First Look: Lenovo's 2021 ThinkPads Include New X1 Titanium, X12 Detachable Models By PCMag

Hi this is john Buick at PC, mag, before CES 2021 started. Lenovo briefed us on its new ThinkPad line of laptops. Now attrition almost every year at CES is that Lenovo has a bunch of new ThinkPads, sometimes their new models, sometimes actually more often they're existing models that have been tweaked or updated with new components or new features. So this year it's a mix of both we're seeing four new models in the company's x1 family of ThinkPads: that's its premium line for business users, and they're, a mix of new models and tweaked existing models. So, given that CES is all digital this year, we're going to in a few moments turn this over to Lenovo for a short demo of the four new models. But here's a quick summary of the new ThinkPads to start us off the first one is the ThinkPad x1, titanium yoga and that one's all new Lenovo's is the thinnest thing pad that they've ever made at just over 11 millimeters thick.

That's just under half an inch thick and the big deal about this. One from a usability standpoint, apart from the thinness, is the screen. The screen has a three to two aspect ratios. Those of you who are familiar with the Microsoft Surface line of laptops might be familiar with three to two: it's a squarer taller screen type, which is good for looking at web pages or large documents and seeing more vertically of the content. So some folks may prefer that so in terms of other new models, there are two that are revisions of existing ones: the ThinkPad x1 carbon gen 9 and the x1 yoga gen 6.

Now those have been redesigned to accept a taller screen as well. In this case, they're 16 by 10, that's slightly less tall than a 3x2. Now we're seeing uh tall screens like these, not only in the surface laptop like I mentioned, but in some uh key models and some other vendors lines as well. It's becoming a trend like dell's, XPS and hp specter, so the tall screen is definitely a 20 21 things that we're going to be seeing more and more of so also new on the x1 carbon gen, 9 and x1 yoga gen 6 is another 2021 thing, which is better video conferencing capabilities and in this case that's both the speakers and the microphones which have been enhanced for video calling, since we are largely doing uh remote video calling and meetings for much of our days. If we are working remotely the last new ThinkPad is the ThinkPad x12 detachable.

Now that's sort of a Microsoft Surface pro tablet with a detachable keyboard design. The big deal about this one is that it has a ThinkPad keyboard and I say that because anyone who's typed in a ThinkPad keyboard likely knows the difference between a ThinkPad keyboard and a lot of other manufacturers, keyboards comfortable to type on, usually with good key travel. So this model has pen input, options and manageability that you'd expect from a ThinkPad, but I think that the key thing here will be well the keys so with that um. Let's turn this over to Lenovo um and Kevin beck at Lenovo he's going to give us a demo of the four new models which will all be available in January or February of this year. I'm going to take you through the four ThinkPad announcements that we've got for CES 2021, and I'm going to start with what might be my favorite new ThinkPad.

This is the ThinkPad x1 titanium and, as I mentioned, built from the ground up authentic titanium material cover. That's what lets us get so incredibly thin and light. If you take a look here, this is 11.5 millimeters, incredibly thin, two thunderbolt four ports here, power button, headphone jack and security lock slot there. But let's go ahead and open this up and give you a look so, as I mentioned front facing Dolby Atmos speakers also available with Dolby Vision, screens the HPD and for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to play with a human presence detection. It really is them two me the ideal user experience I can leave the system sitting in the house anywhere not plugged in.

I walk up turns on automatically windows. Hello logs me in by face, and I'm ready to go when I walk away. It locks the system, convenient, secure and just absolutely rounds out the technology package in the new ThinkPad x1, titanium again, the thinnest convertible notebook that we convertible ThinkPad that we have ever made as Lenovo. Next up, I'm going to talk a bit about the new ThinkPad x1 carbon um. The changes on the ThinkPad x1 carbon are not immediately apparent from the outside, but once I open it up, you can really see that one we've completely redesigned the hinge which you can see and the cooling which you cannot.

It may be a little counter-intuitive, but having two medium-sized fans here and here actually provides us with or gives us the opportunity gives us the capacity to move even more air than one really large fan, and we've switched both the x1 carbon and the x1 yoga this year for rear exhaust, so whether you're, right-handed or left-handed, no matter which side you use the mouse or put your hand on you're not going to have hot air blowing on you on both the carbon and yoga. For this year. We've moved the fingerprint reader to the power button and on the yoga, the x1 yoga version moved the power button to from the side to the top new wider touchpads on both and again four speakers, Dolby Atmos, sound system and, as I mentioned in the earlier chat on both the x1 carbon and the x1 yoga, we've got four top facing external microphones that give you 360 degree pickup and with the new Dolby voice. They monitor the room. They actually can pick up.

What's on the left, what's on the right and transmit that information back to the other end of another Dolby voice enabled device to give you that that full room space that person is here that person is there, it's really a game-changing experience for video conferencing, just a quick look again at the ports. Here, we've got lock slots USA sim card both of these products and many of the others, are supporting full embedded ENIM this year. This is for legacy sims, but you don't necessarily need it anymore, uh headphone jack, as well as two thunderbolt four ports, the USA and the HDMI, a full range of ports in a sub 15. Millimeter package really amazes me. Sometimes what our engineer managed to do.

This is the new x1 yoga for this year. Many things, as I have mentioned in common with the x1 carbon, the four top facing 360 degree microphones for that Dolby voice, enablement, moving the power button to the top, integrating the fingerprint reader with the power button, the larger touchpad. I mean all of these things are individual specs. But when you think about when we, I should say think about how our users interact with these um, the total package here of the Dolby voice, the great microphones, the great speakers, the wider touchpad, the improved thing, it's all about the user experience, and I'm already personally really excited to move into one of these uh similar arrangement of ports on the x1 yoga. For this year, two thunderbolt 4 ports USB a HDMI.

The new rear-facing exhaust, like I mentioned, uh, discussed on the x1 carbon headphone, jack USB-C and security, lock slot round out the assemblage of ports on the x1 yoga for this year and last up, I want to show you the new ThinkPad x12 detachable. I said, we've got a lot of customers who love the yoga convertible two in one form, factor uh, but also a lot of customers who prefer the more classic detachable convertible option of uh of a tablet with a detachable keyboard, and that is the audience for whom the x12 detachable is meant. So this is a new product for us 12 and a half inch screen also available with Dolby Vision. But the key things here are the tablet, uh usage models and the way that we've enabled that this, of course, like all of our other models, has a camera privacy, shutter uh and a new Lenovo pin, that is the primary pin meant to be used on both the x12 detachable and the x1 titanium yoga. This magnetically attaches on the side of the system so that you don't use it, or you can tuck it in here and show you how the keyboard detaches this is a standard set of Pogo pins with a really well aligned magnetic attachment system that I don't even have to think about two options here flat on the keyboard or pulled up like that, and, of course, of supreme importance for us and our classic ThinkPad feel of typing on the system with the uh with the track point.

So I will take you around the product here to see the ports lock. Slot volume exhaust got the power button here. The air intake two thunderbolt 4 port sim slots and the headphone jack um. So there you go folks, four new think pads in the line for us from in from us for the year of 2021, some great improvements and some really cool user-facing technology. That's specifically meant to enhance the experience to make video conferencing better and to make everything easier to use.

Source : PCMag