Lenovo ThinkPad P53 - Mobile Workstation

Lenovo ThinkPad P53 - Mobile WorkStation

Following the success of its workstation lineup, especially the ThinkPad P52, Lenovo has decided to release its successor, the Lenovo ThinkPad P53, featuring significant performance improvements and subtle design changes.

Design

The Lenovo ThinkPad P53 seems to inherit most of the characteristics of the ThinkPad P52. The entire chassis remains reinforced with magnesium aluminum alloy, providing durability and sturdiness during use. The lid uses carbon fiber material with a smooth carbon fiber finish. Just like last year, the “Lenovo” logo is no longer embossed on the lid.

The bezels of the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 are still not quite proportional to the manufacturer's price point. The bezels remain thick, though this can be understood as the design is intended to support the display panel. The ThinkShutter slider has been moved to the top, with small ridges to make sliding easier. The cooling system remains unchanged, with two exhaust vents on each side and two intake vents at the rear. The bottom cover is now designed as a single seamless piece, concealing the internal battery instead of allowing hot-swapping like previous versions.

True-to-life Display System

The Lenovo ThinkPad P53 is equipped with a 15.6-inch Full HD display with a standard IPS panel. The screen has average brightness at 300 nits, but the color gamut is excellent, with 95% sRGB and 60% AdobeRGB, slightly higher than the previous generation. Additionally, Lenovo offers a Full HD option with HDR technology and advanced Dolby Vision integration, maximizing color accuracy during display.

Furthermore, the machine offers a 4K HDR display option with Dolby Vision, featuring 500 nits of brightness and 100% AdobeRGB color gamut, making it suitable for professional graphic designers. Lenovo also added a 4K OLED HDR option, providing more lifelike colors than ever before. Lenovo also wisely corrected a previous oversight by including Pantone color validation for the 4K display option.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard of the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 remains unchanged from its predecessor. The keycaps are more deeply curved and ergonomic, helping to prevent hand fatigue during continuous typing. The key travel is deep and tactile, providing excellent feedback. The Trackpoint remains highly sensitive, and the supporting physical buttons have been moved closer for easier, quieter clicking. The auxiliary button system continues to provide precise feedback.

The touchpad system remains the same as the P52, with a larger surface area of 10cm x 6cm. The touchpad is coated with a smooth plastic layer, providing a seamless gliding sensation without any stuttering. The mouse buttons are designed separately, just like previous generations.

Processor System Upgrades

The Lenovo ThinkPad P53 utilizes 9th Gen Coffee Lake CPUs with high performance, enabling the machine to handle heavy applications and render complex 3D sketches with many frames. Lenovo also quickly added a Core i5 9400H option for users who do not require many cores/threads, and a powerful Core i9 9880H version with 8 cores and 16 threads. The machine also maintains a Xeon CPU option, specifically the E2276M, for sustained professional performance.

The graphics system on the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 has also been significantly upgraded. The machine exclusively uses the Quadro graphics system with Turing architecture, maximizing graphics processing power.

Connectivity Ports

The port layout, similar to the ThinkPad P52, enhances convenience for users when using peripherals. For this reason, the P53 continues to use this layout, though with some slight reconfigurations.

The machine features 2 USB Type C 3.1 Gen 2 ports, integrated with Thunderbolt 3 on the rear. Additionally, there is a traditional charging port and an RJ 45 network port.

The left side features 1 USB Type C 3.1 Gen 1 port, supporting video output and Power Delivery, along with 1 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The right side features 2 USB Type A 3.1 Gen 1 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, and a traditional SD card slot.

Upgradability of the Lenovo ThinkPad P53

The upgradability of the machine seems equivalent to the P52. The machine has 4 DDR4 RAM slots, supporting up to 128GB; however, on the version using the Xeon E CPU, the machine can install 128GB of ECC RAM at 2666MHz. The Lenovo ThinkPad P53 is configured with 2 NVMe SSD slots and 1 2.5-inch drive slot on versions using Quadro T1000 and T200 graphics, providing large storage capacity; however, on the Quadro RTX versions, the 2.5-inch drive slot is removed, and instead, the machine supports 3 NVMe SSD slots.

Lenovo ThinkPad P53 - A Promising Mobile Workstation?

With the upgraded CPU system and graphics using a new process, the ThinkPad P53 is perhaps the most powerful mobile workstation with a configuration suitable for the widest range of users. There may be no mobile workstation as powerful as this machine.