Hands-on: Lenovo’s first Snapdragon-powered Yoga and ThinkPad laptops

Microsoft and Qualcomm are going full steam ahead in their push to bring Arm-powered Windows machines to the mainstream, and they’ve enlisted Lenovo’s help. The company is bringing introductory models from both its consumer and business lines, the Yoga Slim 7x and ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, respectively.

Our video team got some hands-on time with both of these laptops at a Lenovo presentation. Check out their initial impressions in the video below!

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6

I’m gonna start with the ThinkPad, because I like ThinkPads and I’m writing this article, so there. The T series is a staple for businesses and anyone who likes good keyboards and the signature Trackpoint (the red mouse nub thing), so it’s hardly surprising that this model can fit in with other Lenovo designs even while packing some big changes under the hood. With its standard clamshell design and unassuming branding, plus Lenovo’s more common lid flair, it has looks best described as “familiar.”

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

Inside you get a 12-core Snapdragon X Elite processor, which packs an Adreno integrated GPU and an NPU that Qualcomm rates at 45 trillions of operations per second. RAM is “up to ” 64GB of DDR5, storage is “up to” 1TB PCIe 4. Lenovo let us poke around at the new laptops and even peek under the bottom cover, where it looks like you can swap out the storage, but not memory. Hardly surprising. Ports are double USB-C and double USB-A, plus HDMI 2.1 and a headphone jack, covering a nice range for business travelers.

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

ThinkPads are often weak on the display side of things, but Lenovo is offering a nice selection here, with 14-inch 1920×1200 IPS panels in both standard and touch varieties. A premium upgrade to OLED at “2.8K” (that’s what Lenovo calls 2880×1800) is also available. Other notable hardware includes a physical camera privacy shutter, a ThinkPad staple, with infrared sensors for Windows Hello logins, fingerprint reader on the power button, and twin microphones. The laptop is surprisingly thin and light, .67 inches (16.9mm) and just 2.72 pounds (1.24kg). Thanks, Arm chips!

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

On the consumer side of things, the Yoga Slim 7x 14 Gen 9 (oof, mouthful) is slimmer (.51 inches, 23.9mm) and sleeker in just about every way, despite being slightly heavier at 2.82 pounds. It’s running on the same Snapdragon X Elite processor with up to 1TB of Gen 4 storage, though the maximum memory is cut to “just” 32GB DDR5.

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

Despite the Yoga name, this is a standard clamshell laptop without the fold-back hinge. All versions of this Yoga use a 14.5-inch OLED with an extremely specific 2944×1840 resolution, with 1000 nits of brightness, slightly faster than normal 90hz of refresh rate, and of course, touch. That’s an eye-catching combination of great specs. The little lip around the camera allows it to have a physical shutter and IR sensors, though it’s a standard 1080p cam. Strangely microphones are doubled up on the Yoga, four versus two.

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

Willis Lai/Foundry

The Yoga is so slim that you’re only getting USB-C ports, two on the left and one on the right, though all three can handle power, video, and 40 gigabits per second data. Inside is a robust 70 watt-hour battery, and you can have any color you want, so long as you want Cosmic Blue.

Both laptops are coming to market in June. The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 will start at $1699, while the Yoga Slim 7x will start at $1199.