Does p4v indicate somewhere that there is content to be fetched or alternatively, a way to preview what would be fetched (Outside of manually comparing history against the remote depot)?
Edit: I should have mentioned I'm using DVCS.
If you're working directly against a shared server, the UI automatically refreshes with file badges that show you whether there are new revisions you can sync, and there's a dashboard view that'll show you that information at the global changelist level.
If you're using the DVCS mode, the UI support is a little more bare-bones and generally operates against your local server in isolation. You might want to use the p4 fetch -n command from the terminal, which will tell you whether you're up to date and whether there are any conflicts with the remote server.