• Lenovo has revealed the ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Gen 10 Aura Edition as the company’s latest in a growing lineup of AI PCs.
• The new convertible laptop will support Copilot+, as well as Lenovo’s new AI Now feature set.
• Local pricing and availability are still in the offing, but the new laptop is expected to only arrive early next year.

Lenovo is fully embracing its AI PC era. The company revealed a number of offerings at the beginning of the year under the Copilot+ banner, and in recent weeks the lineup continues to grow.

The latest device to be added to the ranks is the ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Gen 10 Aura Edition, which was revealed in full at the company’s Tech World 2024 conference in Seattle this week.

Along with supporting Copilot+, the new ThinkPad X1 has been built in collaboration with Intel under the Aura Edition moniker. According to Lenovo it is built to, “offer unmatched versatility and power, making it a supreme solution for professionals who need flexibility, mobility, and performance.”

We’ll highlight the specifications and components onboard shortly, but along with announcing this new convertible laptop, Lenovo is also introducing some native AI-powered solutions to some of its flagship offerings. This takes the form of AI Now, Smart Share, and Learning Zone.

Unpacking the capabilities of AI Now, Lenovo explains that it, “leverages a local Large Language Model (LLM) built on Meta’s Llama 3.1, enabling real-time interaction with a user’s personal knowledge base (PKB) without relying on cloud processing. This offers enhanced data privacy, as all interactions remain locally stored on the device.”

“Users can employ Lenovo AI Now to automate and simplify a wide range of tasks, from document management and online meeting transcriptions to device control and content generation. The platform’s intuitive AI assistant supports natural language interaction, allowing users to quickly search on device documents, local images, or generate text summaries based on specific queries,” it adds in a release shared with Hypertext.

Speaking to product managers at Tech World 2024, they explain that AI Now is not a competitor to Copilot+, but rather a complementary tool. To that end, as it is not subscription-based and freely accessible on a device that supports it, you can use the features built into AI now to fill any gaps that the cost to access Copilot+ cannot.

Back to the hardware and the ThinkPad X1 Gen 10 Aura Edition is powered by the Ultra Core 200v processor that Intel announced last month. Intel also takes care of the GPU, as well as the NPU, which is said to offer up to 45 TOPS of processing power for AI-focused tasks.

One of the other standout elements is battery life, which is listed at up to 18 hours, according to Lenovo. Added to this is a chassis that weighs 1.3kg and is made of 75 percent recycled aluminium. The use of recycled materials has not impacted its robustness, with the ThinkPad X1 Gen 10 Aura Edition achieving a MIL-SPEC 810H durability rating.

Full specifications for the ThinkPad X1 Gen 10 Aura Edition are as follows:

At the time of writing, local availability and pricing are yet to be shared for the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Gen 10 Aura Edition, but the company is expected to make it available to purchase in Febrary next year, starting from $2 199 (~R38 800).

Whether South Africa will fall into the same release window, remains to be seen.