06 AM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #13

I have two of these machines. They are very nice. Actually, one is an X1 Extreme Gen 3, and the other is a P1 Gen 3. Same machine with different GPUs. My work provided me with the X1E with Ubuntu preinstalled (that is our standard dev environment). But I found the hardware support very unsatisfactory. I use a specific display configuration. Three monitors in total: the ThinkPad's 4K display, with a 24" 4K display abo…

Getting multiple screens on a docking station to work was a pain with my X1E Gen 2 as well. Under Windows. Since I used it for work (office, not development) and gaming, I resorted to turn of the Intel GPU permanently. Reduced battery life, but not in any way it hamper it's use. Since I switched to Ubuntu I have yet to see any difference in battery life. And multiple screens work just fine under both OS.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#49

Post by tim-- » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:06 AM UTC

I recently acquired a ThinkBook 16p Gen 2, and while a different machine entirely to the ThinkPad, I must say that this is an _absolute beast_ of a machine. It's a total joy to use.

It's the most fun I have had using a laptop since my first MacBook. Moving from the MBP to the ThinkBook has made me realize how... boring MacBooks are - not saying that's a bad thing. MacBooks do 'just work'.

But the ThinkBook? The machine is fantastic. Sure, it has some soldered on RAM, but half of it is upgrade-able. The disk is a standard M.2 drive - easily replaced. It blows the M1 MacBook I use for work out of the water in almost every single number, except battery life. It was $100 more than a MacBook.

It's got double the RAM (16GB vs 8GB on the Mac), double the storage (1TB vs. 512GB), the NVidia 3060 seems to work a little better with OpenGL apps then the M1's GPU. More importantly, you can use two 4k monitors at the same time -which is impossible with the M1 MacBook Pro.

The Windows install was vanilla - not really anything additional installed. Maybe a Lenovo support app? Easy to remove from the control panel. Pretty much everything with the Lenovo machine was supported without too much fiddling around after installing Arch Linux.

Re: Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review – with Linux

#50

Post by abxytg » Mon, May 02, 2022, 8:07 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #37

notemaker wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This mindset is similar to what people with wired headphones think of Airpods et al. It's not an apparent benefit when you're in the bubble of thinking it's normal to have a wire going across your torso all day and hearing the thuds and bumps propagate through the wire to your ears. But when you buy a pair of wireless buds and have them for a week - you don't go back. You've discovered freedom. Likewise, with battery…

As an audio guy I tried, but I don't like the sound. My Sennheiser HD-25 cans are perfect for the road. The cable and the cups are propperly decoupled from the headpart, the cable comes as a plug and play replacement should it fail after 3 years of rough (including sports) use. I have had one pair of these headphones for 16 years now. I wonder how airpods would compare in terms of pure surviveability.

I stopped traveling with my ath m50s when I got a half decent pair of noise cancelling cans.