Lenovo refreshed its ThinkPad lineup today with a trio of new mobile workstations, one of which is the first ThinkPad to be certified for Oculus and HTC virtual reality headsets.
The new Lenovo ThinkPad P71 is a replacement for the P70, a heavy and bulky laptop that was very powerful thanks to its Xeon processors and Quadro graphics from Nvidia. Upgraded models of the Xeon (an E3 v6) and Quadro (a P5000M) let the P71 achieve VR-ready certifications from Oculus, HTC, and Nvidia.
The P71, which at 7.6 pounds is a tenth of a pound heavier than its predecessor, comes with either a 1080p or a 4K display, up to 64GB of RAM in four slots, and up to 2TB of PCIe storage. As with the P70, buyers can opt for a seventh-generation Core i7 instead of a Xeon, but lose the ability to chose a touch screen, which was available on the P70.
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If you want a touch-enabled display and don't need a VR-ready mobile behemoth, Lenovo also announced the new 15-inch ThinkPad P51s. The thin and light workstation weighs in at 4.3 pounds, and features seventh-gen Intel Core processors, Nvidia Quadro M520M graphics, up to 32GB of memory in two slots, and up to 1TB of PCIe storage. There are touch and non-touch Full HD displays, or you can chose a 4K UHD display.
Finally, Lenovo also unveiled the new ThinkPad P51. It offers a choice of Xeon or Core processors and Full HD, 4K, or touch displays. Thanks to its heft (the P51 comes in at 5.6 pounds), it can pack in four memory slots and a more powerful graphics card, the Nvidia Quadro M2200M, compared to the P51s.
Lenovo notes that all three models offer dual-fan cooling systems and 2400MHz DDR4 memory, which is the fastest memory available in a mobile workstation. The ThinkPad P51s will be available in March, starting at $1,049, while the ThinkPad P51 and P71 will be available in April, starting at $1,399 and $1,849, respectively.