Lenovo's 10th-generation ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Aura Edition is simply a business-minded laptop with a fewer plan perks to differentiate it from the crowd. We're talking a convertible signifier factor, pen support, ample I/O, and fantastic artillery beingness to punctuate its individuality arsenic a portable instrumentality for the office.
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The Aura Edition moniker comes from its Intel Core Ultra 5 oregon 7 Lunar Lake processor connected board, and the halfway constituent down its businesslike artillery life. Almost each of the Lunar Lake devices we've tested implicit the past twelvemonth present awesome longevity, and the ThinkPad X1 is nary exception.
This makes it a reliable laptop for communal bureau tasks: booting up immediately, casual multitasking, and jumping betwixt a twelve oregon much browser tabs, each loaded with spreadsheets and documents. However, the starting terms of $2,400 places it successful a premium class that won't triumph implicit everyone.
As with immoderate ThinkPad, aggregate configurations are disposable astatine the constituent of sale, ranging from 16GB to 32GB of RAM paired with the Intel Core Ultra 5 226V, Core Ultra 7 258V, oregon Core Ultra 7 268V Pro. Notably, its PCIe Gen4 SSD lone comes with up to 512GB of storage.
The processor powers Intel's AI Boost with up to 47 TOPS, and pairs with the Intel Arc GPU connected Xe2 architecture. The "Aura Edition" besides includes a fistful of Intel-specific bundle that I've touched on, and similar immoderate proprietary software, volition beryllium utile for immoderate consumers and mostly ignored by others.
One of the astir utile features of the Aura Edition is Smart Share, powered by the Intel Unison app, which provides a user-friendly mode to "Airdrop" files and images from your smartphone to your instrumentality and vice versa. Unfortunately, Intel is discontinuing this feature successful the summertime of 2025.
It besides comes preloaded with Lenovo's "AI Now", an AI-powered adjunct with a section chat option, unreality chat, and PC assistant. The unreality chat connects to an online LLM that provides immoderate limited, if acceptable responses. But the section chat and PC adjunct features did not enactment for adjacent the simplest requests. Note that it's inactive successful Beta.
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Moving to the laptop's carnal build, it stays existent to the classical ThinkPad plan with the triple-button trackpad and the reddish TrackPoint successful the mediate of the keyboard. The 85% PCC integrative keys are crisp and responsive, with a rough, matte texture that thoroughly defy fingerprints and are bully to benignant on. The trackpad is arsenic comfy -- with a haptic enactment -- and is utterly silent.
The talker placement nether the keyboard prevents the muffled effect that tin sometimes hap with downward-firing speakers. Since this is simply a 2-in-1, erstwhile it's successful structure form, dependable is projected outward, which is amended than speakers facing inward toward the backmost of the display, successful my opinion.
The 14-inch, matte WUXGA (1920 x 1200) show besides resists fingerprints rather good erstwhile illuminated, keeping with its nonrecreational carnal appearance. The existent crushed down this design, however, is its anti-glare abilities; a indispensable for anyone beneath the persistent fluorescent glare of overhead bureau lighting.
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It does truthful incredibly well, with astir nary disposable reflections astatine all. This, combined with the 60Hz refresh complaint and max 500nit brightness, makes for a surface that looks bully but is peculiarly power-efficient. You tin opt for an OLED connected this laptop, but doing truthful volition trim the artillery life.
On that note, let's speech astir the artillery connected this thing. Like different Lunar Lake laptops, I recovered it to person an perfectly marathon artillery life, scoring implicit 21 hours of beingness successful our video artillery trial implicit Wi-Fi astatine fractional brightness. Battery tests, similar benchmarking, are not ever typical of real-world performance, but this is an awesome number, ranking it arsenic 1 of the longest-lasting laptops I've tested.
Swapping to antithetic show profiles volition springiness you much oregon little battery, but with sustained use, demanding workloads, and aggregate video calls, you'll easy get a afloat day's worthy of enactment connected 1 charge. I took this laptop into the bureau aggregate days successful a enactment and regularly made it to astir 30-40% each day.
For videoconferencing, the 1080p webcam provides a smooth, crisp representation and includes a precise subtle carnal camera shutter astatine the apical supra the lens, a bully diagnostic for consumers who are perpetually hopping successful and retired of calls. Similarly, the mic prime is accordant and good.
The biggest drawback is the laptop's price, which puts it successful nonstop contention with proven powerhouses similar the MacBook Pro M4 oregon Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which has treble the RAM and retention capacity.
Lenovo surely succeeds successful its intent, however: a premium concern laptop with a marathon artillery and reliable, snappy bureau performance. The ThinkPad X1 Aura Edition is simply a susceptible 2-in-1 with a astute acceptable of features, but its terms puts it up against immoderate pugnacious competition.
ZDNET's buying advice
I'd urge the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Aura Edition to consumers who are already ThinkPad loyalists and privation the reliability and show of that lineup, arsenic good arsenic the fantastic artillery beingness of Lunar Lake.
If you're a hybrid idiosyncratic and privation to commute without worrying astir a charger, this is simply a fantastic choice. If you're looking for a laptop that's much geared towards originative workloads, determination are different options successful this terms bracket, similar the MacBook Air M4 oregon the HP EliteBook X G1a.