The Best Laptop of 2021 So Far
The tech spec sheet of the Lenovo ThinkBook 16p Gen 2 is a dream. It seems as if one’s customized the specs to choose the best of everything. If I were to customize the laptop of my dreams, the current tech specs of the 16p are what I’d choose. But we know that the customization of our choice isn’t always possible. There are often limits to the size of RAM or ROM you can go for. Even if you do manage to get the features of your choice, heavier specs significantly impact the battery life of the machine since it’s not made for those specs.
Hence, trying to cram the best of everything on a laptop that’s not made to accommodate all that is not always a good idea. This is what makes this unbelievably powerful laptop possibly the best laptop of 2021 so far. It provides everything that you can dream of in a body that supports all of that.
Mind-blowing Performance
If you’re someone who works in the creative field and need to use Adobe Creative Suite every day, this is the machine for you. I’m aware I said this about the Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable too, but this one goes even further with its lightning-fast performance. Photoshop has never run smoother. I tried editing a short sequence of clips on Premiere Pro too, and I’ve never seen the kind of speed I saw on this. there wasn’t even a second-long delay, let alone a stutter. Everything was smooth as honey and I got the job done in a matter of few minutes.
I also played quite a few Android games for PC on this brilliant machine. Minecraft and Roblox ran fairly smoothly but PUBG was the real test. Slightly more graphic-intensive and visually demanding, PUBG ran as smoothly as Minecraft and Roblox did. I played Call of Duty: Black Ops after that and I can’t even begin to explain how immersive the experience was because of the bright and clear display. More on the display later.
Witnessing the P16’s insanely good speed at both gaming and handling graphic-intensive software, I had no doubt it would be able to multitask well. I still decided to do a small test and opened around 15 tabs with different kinds of activity happening on each of them. I was taking a course on Coursera, watching YouTube, listening to music on Spotify and doing so much more. The laptop’s performance didn’t suffer at all.
We have the P16’s AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor to thank for the performance. It is capable of maxing out at a clock speed of 3.2GHz. It runs the Windows 10 Pro. The machine has a 16GB working memory and a 1TB SSD storage. To top it all off, it features a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6GB graphics card. Yes, I know. I couldn’t believe the specs either!
Immensely Clear Display
As opposed to most other laptops featuring a 16:9 aspect ratio display, the 16p hosts a screen size with an aspect ratio of 16:10. That gives you 11.45 percent more screen real estate to work with. It has an 188PPI display and a 93 percent screen-to-body ratio. The screen features low-blue-light technology to shield your eyes. The fairly large 16-inch WQXGA LCD display hosts a 2.5K (2560×1600) resolution, IPS and anti-glare technology and a 400-nit brightness score.
You won’t want to put this machine away once you start consuming content on it. It has what feels like a massive screen and offers amazing colors with stark contrasts. The graphics are extremely bright, vivid and clear. There is sharpness to them and they never lose the richness that they offer. The brightness goes up pretty well and the decent brightness score coupled with the IPS display ensures the sun never affects your view.
The thinned-out bezels at the sides give you a large area to work with and make the machine even better for your creative needs. I found myself having a pretty pleasant time on Adobe Illustrator with an ample amount of space. The 2.5K resolution made sure the graphically-demanding games I played were delivered with focus and precision.
Unique Chassis
The 16p features a fairly large body. In all honesty, it’s slightly heavy as well. However, if you’re going for the large screen size that it offers, this a small trade-off you’d have to make. It measures 13.96 inches by 9.92 inches and has a thickness of 0.78 inches. Weighing 4.4 pounds, it’s heavier than your standard laptop.
With that being said, you will absolutely fall in love with the aesthetics of this machine. The 16P sports a mineral gray dual-tone top cover. The dual-tone cover is a feature that Lenovo has been sporting in its ThinkBook series for a while. The design is sophisticated and simple with just the brand name on the side and the name of the series on the top of the cover. The machine is quite slim and it’s the ideal size to be stowed away in backpacks.
The 16P’s ports layout is where Lenovo gets creative. Unlike most other laptops that host ports on the sides, the P16 hosts a couple of ports on its back. There are two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the right side, an SD card reader and a headphone/mic combo on the left side and two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports coupled with a power-in socket on the back. The laptop’s back strategically hosts the bigger ports so that connection is easier and untidy cables are kept out of view. The 16P hosts just enough ports to be convenient while also not looking too stuffed with unnecessary controls. The rear ports have a pair of four-side venting holes on their sides for enhanced thermal performance.
Backlit Keyboard and Enlarged Touchpad
The full-size keyboard on the 16P is backlit with a numerical pad and full-size cursor keys. It is coupled with an enlarged one-piece touchpad. There are dedicated service and VoIP hot keys. Th keyboard is absolutely beautiful. It offers three levels of brightness, great travel and plenty of space for your fingers. At no point will you feel like the keys are jammed together. The touchpad is also large and provides sufficiently good response.
There’s a touch fingerprint reader integrated with the power button on the top right of the keyboard. The top of the display features a webcam privacy shutter that you can toggle while conducting video conference meetings. The 16P’s’s AI-based noise-cancelling technology cuts ambient noise for more efficient meetings. You can choose from three modes: private, shared or environmental mode for the ideal conferencing setup.
Miscellaneous
There’s a 720p HD IR camera on this machine. There’s also two 2W speakers powered by Harman coupled with dual-array microphones. The 16P comes with a 71Wh battery with the ability to charge rapidly. Normal usage will give you six hours on this laptop, while heavy usage will give you five hours.
All in all, the only thing that made me slightly uncomfortable was the weight of the laptop. You’ll have to decide if you can live with that compromise. Apart from that, the laptop is brilliant and I haven’t come across a machine more powerful than this one. It is fast, features brilliant graphics and sports a pretty good-looking body.
Is It Hardcore?
It doesn’t get better than this.
If you’re not on a tight budget and are looking for a one-time purchase that will last for years, go for the Lenovo ThinkBook P16 Gen 2. It is a powerful laptop offering a sleek body and brilliant graphics at the same time.