With its black matte end and signature crimson TrackPoint pointing stick in the course of the keyboard, Lenovo’s ThinkPad collection has lengthy been essentially the most distinctive corporate laptop. However to some eyes, that distinctiveness appears old school, so the corporate gave it a extra modern look with the ThinkPad X9.
The ThinkPad X9 has a brushed metallic aluminum case within the “Luna Gray” shade that the corporate additionally provides on its X1 2-in-1 series, with a extra commonplace keyboard and a big haptic touchpad. It is available in 14- and 15-inch variations, and I examined the 14-inch one. Measuring 12.28 by 8.36 by 0.26-0.68 inches, it is barely smaller and thicker than the present ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 13). At 2.84 kilos (3.34 kilos with the included small 65-watt charger), it is a bit heavier than the X1 Carbon (which weighs simply 2.17 kilos by itself) or the lightest choices from Dell or HP, however nonetheless loads mild and simple to hold.
One distinctive characteristic is the “Engine Hub,” a bar on the underside cowl of the laptop computer. This incorporates some essential parts and ports. The X9 has a USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 port rated at 40Gbps and an HDMI port on the left, and a second USB-C/Thunderbolt port and an audio jack on the suitable. Whereas I am glad to see USB-C on either side, which makes for easier charging, I do miss having a USB-A port, which many of the high business laptops have.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The keyboard does look extra fashionable, and it is good to have the ability button moved to the keyboard as a substitute of the facet of the machine (as on the X1 Carbon), the place it is much less more likely to be by chance pressed. The keyboard has 1.35mm of journey and was straightforward to kind on. It has a haptic touchpad that measures 80-by-130mm, in contrast with the 120mm trackpad on the X1 Carbon, bringing it as much as the scale utilized in aggressive notebooks.
As with different current ThinkPads, a bar on the highest of the display screen holds the digital camera. The X9 has an 8MP UHD sensor, which I discovered was fairly good if not fairly one of the best I’ve seen. It has stereo audio system and a dual-microphone array, and it labored fairly effectively in video-conferencing calls.
The unit I examined had a 2,880-by-1,800 OLED contact display screen with 500 nits of brightness, and it regarded nice. As at all times, I like having a contact display screen; I simply discover it typically handy. (Since I reviewed the X1 Carbon, Lenovo has made a touch-screen mannequin out there.)
Just like the X1 Carbon, that is an “Aura Version,” that means it comes with AI software program designed particularly for Intel processors.
The spotlight is Good Modes, that are a set of choices inside Lenovo’s Industrial Vantage software program, designed to do issues like set Energy optimization, warn you or blur your display screen when somebody is wanting over your shoulder, silence notifications, and remind you to take a break. These are good, although not notably uncommon. (The Lenovo Industrial Vantage software program continues to produce other options, together with firmware updates, particulars in regards to the gadget, and administration instruments for the show and energy.)
Different options embody Good Care, a cellphone app that connects you with assist, together with how-to movies, and Good Share, a model of Intel’s Unison software program for simply letting you switch pictures between the machine and your cellphone.
Placing the X9 to the Take a look at
The model of the X9 I examined ran on Intel’s Core Extremely 5 226V (Lunar Lake) processor, with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. This processor has 4 efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores, runs at a base frequency of two.1GHz, with turbo speeds as much as 4.5GHz, requires 17 to 35 watts of energy, has 8MB of cache, Intel Arc Graphics 130V with eight Xe cores, and a NPU that Intel charges at 40 Int8 TOPS. It helps a most of 16GB.
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In distinction, the Extremely 7 258V I examined within the X1 Carbon has a base frequency of two.2GHz, with turbo speeds as much as 4.8GHz, 12MB of cache, Intel Arc Graphics 140V with 8 Xe cores, and an NPU that Intel charges at 47 Int8 TOPS. It helps 32GB of reminiscence. The processor within the unit I examined doesn’t have vPro assist, however a higher-end model with a Core Extremely 7 268V with vPro assist is obtainable.
Seemingly on account of the step-down in processor, the X9 scored barely worse than the X1 in all the essential benchmarks, though the distinction is not sufficient that I observed it in day-to-day use. In testing quite a lot of Lunar Lake programs, they have a tendency to outperform final 12 months’s Meteor Lake-based programs at most issues, though programs with AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX375, generally known as Strix Level, are inclined to do higher on graphics exams utilizing a number of cores. However for nearly all typical duties, all of at this time’s programs appear to run them fairly effectively.
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On AI exams, it truly was barely quicker than the X1 Carbon or the Dell Professional 14 Premium on Procyon’s AI Inferencing exams, however barely slower when working an area model of Llama 3.1 8B.
On my harder exams, working a big mannequin in MatLab took underneath 25.5 minutes on X9 in contrast with 25 on the X1 Carbon. Each instances are higher than the 36 minutes on the Strix Level one and over 30 on final 12 months’s Intel programs. It completed an enormous Excel mannequin with loads of information tables in 41 minutes, slower than the 34 minutes it took on the X1 Carbon, however nonetheless aggressive in contrast with different programs. Transcoding a video in Handbrake took an hour and 45 minutes, in contrast with 40 minutes on the X1; as I discussed in my overview of the Dell Pro Premium, generally Handbrake simply takes a very long time to run.
The X9 has a 55-watt-hour battery (versus a 57-watt-hour one on the X1), and battery life remained good. On PCMark’s 10’s Trendy Workplace, I used to be in a position to run the brand new system for 19 hours and 10 minutes at 40 nits, and 17 hours and quarter-hour at 100 nits. That is higher than the numbers I noticed on the X1 Carbon, though not so good as I noticed on the Dell Professional Premium, which had scores of over 30 hours. In observe, I had no hassle utilizing it on battery energy all day in all my traditional duties.
A mannequin with related specs to the one I examined (with the Extremely 5 226 V processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and a pair of.8K OLED show) sells for $1,444.42 on Lenovo’s web site as I take a look at this, notably lower than the X1 Carbon and a bit lower than equally configured high-end enterprise laptops from the opposite distributors.
General, the ThinkPad X9 is a stable light-weight laptop computer with lots of the traditional ThinkPad options (although with a bit extra weight and the lack of the pointing stick) and this 12 months’s complement of AI options. It is effectively constructed, straightforward to service, and a very good performer.
About Michael J. Miller
Former Editor in Chief
