ThinkPad P1

This is a walkthrough of my set up of local LLM capability on a Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 (with a RTX A3000 6GB VRAM) graphics card, using Ollamafor CLI and VS Code Copilot chat access, and LM Studio for a GUI option. My Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 is coming up for 4 years old. [...]

Has 32gb of memory max. My current 5 year old thinkpad P1 has 64GB, not going back to 32.

[...] I understand the usual story is that the goal is security benefits, and the compartmentalization (or rather the implied inconvenience) is the price for that. [...] on these QubesOS machines, and scrolling web pages with large images is laggy, but I find this to be an acceptable price. [...] Initially I had to solve quite a few issues with installer, some hardware not working (or requiring setting something special), or poor battery life on the laptops. But after a while that mostly either went away, especially once I switched to laptops with official Linux support (Dell Precision were good, I'm on Thinkpad P1 G7 now). The battery life is pretty decent too (especially once I disabled HT in BIOS). [...]

[...] needing to spend days so my audio works on Linux. A couple of years ago, I picked up Thinkpad P1 (Ryzen 4800U) and got settled with Arch + Plasma. I've never before had such a snappy, quiet, stable, 3 monitors, all hardware and software just working, fully customized, and empowering experience of using a computer and went years without needing to touch anything - as it was perfect. It ended when I couldn't resist a new MBP 14, but I've been slowly accumulating nostalgia for my Linux setup since and will surely get back to it, hopefully when Asahi Linux completes support for external monitors.

I have a ThinkPad P1 (Gen 2) and I run Linux, but I'd hesitate to recommend at least the Nvidia dGPU versions. The battery life is dismal, even with the dGPU disabled in software (can't be HW disabled). It also runs really hot and the suspend is still flakey.

I have been using this for about a month and I love it. The screen looks great, the keyboard is great, the trackpad is great (I have been using Lenovos for 20 years and though I couldn't live without the trackpoint). The battery life is more than enough for my usage during my daily commute and way better than the mere 1.5 hours I could squeeze out of my old Thinkpad P1. [...]

My work laptop used to be Thinkpad P1 before they enfored Dell hardware. The current win11 laptop needs to be replaced for stability issues, and I begrudgingly going to ask for a MacBook.

I have a thinkpad p1 with popos, but it doesn’t sleep properly. [...] I have to lay it down up side down so the ventilation gaps are not blocked, otherwise it overheats. [...]

I have a Thinkpad P1 Gen 4i with a RTX 3080 16GB running Debian. I run ollama and it works quite well.

[...] Thinkpad P1 Gen 6 with RTX 4090 is a solid one. [...]

I bought the same model SSD for my Thinkpad P1 last month and saw the exact issue. I had to return it because it was breaking the NVMe detection completely. So it wasn't a broken unit but a design issue after all?

[...] Additionally, PS/2 is very much still used today: every laptop I've ever owned, including my brand-new 2024 ThinkPad P1, has a touchpad ostensibly using a PS/2 connection internally - and we get all this functionality essentially for free (yay lithography): it's all baked into a single "Super I/O" unit[1] which today is part of some larger IC on your mobo. ...that said, Microsoft and some hardware partners tried this when Windows XP came out; they were called "Legacy-free PCs", which in-practice just meant (excepting video and audio) all periphial ports were USB 1.1, with zero (exposed) ports for PS/2, parallel, serial, ISA, and gameport/MIDI; no floppy drive either; it was also a convenient excuse to omit a 56K modem too. [...]

[...] I have a pair of LG 24UD58-B 4K 24" monitors mounted on monitor arms: One is above my ThinkPad P1 or X1 Extreme in landscape mode, the other to the left in portrait mode. I use all three displays. I calibrated all three displays with an X-Rite (now Calibrite) Display Pro using DisplayCAL software. For the two external monitors, the calibrator came up with these settings: Brightness: 27 Contrast: 70 Gamma: Gamma 1 The specific RGB settings are slightly different between the two. One is: Red: 56 Green: 43 Blue: 40 And the other: Red: 39 Green: 42 Blue: 42 This settings make light modes very comfortable on both monitors, either during the day or at night with the room lights on. They are on a dimmer so I can adjust the lighting for comfort. For photo editing or watching a video, I crank up the brightness on the landscape monitor to 85. I do something similar on my phone, a Samsung S24 Ultra. I use light themes and turn the phone brightness way down so it matches these other displays - unless I'm out in the sun and then I turn it way up. I also turn up the brightness near max to look at photos or watch videos. [...] This works well with the increased brightness.

Even with it disabled sometimes you're still locked into this UEFI mess that I certainly didn't order. I love my thinkpad p1 g3 more than most laptops but I miss having a simple BIOS. Stupid thing can't boot off normal USB keys like I've been making for decades.

ThinkPad P1 gen 6 offers 96GB max. [1] I usually buy the minimum version of memory and SSD, and then upgrade myself. [1]

Tell me about it. Our company was recently acquired and they are swapping out Thinkpad P1's with Dell precision. Protest was no use.

I really need to finish migrating to that ThinkPad P1 that I bought and fixed. My X13 is great and portable, but I need a GPU to tinker with Qwen without completely relying on an SSH tunnel to my gaming workstation. Carrying both laptops is hurting my back.

I bought a ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 on eBay that was listed as "Parts Only." It has a broken screen, which was only $90. Every single diagnostic passes.

just replaced my thinkpad p1 gen 2 laptops battery and im realizing it may have been cooked since like the first month I owned this thing

I got a refurbished Thinkpad P1 Gen 3 from work to use as a personal computer. This thing is really cool for programming and intensive tasks, so I took it apart and installed a second 1TB NVME drive so I can dualboot Windows and Linux Mint on there (best of both worlds). Highly recommended btw.

[...] See this comparison of the shortening and changing of the TrackPoint cap over time, and you can imagine how the current 3mm caps end up requiring more finger pressure than the 6mm soft rim cap, to get pressure to register: I own a very nice ThinkPad P1, but my daily driver is currently a ThinkPad W520 battleship from 2012, entirely because its TrackPoint is more comfortable to use. (I acclimated to the P1's chiclet keyboard easily, but the slippery TrackPoint cap was definitely harder on my finger and hand.) On the W520, I can type prolifically, all day and evening, 7 days a week, without discomfort. [...]

[...] I'd love it if this or the Framework Pro also had OLED options, though. My aging Thinkpad P1 (1st Gen) has a great LCD, but it's also the last non-OLED screen in my life, and I don't think I can buy another laptop without it. [...] This and longer battery life. Even though I build lots of C++ code, I still don't think I need more than the Xeon in the P1, horse-power wise.

[...] I use a ThinkPad P1 Gen 3. My dGPU actually died due to overheating caused by Windows failing to sleep properly. [...]

[...] I just put Linux on a 5th-gen ThinkPad P1. [...] Sound works... [...]

…until it isn’t: my ThinkPad P1 Gen 6 has the camera cover, yes - but it doesn’t have a cover for the depth-sensing camera, only the RGB cam, even though userland applications can get imaging data from that camera just as easily - which is potentially a bigger security issue: I imagine you could reconstruct my facial shape from the data and build a dummy head to get into my iPhone/iPad via FaceID. (No, I’m not actually worried about this, I’m far too unimportant for anyone to make a targeted attack against)

Is it telling that my 2018 iPad Pro gets significantly more use than my ThinkPad P1? iPadOS is a joy to use compared to Fedora 40 and Windows 11 Pro.

I have a Thinkpad P1 with 64gb. [...] I guess not so much that it had the fan but that the fan constantly sounds like it is impersonating a helicopter. [...] Also the battery life is horrible, 1 hour or so. And Windows is sluggish. Otherwise, it is a great machine (I occasionally RDP into it when demoing thing for my Windows clients.) My MacBook on the otherhand lacks a trackpoint (that will never be fixed) but is otherwise snappy and quiet. Sure it had some software/OS issues, but overall it is miles ahead of the Thinkpad.

I got a ThinkPad P1 for work and it’s mostly awesome, but I think there’s something wrong with the display. 😭 It’s the 120 Hz OLED but looks grainier than an OLED phone from 15 years ago. And somehow there are very visible hot spots brightness-wise? I don’t even know how that’s possible w/OLED.

[...] Device makes little to no difference: Raspberry Pi 5, MacBook Pro M1, ThinkPad P1, etc. [...] I like emacs and it's my daily driver. [...] see also: "Computer latency: 1997-2017" "Measuring keyboard-to-photon latency with a light sensor"