Apple and its MacBook Air have been a thorn in the side of every PC laptop maker for more than 15 years now, but they’ve also driven the competition to innovate rapidly and sometimes drastically. And we can always count on Lenovo to be at the tip of that spear, this time at CES 2025 with what looks like a legitimate x86 rival to Apple’s leading laptop.
This is the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition, available this February in 14- and 15-inch varieties starting at $1,399 and $1,549, respectively. This ultraportable from Lenovo is indeed a ThinkPad, but it appears to bridge the gap between professional and consumer laptops—prosumer, if you will—dropping the TrackPoint device in the keyboard as a telltale sign.
But it will take more than a ThinkPad without a TrackPoint to challenge the archrival of portable PCs the world over. This time, Lenovo might just have an edge: a fan-cooled design. While we’ve yet to benchmark the ThinkPad X9, I’ve been hands on with it, and the laptop’s design and implied performance advantages excite me to see how it will compare with the thin-and-light, Apple-shaped elephant in the room. See it in action above with more detail below.
The Design: Active Cooling, Aggressively Thin
How did Lenovo manage to cram a fan-cooled processor inside of a laptop that’s just 0.3 inch thick at its thinnest point? (Notably, the latest 13.6-inch MacBook Air is 0.44 inch thick.) Lenovo developed a rectangular protrusion on the laptop’s base to make room for new vapor chambers connected to two spinning fans inside, situated over the processor.
These fans draw cooler air in through slots on the front of this thin slab section and spit out hot air from identical slots in the barrel’s rear section. Lenovo calls this the laptop’s “Engine Hub,” which also houses its two Thunderbolt 4 ports (one on each side). The port selection also includes an audio jack on the laptop’s right side and a (gasp!) HDMI port, full size, on its left. (The 15-inch model adds a USB Type-A port to this mix.)
Lenovo weighs the 14-inch ThinkPad X9 at 2.66 pounds, a hair lighter than the 13.6-inch MacBook Air. (The 15-inch model is similarly just a bit lighter than Apple’s big-screen Air.)
The ThinkPad X9 feels like a rigid metal slate with a computer inside. It is undoubtedly on Apple’s level regarding quality feel, though it comes in only this “Thunder Grey” deep silver color. I especially enjoy the ribbed, book-like ridges on the bottom plate of the laptop’s case for a more secure grip.
As for the keyboard, the TrackPoint might be lost, but it was a necessary cut to appeal to Lenovo’s target audiences: Trendy freelance professionals, savvy students, or chic startup offices are likely to have an Apple laptop on their shortlists, for instance. They’re nevertheless a quality set of brightly backlit keys true to the ThinkPad name, with a surprising amount of depth in their travel and comfortable bottom ridges for guiding touch-typists.
The keyboard deck includes a fingerprint sensor in the power button for biometric logins. Otherwise, you could use the 8-megapixel webcam in the laptop’s raised module above the screen for password-free logins.
Lenovo also equipped the X9 with an oversize glass touchpad with haptic-feedback clicking, meaning the surface doesn’t move but produces tiny, targeted vibrations using motors underneath that imitate the feeling of clicking.
Finally, Lenovo went with a dazzler of a display option: an 1800p OLED touch screen with 500 nits of rated brightness, HDR 600, and a 120Hz variable refresh rate. (This display spec is the sole configuration at 15 inches.) The ThinkPad X9 starts with a still-pleasant 1200p non-touch panel with a bit less brightness, lower HDR output, and a 60Hz refresh rate.
However, both display versions produce 100% DCI-P3 color coverage and feature Eyesage certification for constant blue-light reduction. At first glance, this is definitely a competitive screen that shouldn’t be held back on battery life for its pixel density, thanks to the power-sipping Intel Core Ultra 200V processor inside.
Fan-Cooled Intel Lunar Lake: Lenovo’s Big Blow at Apple M Series
While Lenovo isn’t specific on the matter, the ThinkPad X9 laptops will feature Intel Core Ultra 200V “Lunar Lake” processors, up to Core Ultra 7, with vPro on-die security. This is Intel’s most advanced mobile AI chip yet, capable of processing 48 trillion operations per second (TOPS) when executing AI tasks. The processor also clears Microsoft’s mark for its Copilot+ PC program, which unlocks a list of AI software capabilities in Windows 11 and earns it Lenovo’s associated “Aura Edition” moniker.
Lenovo has its own Aura Edition Smart Experiences, like unique use modes that focus system resources and prioritization around concerns like security, reducing distractions, battery savings, and even physical wellness. I couldn’t test these out during my time with the laptops, but we’ll be sure to in a full review.
Back to the silicon, these Core Ultra 200V chips feature Intel's new Arc integrated graphics processor (IGP), the firm’s highest-performing IGP to date. The processors also have Wi-Fi 7 internet connectivity and Bluetooth 5.4 for device-to-device connections.
Lenovo pairs the chip with as much as 32GB of memory and as much as 2TB of solid-state storage, giving the X9 the capacity for a long lifespan through future-proofing. However, you’ll want to make at least your RAM choice wisely before checkout: While the SSD and battery are replaceable, the RAM is soldered onto the mainboard.
The company hasn’t shared any specifics regarding battery life, but we’ve seen some impressive staying power from Lunar Lake systems so far, competitive with Apple’s M-series chips in its MacBook Air.
Before making further predictions, we need to know which specific chips these ThinkPad X9 laptops will use. We at least know they will have eight CPU cores (four Performance cores and four Low-Power Efficient cores) and eight Xe GPU cores.
Apple has a similar arrangement of CPU and GPU cores for its MacBook Air laptops but with an optional 10-core integrated GPU. With this fan cooling system behind it, the Core Ultra 200V may have a fighting chance against Apple’s passive-cooled but expertly optimized silicon.
The Takeaway: Make Way, MacBook?
It’s too early to tell what the outcome will be, but Lenovo has made one of the most promising responses to Apple’s leading laptops I’ve seen in a long time. The MacBook Air casts a long shadow across the PC laptop market, inspiring laptop makers to continuously innovate to steal back some of the spotlight.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X9 laptops look poised to be a compelling alternative to the MacBook Air for the Windows faithful, a position achieved by no small amount of ingenuity and effort. However, the laptops’ current pricing already puts them at a disadvantage compared with Apple’s $1,099 starting price. Regardless, we’ll see soon enough whether Lenovo has a MacBook killer on its hands: It launches in February starting at $1,399.
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