What you need to know
- Qualcomm recently revealed a new 8-core Snapdragon X Plus to sit at the bottom of the new ARM chipset range, leading to more affordable devices.
- Lenovo has announced three new Windows laptops rocking the new chip, all coming in at well below $1,000 thanks to the Snapdragon X Plus.
- Two 14-inch IdeaPads are aimed at consumers, with the USA-bound 2-in-1 looking awesome and coming in at $849.
- The most affordable of the lineup is surprisingly the one aimed at businesses, with a 16-inch ThinkBook expected to retail for just $749.
The Snapdragon X series of chips from Qualcomm has led to a new generation of thin-and-light Windows laptops, but none have properly shot below the $1,000 barrier that many people shop under. Now, a new 8-core version of the Snapdragon X Plus is here to drive down costs without sacrificing battery life or quality-of-life features, and Lenovo is one of the first companies to unveil laptops rocking the new System-on-Chip (SoC).
Lenovo has taken the wraps off three new Windows on ARM devices, all coming in at around $900 or less. Two IdeaPads take after my personal favorite laptop, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (Gen 9), but do so in a much more affordable package. There’s also a new ThinkBook, targeted at small businesses with improved security and remote management features; surprisingly, this also happens to be the most affordable laptop in the new Snapdragon X Plus lineup.
Here’s everything you need to know about all three devices.
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Two IdeaPads to bring Snapdragon X prices down
Lenovo IdeaPad 5x 14 2-in-1- (Gen 9)
• Price: From $849 at Lenovo
• Display: 14-inch OLED, 16:10 aspect ratio, FHD+ (1,920 x 1,800) resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, 400nits max brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, multitouch & stylus support
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 (8 cores, up to 3.4GHz)
• GPU: Qualcomm Adreno
• NPU: Qualcomm Hexagon (Up to 45 TOPS)
• RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X
• Storage: Up to 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD
• Dimensions: 313 x 227 x ~17.5mm (2.3 x 8.94 x ~0.69in)
• Weight: 1.5kg (3.31lbs)
The first Snapdragon X Plus-powered device announced by Lenovo during IFA 2024 I want to cover is the IdeaPad 5x 14 2-in-1. As the name implies, this is a lower mid-range, 14-inch 2-in-1 convertible laptop that aims to balance features and cost. It’s relatively thin and light at around 17.5mm and 3.31lbs, boasts a bright and color accurate OLED display, and relies on the new 8-core ARM processor to power its Copilot+ PC experience.
You get MIL-STD-810H military durability certification for extra peace of mind, a fingerprint sensor for biometric authentication, future-proofed wireless connectivity with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, and a respectable selection of ports with two USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports with DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery, two USB Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, a microSD card slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
This is also a versatile design, with a 360-degrees hinge and a full multitouch display with active stylus support. It’s certainly not the most attractive laptop to come out of Lenovo, but it seems to be very well-rounded considering its pricing. The Lenovo IdeaPad 5x 14 2-in-1 (Gen 9) is expected to launch worldwide at some point during Oct. 2024, with a starting price of $849. It’s not clear what kind of configuration options buyers will have, but I’d guess that most models will be almost entirely identical apart from storage amount.
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x 14 (Gen 9)
• Price: From €899 at Lenovo
• Display: 14-inch OLED, 16:10 aspect ratio, FHD+ (1,920 x 1,800) resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, 400nits max brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 (8 cores, up to 3.4GHz)
• GPU: Qualcomm Adreno
• NPU: Qualcomm Hexagon (Up to 45 TOPS)
• RAM: Up to 32GB LPDDR5X
• Storage: Up to 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen 4.0
• Dimensions: 312 x 221 x ~16.9mm (12.3 x 8.7 x ~0.67in)
• Weight: 1.48kg (3.26lbs)
Perhaps the closest we’re getting to a more affordable Yoga Slim 7x is the IdeaPad Slim 5x, which shares many similarities with the IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1 detailed above. It’s the same Snapdragon X Plus chipset, the same 14-inch OLED display (but without the 2-in-1 features), the same port selection, the same MIL-STD-810H durability standard, the same wireless connectivity, and the same overall design language. However, this laptop can be specced a little higher with more RAM and is both lighter and thinner than its 2-in-1 counterpart.
I personally prefer the design of this laptop, however, which seems slicker and smoother on top of having a lovely blue-grey colorway option. Like all of the laptops showcased in this article, it’s also an AI PC, taking advantage of the capable Neural Processing Unit (NPU) inside the Snapdragon X Plus to power the growing number of AI features in Windows 11 and Lenovo’s own software suite.
The biggest con with the IdeaPad Slim 5x is simply that it won’t be readily available for purchase in North America. This laptop is exclusive to the EMEA market (Europe, Middle East, and Asia) with an estimated retail price of €899, and should become available later this month.
An enterprise-focused laptop for less than $800
Lenovo ThinkBook 16 (Gen 7)
• Price: From $749 at Lenovo
• Display: 16-inch IPS LCD, 16:10 aspect ratio, 2.5K resolution, 350nits max brightness, 100% sRGB color gamut
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 (8 cores, up to 3.4GHz)
• GPU: Qualcomm Adreno
• NPU: Qualcomm Hexagon (Up to 45 TOPS)
• RAM: Up to 32GB LPDDR5X @ 8,448MT/s
• Storage: Up to 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD
• Dimensions: 356.4 x 248.4 x 16.7mm (14 x 9.8 x 0.66in)
• Weight: 1.82kg (4.02lbs)
Perhaps the most boring part of Lenovo’s new Snapdragon X Plus lineup for consumers but the most exciting element for Lenovo’s most lucrative customers (enterprise) is the Lenovo ThinkBook 16 (Gen 7). This is a large, 16-inch laptop with a suite of hardware and software security and remote management features, including Microsoft Pluton, an enhanced CPU-to-cloud security processor embedded in the Snapdragon X Plus and Windows 11 Pro by default.
That Snapdragon X Plus is met by up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage, a durable design less than 17mm thick, and a positively massive 84Whr battery that should translate to extremely long-lasting endurance. The most shocking tidbit, however, is that the Lenovo ThinkBook 16 will retail from only $749 when it arrives at some point in Oct. 2024, which is surprisingly affordable for an enterprise-focused laptop with upgraded hardware security.
This isn’t the most premium or advanced business-grade laptop, of course, but it should still be incredibly enticing for small businesses and companies looking to equip large fleets of employees with dependable, no-fuss laptops. One area where the ThinkBook 16 is likely cutting costs is with the display, an IPS LCD panel that caps out at 350nits of brightness, but overall this laptop seems like an excellent deal, at least on paper.
More affordable alternatives to my favorite laptop
AMD may now have its Ryzen AI 300-series mobile CPUs and Intel just unveiled its Core Ultra (Series 2) Lunar Lake chips, but it’s Qualcomm that truly kicked off the “AI revolution” in Windows PCs right now, thanks to its next-gen Snapdragon X series SoCs. We’re still nowhere close to seeing how these ARM chips will evolve in the future, but we’re at least finally seeing them trickle down to more affordable PCs.
How much performance will you be sacrificing with the 8-core Snapdragon X Plus versus its 10-core sibling? We’ll have to wait to get our hands on these new devices and do some thorough testing to be sure, but Qualcomm does seem to be confident. Either way, it’s great to see laptops below the $1,000 mark continue to get better and better over time, with all three of the laptops Lenovo announced today having their own merits.
I’ll probably still prefer the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, but you’d expect that considering it costs $3-400 more than all the other laptops on this list.
