Lenovo ThinkPad X9-14 review: an iconic laptop continues to evolve

The ThinkPad X9-14 is a business laptop that most likely will be purchased by companies on contract that will have customized pricing. But, if you were to go to the Lenovo Web store and purchase the laptop yourself, you’ll pay $1,239 for the bast configuration with an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and 14.0-inch FHD+ IPS display. I reviewed the laptop with a 14.0-inch 2.8K OLED panel ($100) and a 512GB SSD ($100). You can upgrade up to a Core Ultra 7 268V chipset with vPro for $360, which also ups the RAM to 32GB. Upgrading to a 2TB SSD costs $240. The most expensive configuration runs $2,289.

Those are all expensive prices, but not unusually so for business-focused laptops. Some premium laptops with similar configurations cost around the same or more, such as those from HP and Dell. Even some consumer premium laptops cost the same. So, the bottom line is you’re not paying a huge premium for those business-centric features.

ThinkPad keyboards were once indistinguishable. They had highly sculpted keycaps, tight spacing with seven levels of keys, and deep switches that required a bit of force to depress. Really, they weren’t my favorite, because I prefer more key spacing and lighter, more precise switches. That’s exactly why Apple’s Magic Keyboard is my favorite, and the ThinkPad X9-14’s version is very similar. The switches are a little deeper, but they’re still snappy with a bounce in the bottoming action. And there the layout is more traditional (i.e., non-ThinkPad) and spacious, with Ctrl and Alt keys that aren’t annoyingly reversed from the usual. I’d rate it very high on my list in terms of comfortable long-term typing, and an improvement over the old-school ThinkPad keyboard.

Similarly, the touchpad is larger than usual for ThinkPads. First, there’s no red TrackPoint nubbin in the middle of the keyboard and therefore some of the touchpad space isn’t taken for an extra set of buttons. That’s huge departure, dropping on of the most iconic ThinkPad features. I suspect, though, that not too many users will be upset at the omission. The touchpad itself is an excellent haptic version that’s almost as good as Apple’s Force Touch version. Apple’s has the advantage of a Force Click feature where clicking a little “harder” invokes extra functionality. But, the ThinkPad touchpad arguably has more customization options.

The display is also touch-enabled, which I like. Overall, this is probably my favorite ThinkPad I’ve reviewed in terms of controlling things and entering information.

There are several 8-core/8-thread Intel Lunar Lake (Core Ultra Series 2) chipsets available with the ThinkPad X9-14, from the Core Ultra 5 226V up to the  Core Ultra 7 268V chipsets. All run at a base of 17 watts, with various clock speeds. Lunar Lake is primarily focused on efficiency, and its performance falls somewhere between the older 15-watt U-series and 28-watt H-series Meteor Lake chipsets. You can also get versions with Intel’s vPro functionality.

As you can see in our benchmarks, there’s not a huge difference between Lunar Lake versions in performance in CPU-intensive tasks. It’s considerably slower than the other Windows efficiency option, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chipsets, and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 and Apple M4 chipsets are a lot faster.. The Core Ultra 5 226V also uses the slower Intel Arc 130V integrated graphics, and that shows up in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark.

The ThinkPad X9-14 is fast enough for productivity work, but gamers and creators won’t be too excited.

There’s just a 55 watt-hour battery in the ThinkPad X9-14, likely a result of the incredibly thin chassis in all but the engine hub. Frankly, that’s not a lot of battery capacity for a 14-inch laptop with a power-hungry high-res OLED display. The Lunar Lake chipsets are efficient, but I wasn’t expecting great battery life.

There are two display options with the ThinkPad X9-14, both 14-inch panels at a 16:10 aspect ratio. One is a 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED panel running at 60Hz, the other is an FHD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS panel with a variable 120Hz refresh rate. That’s a mixed bag, with the sharper display offering up brighter colors and OLED’s usual inky blacks and the IPS panel offering a smoother user interface and better battery life.

I tested the OLED display, and my colorimeter found it a little different than most other OLED panels I’ve tested. It was very at 511 nits, brighter than most OLED displays and well above our older 300-nit threshold. My colorimeter couldn’t measure the contrast ratio, something I haven’t seen from an OLED display for a while, but blacks were perfect. Coloers weren’t quite as wide at 100% sRGB, 93% AdobeRGB (most are 97% or higher), and 100% DCI-P3, and accuracy wasn’t nearly as good as usual at a DeltaE of 1.62. Almost every OLED panel is below the cutoff for excellent displays of 1.0.

The display is still great for every user, and its support for Dolby Vision bodes well for media consumption. The IPS panel is for anyone who doesn’t care as much about colors and blacks and wants better battery life than I saw in my testing.

There’s a lot to like about the ThinkPad X9-14, and not just for ThinkPad fans. In fact, anyone who came here looking for a traditional ThinkPad design will be disappointed. The ThinkPad X9-14 is much more like other thin-and-light laptops today than that iconic brand, and that’s not actually a bad thing.

While the thin design is a bit of a gimmick, because you still need to contend with an Engine Hub that makes it a more typical thickness, it’s still light enough and well-built enough to be comfortably portable. It’s fast enough for productivity users and has a very good OLED display option — although that has an outsized impact on battery life. Business users will like it a lot, but consumers should consider it as well.