Even at the cost of sounding cliched, I need to say that Lenovo has once again turned in a good business laptop in the form of ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 (Gen 9). Lenovo has made a few meaningful tweaks, but otherwise, it’s the same ThinkPad excellence we’ve come to expect.
For a laptop to be a hit among the business folks there needs to be enough ports to plug into a meeting-room TV or handle the needs of clients who still have an older, USB-A thumb drive and there has to be good battery life. The 2-in-1 360-degree convertible ultrabook checks most of the boxes for a business laptop. What’s new for 2024? The processor can handle some AI tasks… but there is more.
The keyboard is well-designed and comes with the iconic TrackPoint
Display eye-candy with SIM slot
The traditional image of a business laptop being heavy gets shattered by this Windows machine. There are comparisons with the MacBook but I am sure Apple users will stick to the devices they already have. Where the Lenovo machine differs is that it’s a far better Windows machine than what you usually end up with. It’s a convertible laptop that packs an Intel Core Ultra 7 U series processor and has one of Lenovo’s best-in-class keyboards and a strong set of speakers.
This is a touchscreen laptop because it’s a convertible. There are a few display options but the one we have for review is a 14-inch OLED variant. It means you get the deepest of blacks. Side by side with an LCD laptop, an OLED display is brighter and the colours are deeper.
The other shining feature involves the speakers. Most Windows laptops have speakers at the bottom. When kept on a bed or sofa, the audio gets somewhat muffled. Here, the speakers are hidden under the keyboard. Even when placed on the bed, the audio is crystal clear. Perhaps the only flaw with the display is the refresh rate — 60Hz is normal for a business laptop but 90Hz would have been better. Purchasing an OLED version is like purchasing eye candy and can be justified when you do video-related work.
There is an option to use a SIM card for net connectivity
What puts the laptop in a league of its own is the SIM card slot. Setting it up is simple: Insert a SIM card; at once, your laptop will be ready for use, without the need for Wi-Fi. If you don’t have a physical SIM card, there is the option to activate an eSIM to get the job done. This has been done to ensure professional users are always connected.
On a ThinkPad you can expect a reasonable amount of ports. You are not limited to Thunderbolt 4… of which you get two. You also get two USB-A ports and one HDMI 2.1, besides a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Yes to stylus and TrackPoint
The machine is thin and light, weighing around 1.3kg. Even though this is a slim option, there is good key travel and the keys are tactile. The keys are, of course, ergonomically shaped to help you keep your finger centred. The trackpad too is interesting because there are physical buttons. Personally, I am not a fan of physical buttons around the trackpad but this is a laptop with the famous TrackPoint, so all of these work together. The advantage of having the TrackPoint is clear when you connect the laptop to a TV as navigation becomes easier.
This is a 2-in-1 laptop, so it has a touch screen and a 360-degree hinge that lets you rotate the laptop into a variety of shapes
The dedicated Co-pilot key is missing on this Windows machine, instead you get a fingerprint scanner but all the Co-pilot features are there for you on board. Also, we have a little bit of a redesign. Some of you are going to be unhappy about this, some of you might be happy about it. There’s no silo for stylus, which now magnetically attaches to the right side of the frame. But you do get a bigger pen. So not as much as the toothpick kind of experience; that part is nice but you need to keep track of the stylus. It attaches magnetically but it may get knocked around inside your bag and it charges via USB-C.
Enough power under the hood
The review unit comes with Intel Core Ultra 7 165U processor with a total of 12 cores. There are eight efficiency cores to handle low-power tasks, like writing a document, two performance cores for heavier tasks, like video rendering and photo editing, and two NPU cores to handle AI-related tasks. All of these need to be seen with 32GB of DDR5 RAM to ensure zero lag.
Unlike other Windows edition laptops that come with the home edition of Windows, here you get Windows 11 Pro, which has more security features like BitLocker.
If you intend on winding down after work with some games, the machine is snappy with less demanding games and graphics performance remains stable both under prolonged load and in battery mode.
If rendering a 4K file on Premiere Pro is on your mind, the laptop can do that. But don’t expect extraordinary performance with games. Lenovo never designed the machine to be a speed demon, rather it’s tuned to handle business applications very well. Its hardware is optimised for long battery life and power efficiency.
Should you buy it?
You get the usual 1080p webcam ideal for video calls but the two additional AI cores help with features like background blur and automatic framing. There is also the option to set the brightness and contrast during video calls. One more? Privacy Guard. If you are working on the laptop and someone sneaks in behind you, the entire display gets blurred. But to get the feature working, have the laptop plugged in.
The battery life on the laptop was decent. Keeping the brightness at 60 per cent while doing regular stuff like typing documents and browsing, you will get around seven hours of screen-on time. Having a 65W charger, with rapid charge technology, you can juice up to 80 per cent in around one hour. Competitors achieve better values in the battery department but it’s not bad at all.
The hinges are quite strong and there is almost no wobble when you place the laptop on a table
The review unit is not a traditional matte black ThinkPad; it’s grey. The nice thing about it is that it doesn’t show fingerprints too much. It is built with magnesium alloy and aluminium. As usual, one of the things with a ThinkPad is you are paying for durability factor. You will end up making dents on a wooden floor rather than damaging the laptop. The usual ruggedness is there.
The ThinkPad doesn’t ship with crapware and it has enough tweaks it needs to stay ahead in the Windows laptop market.
At a glance
Device: ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 (Gen 9)
Price: ₹189,200
High notes
Flexible 2-in-1 functionality
Good keyboard and smooth trackpad
Great overall port selection for business users
Excellent build quality
Powerful speakers
Muffled notes
No silo for stylus
Good battery life but could have been better
Display could have had a higher frame rate other than 60Hz
