The very first ARM ThinkPad

ThinkPad X13s Gen 1. © Lenovo.

ThinkPads are the most powerful of Lenovo’s laptops, and are the company’s line of computers geared toward businesses and power users. The company has released a whole lineup of new ThinkPad models with a roomy 16:10 screen. Making its first appearance: an ARM model. Dubbed ThinkPad X13s, it is built on a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 from Qualcomm, the first SoC for Windows PC in 5 nm. The new chip boasts “60% more performance per watt” than competing x86 platforms. It has four ARM Cortex-X1 cores clocked at up to 3 GHz and four Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.4 GHz. Therefore, the ThinkPad X13s foregoes a fan and its battery lasts longer.

The ThinkPad X13s features a 13.3-inch (1920 x 1200px) display in a 16:10 aspect ratio. It can be stocked with up to 32GB of LPDDR4x memory (other ThinkPads use DDR5) and storage consists of a PCIe 4.0 SSD with a maximum capacity of 1TB. Ports are limited to two USB-C Gen 2 slots, a 3.5mm audio jack and a SIM card slot for 5G. Prices for the ThinkPad X13s will start at USD 1,099 when it comes out in May.

⇨ Ars Technica, Scharon Harding, “Lenovo announces the first Arm-based ThinkPad.”

2022-02-28