Summary
- Lenovo unveils new laptops powered by Intel's Core Ultra Series 2, AMD Ryzen AI 300, and Qualcomm Snapdragon.
- ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 and Yoga Slim 7i feature Aura Edition series with unique smart modes.
- Lenovo introduces Snapdragon X Plus 8-core laptops to bring Windows on Arm performance to lower price tiers.
At any given trade show, Lenovo seems to have the biggest offering, but at IFA 2024, it seems to be even bigger. The firm has new laptops powered by Intel's Core Ultra Series 2, AMD Ryzen AI 300, and Qualcomm Snapdragon. From a si licon perspective, it's the most diverse range of laptops we've ever seen from Lenovo.
While the AMD and Qualcomm products are mostly refreshes, the Intel ones stand out above the rest.
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 and Yoga Slim 7i (2024)
It's all about Aura Edition
The products are a mouthful to say, but both the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 and Yoga Slim 7i have "Aura Edition" attached to the end. Aura Edition is a new series of laptops co-developed between Intel and Lenovo, meaning you're not going to see this stuff elsewhere.
First off, we have smart modes, which there are four of.
- Attention mode lets you do things like block websites for a period of time. If you're in the habit of getting distracted and checking Facebook or Instagram, you can keep yourself from doing that.
- Wellness features will watch you and tell you to correct your posture, in case you're constantly slumping over your laptop.
- Shield mode is pretty neat. It's about security, as the name implies. It can alert you when someone is looking over your shoulder and blur your screen, and it can automatically connect to a VPN. This feature didn't work in the demo, as the drivers weren't ready.
- Finally, there's collaboration mode, which really doesn't do anything Windows Studio Effects doesn't do. It can blur your background and such.
That's not all Aura can do. You can tap your phone against the side of the screen to share photos, which is powered by Intel Unison. All of the demos showed the feature working with iPhone, but mainly because so many tools like this don't work with iOS. Android obviously works too.
As for the actual hardware, the big change is that they both include Core Ultra Series 2, which Intel previously referred to as Lunar Lake. These are the chips that are meant to beat Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite at both performance and battery life, while also packing an NPU that will support Copilot+.
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 is even lighter now, which seemed impossible at the previous 2.4 pounds. Now, it comes in at under 2.2 pounds.
New Snapdragon X Plus laptops
ThinkBook 16, IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1, and IdeaPad Slim 5x
While Intel had Lunar Lake at IFA, Qualcomm announced the new Snapdragon X Plus 8-core, bringing Windows on Arm performance to lower price tiers. The new chips are solid from a CPU perspective, but scale back significantly on the GPU.
First up is the ThinkBook 16 Gen 7. Obviously, Think is aimed at business users, so you can probably guess what Lenovo is getting at here. It's a 16-inch business laptop that supports Copilot+, but it starts at $749, which is pretty much the lowest price for a laptop that has those things.
The IdeaPad Slim 5x and 5x 2-in-1 are along the same lines, but for consumers. They have metal chassis, 14-inch OLED displays, and more. The IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1 will start at $849, and since it supports Copilot+, that also means you get at least 16GB RAM. The IdeaPad Slim 5x isn't coming to North America.
New AMD Ryzen AI 300 laptops
ThinkPad T14s, ThinkBook 16+, and IdeaPad Slim 5
On the Ryzen AI 300 end of things, we have more variants of the ThinkBook 16 and IdeaPad Slim 5, both of which aren't coming to the United States. But then, we have the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6.
This is a product that's already on the market with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100, so now we're getting the AMD variant of it. There's an Intel Core Ultra Series 2 model on the way as well.
ThinkPad T-series is sort of the hero of the bunch, if not the flagship (X1 is the flagship). It's the best-selling ThinkPad class, so while the T14s isn't quite as exciting as the X1 Carbon, it's definitely notable.
The ThinkPad T14s AMD starts at $1,699, and like everything else announced today, it's Copilot+-ready. Of course, this launches in October and Copilot+ isn't coming to AMD or Intel machines until November.