Lenovo ThinkBook 16p Gen 3 review: nice, but not enough

The ThinkBook 16p Gen 3 starts at $2,359 for an AMD Ryzen 5 6600H CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU. Increase to a Ryzen 7 5800H, and you’ll spend $2,619. My review unit with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD hasn’t been released or priced yet, but will likely approach $3,000.

The ThinkBook 16p Gen 3 enjoys what’s become an identifiable ThinkBook aesthetic, particularly on the is two-toned lid that has a bold ThinkBook logo. That differentiates it from the rest of Lenovo’s lineup and gives the laptop a bit of panache. Otherwise, the look is a typical business laptop with a dark grey colorway and a standard Lenovo chassis. The lid does connect at a spot that’s set in about half an inch from the rear, which is different, and the keyboard is darker as well. The result is a laptop that looks good and stands out just enough, without being unnecessarily glitzy for a business professional.

Just because you’re a businessperson doesn’t mean you don’t want to play some games. The ThinkPad 16p, with its Ryzen CPU and RTX 3060 GPU, is more adept at play than at work. I’ll start with its productivity and creative performance, because of course, that’s what you’re paying for, but I’ll be sure to cover gaming as well. The ThinkPad’s thermal design was fine, with limited throttling but quite a bit of fan noise when the CPU and GPU spun up. Lenovo’s thermal utility didn’t make a huge difference in any of our usual benchmarks, but I’ve reported those scores where appropriate.

My review unit packed in an eight-core/16-thread 45-watt AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU. That’s top-of-the-line until AMD’s 7000 series comes out, and it’s a fast CPU for sure. Even so, it fell behind our comparison group in Geekbench 5, including machines running Intel’s 45-watt 12th-gen CPUs. As usual, AMD’s single-core scores lagged the most. The ThinkPad 16 was fast in Cinebench R23 multi-core, though, and it did well in our Handbrake test that encodes a 420MB video as H.265.

The ThinkPad 16p was a solid performer, but it didn’t quite keep up with some newer Intel-based laptops. In the Pugetbench Premiere Pro benchmark that runs in a live version of Adobe’s Premiere Pro, the ThinkPad 16p was behind laptops like the HP Envy 16 that utilized the RTX 3060 CPU. This benchmark benefits from some Intel optimizations in Adobe apps that may or may not apply to a given workflow.

It’s strange to ding a laptop display that’s so bright at 525 nits and enjoys a contrast ratio of 1,160:1 — both are solid scores for a modern IPS display. An accuracy of DeltaE 1.21 is also strong. However, the ThinkPad 16p’s display could only muster 98% of sRGB and 75% of AdobeRGB. Those are fine scores for productivity tasks, but demanding creators want wider colors. Given that this is the laptop’s only available display, it limits this laptop’s appeal to that group.

I’ll note that this is a 165Hz display, which provides for a smoother Windows 11 and gaming experience, although you’ll have to turn graphics down to hit those kinds of frame rates. The higher refresh rate is certainly a perk, though, and it elevates everything you do with the system. The speakers were loud but sounded a bit tinny due to a lack of bass, making them a step below those on some other larger machines.

Battery life is decent, not that tremendous longevity should ever be expected from a laptop with a 16.0-inch 16:10 WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600) display and power-hungry components. The ThinkPad 16p hit about 6.75 hours in our web browsing test and nine hours in our video test. Both scores are less than average compared to most laptops I’ve reviewed in 2022, although that’s solid enough for the class.

If you want to take the laptop on the road, then you’ll want to carry that large and heavy power brick with you if you need a full workday’s longevity.

Some laptops are harder than others to categorize and rate. The ThinkBook 16p Gen 3 is such a machine. While Lenovo stresses its suitability for small and medium-sized businesses, I didn’t find much that makes the laptop truly stand out for this crowd. Things like webcam privacy features and user presence sensing exist on mainstream consumer laptops, as do attractive aesthetics and solid performance. The ThinkPad 16p even comes with a one-year warranty, which is industry standard and less than many true business machines offer.

At the same time, while performance was solid and battery life was better than you’ll find in some other 16-inch laptops, build quality wasn’t up to par given the high starting price of $2,359. Spend this much money, and you can get a Dell XPS 15 that’s roughly as fast, built much better, and has a significantly better display.

In evaluating the ThinkPad 16p as a suitable machine for SMB users, I end up being unconvinced this has any serious advantages. There really isn’t that much there that you won’t find on some other mainstream laptops aimed at consumers, and the build doesn’t live up to the price tag.

Editors’ Recommendations