Lenovo ThinkPad P1 16 Gen 8 review: Tandem OLED series premiere

[pelican-freeze]

well, I powered up my P1 Gen 8 .. 265H/OLED/64GB RAM/2TB NVMe .. looks like that 5.5 hrs of battery life might be accurate at least on the "Balanced" profile for mixed-use. Haven't tried the one power setting below that "battery efficient". Not sure if the article mentioned which profile they used.

OLED is beautiful, but found latent image retention in darker environments where the brightness is at 25%. "After images" show up on dark grey and remain for minutes after. Possibly a defective panel.

Machine runs extremely cool and quiet. Lenovo has bee aggressive with power limits on the CPU. The one comment on YT with the guy who bough the non-dGPU one which doesn't use LM -- clearly getting a dGPU is the way to go if you want cool and quiet. Will the fans ramp up if you do something intense for extended periods, yes it will, but way better than my P1 Gen 2.

Any more thoughts? Are you happy enough with the P1 Gen 8 to keep it?

[Fortis]

Lenovo made a cardinal sin by putting clickpad without buttons on a ThinkPad. What's the point of doing so if you have already a ThinkBook P version?

[veraverav]

Any more thoughts? Are you happy enough with the P1 Gen 8 to keep it?

I'm asking them to replace it with the 4k IPS version, which they refuse, even though its cheaper. They only want to replace it with an identical machine with the OLED screen. I'm not sure what to do. I love the machine aside from this OLED issue. Am I rolling the dice asking for a replacement?

I ran PCMark10 office battery life test which got 10hrs of battery life.

I'm trying to escalate my issue to see if someone can send me the 4k IPS instead. So far no luck.

I got the TB5 7500 Smart Dock and it works very well with the machine as well.

[pelican-freeze]

I'm asking them to replace it with the 4k IPS version, which they refuse, even though its cheaper. They only want to replace it with an identical machine with the OLED screen. I'm not sure what to do. I love the machine aside from this OLED issue. Am I rolling the dice asking for a replacement?

I ran PCMark10 office battery life test which got 10hrs of battery life.

I'm trying to escalate my issue to see if someone can send me the 4k IPS instead. So far no luck.

I got the TB5 7500 Smart Dock and it works very well with the machine as well.

Did you end up getting a resolution that you were happy with? Either a replacement with an OLED without the retention issue you mentioned or a swap for IPS?

After having the laptop for a while could you share some more impressions of the display and general quality of life experience using it in day to day use? Have you been able to tweak some settings to improve the battery life?

Still trying to decide whether or not to keep mine (Lenovo's Holiday return window in the US closes January 27th, 2026). I was hoping for some more exciting laptop announcements at CES that would encourage me to return the P1 G8 and wait for newer releases, but was a bit disappointed by the new product announcements.

Next gen Panther Lake CPUs don't seem like a proper generational leap for anything other than webcam quality (new ISP) outside of combined CPU / GPU scenarios where panther lake is being configured to take up less of the overall power budget / allow for more of the overall power budget to be allocated to higher GPU wattage. So panther lake seems to be an extremely minimal upgrade on the performance / efficiency / IO front unless you're ok with relying entirely on Intel's new integrated GPU or you have a discreet GPU that could see a significant performance increase if it were fed an additional 10-15w in combined CPU / GPU load scenarios.

There very few panther lake laptop announcements at CES featuring tandem OLEDs too and the ones that were announced all had major issues - limited 2.8k or lower resolutions, cost saving low quality anti-reflective coatings / full on mirror finishes, no thunderbolt 5, poor overall port selection, integrated intel GPU only etc..

[veraverav]

Did you end up getting a resolution that you were happy with? Either a replacement with an OLED without the retention issue you mentioned or a swap for IPS?

After having the laptop for a while could you share some more impressions of the display and general quality of life experience using it in day to day use? Have you been able to tweak some settings to improve the battery life?

Still trying to decide whether or not to keep mine (Lenovo's Holiday return window in the US closes January 27th, 2026). I was hoping for some more exciting laptop announcements at CES that would encourage me to return the P1 G8 and wait for newer releases, but was a bit disappointed by the new product announcements.

Next gen Panther Lake CPUs don't seem like a proper generational leap for anything other than webcam quality (new ISP) outside of combined CPU / GPU scenarios where panther lake is being configured to take up less of the overall power budget / allow for more of the overall power budget to be allocated to higher GPU wattage. So panther lake seems to be an extremely minimal upgrade on the performance / efficiency / IO front unless you're ok with relying entirely on Intel's new integrated GPU or you have a discreet GPU that could see a significant performance increase if it were fed an additional 10-15w in combined CPU / GPU load scenarios.

There very few panther lake laptop announcements at CES featuring tandem OLEDs too and the ones that were announced all had major issues - limited 2.8k or lower resolutions, cost saving low quality anti-reflective coatings / full on mirror finishes, no thunderbolt 5, poor overall port selection, integrated intel GPU only etc..

I am returning it and the P1 Gen 8 with the 4k IPS panel is on its way already. I knew they wouldn't tell us about the Gen 9 at CES since they were so late launching this model.

[Philm]

I am returning it and the P1 Gen 8 with the 4k IPS panel is on its way already. I knew they wouldn't tell us about the Gen 9 at CES since they were so late launching this model.

I'll be interested to know what you think of the 4k IPS display. I'm torn between that and the OLED.

[Nasty matte OLED?]

Matte RGB isn't as crisp as we would like

Subjectively, the matte tandem OLED screen on our test unit appears grainier than a traditional glossy alternative especially when displaying an all-white image.

Judging the close-up picture: Nasty. What's the purpose of using an OLED then.

I'm a glossy QD-OLED TV user and its especially awesome when gaming (in Game Mode, 144 Hz, Warm2), but if the battery life in laptops is decreased vs IPS and you have a lot of static content/burn-in risk (is it still a concern)? (nothing on my QD-OLED TV so far), then maybe go with the good old IPS after all, especially if you want its matte/anti-glare coating and the 4K one is 100% DCI-P3.

The PWM frequency on this OLED seems not of concern(?)

The OLED in SDR is "566 nits", the 4K IPS is "800 nits". I think Apple uses 500 nits in SDR as well (1000 nits in HDR only). So, maybe at least when it comes to nits, it might not be an issue, regardless which display option one chooses.

Yes, report back what you think of the 4K IPS.