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Conclusion
PNY does almost everything right with its PrevailPro P4000. The mobile Quadro P4000 Max-Q design works well with Intel's Core i7-7700HQ CPU. Although Kaby Lake as an architecture is no longer state-of-the-art, it's still modern for mobile platforms. Besides, Clevo relies on a mature P955/957 platform to make the PrevailPro P4000's unique component list possible.
Aside from the Quadro graphics module and big DDR4 SO-DIMMs, everything else inside is consumer-grade hardware. Then again, ECC RAM could be considered unnecessary in a mobile platform, and an expensive mobile Xeon CPU to drive the Quadro wouldn't help much. The combination in PNY's PrevailPro already makes a nice team.
Whether an Ultra HD panel makes sense while traveling is another matter entirely. Many professional applications, such as AutoCAD, Adobe's CC, SolidWorks, and Creo rely on their own GUIs that unfortunately scale with the screen. This makes them very difficult to read and use. Attempts to install SolidWorks 2015, for example, were certainly not enjoyable. Even scaling font sizes up to 300% is no use when dealing with a GUI that relies on fixed-size bitmap elements.
While PNY's PrevailPro P4000 is certainly well-balanced, we're left wondering about the application that calls for such a notebook. A traveling engineer working on construction plans and presentations would be on a perpetual hunt for the next power outlet, and as a primary device docked wherever you need to work, the acoustics aren't particularly optimized. You'd need a strong voice and plenty of patience to work with all of that noise.
On the other hand, we have to admire the cooling subsystem's effectiveness. This platform can handle the most powerful graphics solutions in a compact form factor, even if it means blowing lots of air over them. CPU cooling isn't a concern at all in comparison. Although you won't see the peak Turbo/GPU Boost frequencies in most professional workloads, throttling isn't an issue for PNY's PrevailPro P4000. Performance is maintained, whether you're plugged into the wall or running off of battery power.
We don't see enough unique selling points to issue PNY's laptop an award. However, the notebook does exactly what it promises if you happen to need its Quadro graphics module on the road. That alone makes this a unique piece of hardware if you're in the target market for its professional GPU. A $4500 asking price is higher than we'd be willing to pay. But if someone in accounting gives you the green light for a big expense, there are legit reasons to favor it over gaming-oriented notebooks.
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