Lenovo X9 Series ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition (15ʺ Intel) 21Q60029US Review

This Lenovo X9 is a screen-first machine with an identity crisis. That 15.3-inch OLED display is absolutely stunning, landing in the 92nd percentile, and it makes everything from movies to spreadsheets look incredible. But the core hardware is a weird mismatch. You're getting a massive 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD paired with a mid-tier Intel CPU and integrated Arc graphics. It's built for serious multitasking but can't handle serious gaming or heavy creative work. The one thing to know? This is a premium media consumption and office work laptop that's been given specs for a much more demanding job.

The performance story is full of surprises, and not all of them are good. That Intel 258V CPU is just okay, sitting in the 55th percentile, so don't expect blazing speeds for video encoding or complex simulations. The real shocker is the GPU. Despite having 16GB of VRAM, the integrated Intel Arc graphics land in the 59th percentile. Our benchmark gave it a brutal 23.4/100 for gaming. It'll run older titles fine, but anything modern at that beautiful 2880x1800 resolution is a no-go. The 32GB of RAM is the star, making it feel incredibly snappy when you have a hundred browser tabs and apps open.

At $1739, it's a tough sell. You're paying a premium for that amazing screen and the 32GB/1TB config, but the core processing power doesn't match the price tag. If your work is purely about having a beautiful display for documents, web, and media, it's okay. But for that money, you can get more balanced performance elsewhere.

This sits in a weird spot. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 chip runs circles around it in CPU performance and battery life for similar money, though you lose the touchscreen and OLED. For a Windows machine focused on media, the ASUS Zenbook Duo offers a more innovative dual-screen design at a likely lower price. And if you want any graphics power at all, even a mid-range gaming laptop like the MSI Vector 16 HX would destroy it in GPU tasks while costing less. The X9's only clear win is its specific combo of a huge OLED panel and tons of RAM.

I can only recommend this to a very specific person: someone who does zero gaming or GPU work, needs tons of RAM for virtual machines or massive spreadsheets, and is willing to pay a big premium for one of the best laptop screens on the market. For almost everyone else, the mismatched specs make it hard to justify. Look at a MacBook Pro for raw power or a high-end ultrabook for a better balance.