Lenovo’s latest ThinkPad series laptops feature a stylish chassis, stellar display, and improved performance. We review the new ThinkPad X9 15 Aura Edition, and here are our thoughts about the laptop.
Design
While the new ThinkPad X9 Aura is designed for mid-sized business professionals, the laptop comes with a thin and stylish design, featuring a dimension of 6.75mm x 339.55mm x 228.5mm, and weighs about 1.4kg. The display is a stunning 15.3-inch OLED anti-reflective panel with a screen resolution of 2880 x 1800, along with 500 nits of brightness and a 120Hz refresh rate.
There is also a camera island that protrudes above the top screen bezel, which, in turn, helps users to open the lid easily. The front camera houses a 4K capable 8MP sensor with support for IR. The camera system also features an e-shutter for privacy.
The backlit keyboard features white-colored LED lighting, and the glass haptic touchpad is large in size.
The keyboard comes with 1.35mm of key travel, and the keycaps have a distinctive design, as compared to the usual smile-based keycaps found on older Lenovo laptops. The keyboard is pleasant to type with, and I got used to the layout in a short time.
For the connectivity options, we have a USB-A port with support for 10 Gbps speeds on the right side, along with a headphone/mic jack, and one USB-C port with support for Thunderbolt 4 connectivity and 40Gbps speeds. On the left, you have a full-size HDMI 2.1 port with support for 4K 60Hz video output, along with another USB-C port with Thunderbolt 4 support.
The main chassis and the outer lid of the laptop feature Thunder Grey color. There is the ThinkPad logo and its red LED indicator on the outer right corner of the lid. We can also see the “X9” engraving on the top side of the lid.
The bottom panel also comes in the same color as the main chassis, featuring two long rubber feet and separate air vents for intake and exhaust. The laptop also comes with four Dolby Atmos speakers. As part of the packaging, you get the ThinkPad X9 15 Aura laptop, a 65W USB-C GaN AC adapter, and a quick start guide.
Lenovo also mentions that the laptop comes with 50% recycled aluminum on the top and bottom covers, as well as on the keyboard frame. The speaker enclosures come with 90% PCC recycled plastic. The battery comes with 100% recycled cobalt. The power adapter is made of 90% PCC recycled plastic, and more. The packaging is made of bamboo and sugarcane. We should also mention that the laptop also carries the MIL-STD-810H certification for durability.
Performance
Lenovo has equipped the ThinkPad X9 laptop with the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 2 8-core processor, along with 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD with Windows 11 Pro. The laptop performed well while we used it for different editorial and office purposes, thanks to the snappy SSD, the high-capacity RAM, and the fast processor. The processor also features the Intel Arc Xe iGPU with 67 TOPS of performance.
We ran some benchmarks, such as Geekbench 6.4 for both CPU and GPU. For CPU, we got 2470 points for single-core and 10810 for multi-core. For GPU, we ran both OpenCL and Vulkan benchmarks, achieving scores of 29577 and 33260 points, respectively.
We also ran Cinebench 2024 CPU and PCMark10 tests on the laptop. Check out the scores below.
The laptop houses an 80 Whr battery that can last for half a day, depending on the type of usage. The device also features Rapid Charge capability with the 65W charger, where you can achieve 80% charge within one hour. As far as wireless connectivity goes the laptop comes with Intel WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.
Verdict
If you are in the lookout for a good business-grade laptop that packs both the style and performance, then consider the new Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura 15 laptop. The 15.3-inch OLED display is great with 2880 x 1800 as the screen resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. The laptop comes with a thin design profile and weighs only 1.4kg. The keyboard is great to type on, and the glass touchpad has enough room for a great page scrolling experience.
The laptop is powered by Intel’s Core Ultra 7 Series 2 processor, along with 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD with Windows 11 Pro. The performance is great for most office-based workloads. The device also comes with WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity. And there is also the 80 Whr battery with support for Rapid Charge that can achieve 80% charge within 60 minutes.
