[Written in partnership with Lenovo, but the editorial team had full control over the content.]
Think commercial business laptops and you might just think ThinkPad, and for good reason.
A line of business-oriented laptops, Lenovo’s ThinkPad has been around since 1992, with its earliest models designed, created, and manufactured by International Business Machines (IBM).
Its latest iteration, the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition, powered by Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 Processor on Intel vPro®, Evo™ Edition platform builds on its reputation of being a professional powerhouse.
Lucky for us, we got up close and personal with the new laptop recently, trying out its suite of smart features that maximise productivity.
Sleek, slim, sustainable
Clocking in at a lightweight 1.21kg, the ThinkPad features a recycled aluminium build and an extremely slim bezel metal frame. Sleek and sophisticated, gone are the days of chunky work notebooks.
ThinkPad’s keyboards have always been built uniquely, but it got a facelift with the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition.
Designed with a curved lip at the bottom of each key, it’s meant for users’ fingers to fall naturally onto the keyboard. As a writer, I absolutely adored the feel of the keyboard.
The device also promotes sustainable features such as the bamboo and sugarcane packaging it comes in. Aside from that, much of the laptop also incorporates either recycled aluminium or plastic. Its battery cell is 100% recycled cobalt.
On the topic of sustainability, Lenovo also has a CO2 offsetting programme, allowing corporate clients to manage their carbon footprint via their IT fleet. The offsets are contributed to climate action projects verified by independent third party organisations.
While all these external features of the device are cool, it’s what is on the inside that matters most.
Smart modes for smarter work
Some key features of Lenovo’s Aura Edition devices is its range of smart tools.
First is the Smart Mode, which presents five tailored settings for security, collaboration, productivity, and wellness.
The wellness feature is particularly interesting, promoting digital health by encouraging regular eye breaks and fostering good ergonomics.
Admittedly, the wellness function is still a bit elusive to me, particularly when it comes to the ergonomics. I didn’t get called out for my atrocious posture, though I did see it happen for someone else.
There’s also the “Shield” mode, which is a privacy feature that auto-blurs your screen when someone is snooping behind the user.
This mode is super useful for those nomadic workers who like to bring their laptops to public spaces. You don’t have to look over your shoulder, because your laptop is now doing it for you.
Trying it out for myself, I could see that it gets activated fairly consistently, though sometimes it works just a bit too well. In those moments, you can just choose to deactivate the feature or snooze it.
The “Collaboration” mode enhances audiovisual effects with AI for richer collaboration, regardless of what platform you’re on, be that Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or anything else.
We tried having a video call to test how it automatically zooms into faces. Overall, it’s an intuitive and useful feature for those who have lots of work meetings and conference calls.
If you’re easily distracted, the “Attention” mode suppresses unwanted disruptions such as notifications. It also pulls up a timer for that extra help with time management.
Sharing and caring
Have you ever seen an iPhone user seamlessly share files on their phones to their MacBooks and vice versa and felt jealous?
Well, this Lenovo ThinkPad Aura Edition lets you do just that, whether you’re an Apple or Android user. Using the Smart Share function, you don’t have to be of the same ecosystem now to be able to easily share files—no cables required.
Testing out this Smart Share feature ourselves, we found that it was a bit finicky at first, but the connection process is relatively straightforward and after a couple of connection errors, we could start seamlessly sharing files through the Intel Unison app.
We also got to check out the Smart Care features, which offers 24/7 support for the device.
Want AI, and want it now?
Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay. We’ve heard of AI PCs ad nauseam nowadays, but Lenovo’s AI Now is actually pretty fascinating.
It’s still in beta mode, but Lenovo AI Now is essentially an AI companion that uses hybrid large models, combining your personal knowledge base and natural interaction comprehension capabilities.
It’s actually a local system, meaning it doesn’t connect to the cloud to find you answers. Rather, you can think of it as an assistant who can scrub through all your local files to answer your questions and summarise content based on your personal knowledge.
This is perfect for those who seek to protect their privacy and work data.
Testing it out, I had some challenges getting it to find files using a specific file name, though, but someone else got their laptop to summarise downloaded files.
Premium, personalised, powerfully productive
Currently, prices for the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Gen 1 Aura Edition start at around RM7,348.23.
It’s a premium price, certainly, but this commercial product truly covers the bases of being a high-performance device.
The personalised AI-accelerated features, Copilot+ integration, Lenovo AI Now, and range of smart features really solidify it as a future-proofed device. Powered by Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 Processor on Intel vPro®, Evo™ Edition platform, this device does not fall short when it comes to computing power.
Our hands-on session with the laptop was quick, but it was enough time to prove to us that the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Gen 1 Aura Edition definitely fulfills all the checkboxes you could have for a solid business laptop—and then some.
All Image Credits: Vulcan Post
