Lenovo ThinkPad 16" P16s Gen 4 Black 2025

A color-accurate OLED workstation with great specs and ports, but the AI hype is overblown. Buy it for creative work, skip it for gaming or local AI.

The Core Ultra 7 255H lands in the 85th percentile for CPU performance in our database, which means it chews through rendering and compile jobs without breaking a sweat. The RTX PRO 500 with 6GB of GDDR7 sits at the 76th percentile for GPU, so it handles creative apps fine but won't impress anyone running modern games at high settings. The 32GB of DDR5 is a standout at the 90th percentile, and the 1TB NVMe SSD is solid. What surprised us most is the AI performance. The built-in NPU only pushes 13 TOPS, and our ai_llm score came in at 43.5 out of 100. For a machine marketed around AI features, that's a weak spot.

Against the Apple MacBook Pro M4 Max, the ThinkPad loses on raw performance and battery life but wins on port selection and Windows flexibility. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 will absolutely destroy it in gaming and is lighter, but that OLED touchscreen on the ThinkPad is better for color-critical work. The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is a closer gaming competitor with a better GPU story. If you're a creator who needs Windows and loves a great screen, the ThinkPad makes sense. If you want to game or run local AI models, look elsewhere.

Here's where it gets tricky. US prices range from USD 2,685 to USD 3,957 across five listings, and CAD prices swing from CAD 3,908 to CAD 5,100. That's a massive spread for the same machine. If you're paying the high end, you're getting fleeced. At the lower end, especially around USD 2,685, this is a fair deal for a color-accurate OLED workstation with 32GB of RAM. Best Buy and Newegg both list it, but check the exact display spec before you buy. Some listings show a 1920 x 1200 IPS panel instead of the OLED, and that's a completely different experience.

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is a creator-focused workstation that gets the important stuff right. You get a 16-core Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, 32GB of DDR5, and a gorgeous 3840 x 2400 OLED touchscreen in a 1.82kg chassis. The one thing to know? This is a color-accurate workhorse for people who edit photos and video, not a gaming rig or an AI powerhouse.

If you're looking for a gaming laptop or a machine to run local AI models, this isn't it. Go get an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 or a MacBook Pro M4 Max instead. The RTX PRO 500 and 13 TOPS NPU just don't have the muscle for those workloads.

Buy this if you're a photographer, video editor, or developer who wants a reliable Windows workstation with a killer OLED display and tons of ports. The 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD mean you won't be upgrading anytime soon. But if AI performance or gaming matters to you, this isn't your machine. The weak NPU and mid-range GPU hold it back from being a true all-rounder.