Lenovo’s latest Windows laptops seek to simplify the PC computing world by letting you do more in a single click. In its quest to make the best laptop, Lenovo’s rolled out new Aura Edition notebooks that will make it easier to enable all of the right settings in the often-dense world of Windows 11.
Right now, Lenovo’s got preorders up for one of its Aura Edition notebooks, and the company’s offered a little something extra to grab your attention. We got the first look at its new concept laptop, with a screen follows your eyes, twisting left and right and moving up and down.
This 15-inch laptop packs the new experience-optimizing Smart Modes, and Smart Share for easy image transfer with iPhones and Androids.
Lenovo Aura Edition laptops look to fix Windows
Windows 11 is full of features. The only problem is there’s too many of them to quickly navigate, throwing users into a maze that’s full of details and difficult to navigate without expert guidance. Lenovo’s new Aura Edition laptops — which are the result of a multi-year collaboration with Intel — look to solve this frustration with new Smart Modes that offer one-click access to sets of options you may not have known how to activate..
I’m more excited about Attention mode, which is Do Not Disturb on steroids, adding the ability to stop yourself from looking at distracting websites for specified intervals of time. There’s also Shield, which activates two of Lenovo’s tools to stop people from stealing glances at your screen while launching your VPN whenever you connect to public Wi-Fi. Live in Zoom rooms? Collaboration mode optimizes performance for video and blurs your background. Lastly, I’m sure we all need to try Wellness mode, which seeks to improve our posture and reduce eye fatigue.
Smart Modes aren’t the only Aura Edition perks, though. Smart Share allows for easier cross-device image sharing for both iPhones and Android devices. In our presentation time, I actually saw someone drag and drop images from an iPhone onto a PC laptop, edit the images and send them back to the Apple-made handset. What’s next, Cowboys and Giants fans tailgating in harmony?
Lastly, there’s Smart Care, the latest endeavor toward streamlining all the various forms of online support, including a chatbot and premium (read: paid) help from a real expert on the other end of the screen. In my many years of reviewing laptops, I’ve seen seemingly every company try to gussy up the customer support experience, but none have truly hit the nail on the head.
Lenovo’s got two laptops with these features, and the more affordable of the two is the $1,299 Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition. Specs-wise, it’s mostly on par with what we look for, packing a 15-inch 2.8K (2880 x 1800) display with optional OLED upgrade, an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and a strong set of ports that includes dual Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, USB-A, HDMI and a headphone jack.
There’s also the $1,999 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition, which is a shockingly light 2.16-pound notebook that had me “ooh” when I held it in my own hands. Under the hood, it’s got the better specs, with a beefier Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, a 2.8K OLED display by default and the iconic red TrackPoint navigational pointer that ThinkPad fans demand. It packs all the same ports as the Slim 7i, plus an extra USB-A port.
Both Aura Editions can be customized with up to 32GB of memory; the Yoga Slim 7i can have up to 1TB of storage and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 will top out at twice as much. The Yoga Slim 7i has an expected release date for later this month, while the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is due in November.
Lenovo’s latest 2-in-1 packs a great OLED display
When I was done gawking at the Aura Edition features, I looked around the sea of Lenovo laptops to see what they offered users with slightly less cash to invest in their next laptop. That’s when I noticed the OLED panel in the new 14-inch IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1, a convertible that’s on track for an October 2024 release date window. This notebook starts at $849, and I loved how bright and accurate the bold greens and oranges of pop band Charly Bliss’ latest music video looked on its panel.
Unlike the Aura Edition laptops, this is an ARM-based Windows notebook running on a new Snapdragon X Plus processor, which makes us optimistic about its battery life. Its other specs all look up to snuff, with 16GB of memory, up to 1TB of SSD storage and pairs of USB-C and USB-A ports, plus HDMI and headphone jacks. It won’t compete with the best tablets, but it should be enough for people who want a laptop and are OK with a slightly heavier slate.
Lenovo’s Twist concept is a laptop that swerves when you move
After I saw those laptops (and many more that won’t be coming to the US), I was treated to a little show with the Lenovo Auto Twist AI PC demonstration. After uttering simple verbal commands that began with “Hi Twist,” the laptop’s lid did everything from an odd little spin to actually following my face left and right as I moved around the room. While you might think this feature is a bit gimmicky, I’ll argue that this is overdue. Everyone from folks cooking and following a recipe to content creators filming video could take advantage of this trick.
It’s also got other verbal commands, so you can close, open and rotate the screen into tablet mode, with the screen both face-up and against the keyboard. This concept laptop isn’t in Lenovo’s scheduled pipeline for releases; the company simply loves to test the waters by showing the press little glimpses. And who knows? If enough people respond positively, Lenovo might actually move this tech into production. It’s the latest peek into the company’s conceptual vision of the future of computing (which previously included a transparent laptop screen).
The takeaway
Lenovo’s twisting tech may be far from release, but the Aura Edition laptops give me a sense of actual excitement — something that doesn’t happen often with Windows devices these days. Part of that comes from the fact that the company is finding new ways to improve PCs instead of pushing the generative AI content that’s sprinkled throughout most tech launches these days. Instead, the company’s announcements noted that its devices are “AI-ready,” “AI-capable” and “AI-enhanced.” If only more companies followed suit.
Stay tuned for our full reviews of these laptops, as Underscored continues to follow the wild world of Windows 11. If you want a new laptop right now, we recommend the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, an ARM-powered laptop that shows the company can hit it right out of the ballpark with surprising battery life.