The second wave of Snapdragon-powered laptops is coming, and for a more affordable cost too. Lenovo has just launched its first IdeaPad laptop with Snapdragon X Plus at IFA this week, and for hundreds less than its previous Snapdragon model.
Snapdragon X Elite was a long-awaited arrival for Windows PCs. The chip was able to deliver tons of power on the ARM architecture which led to fantastic battery life. But, out of the gate, it wasn’t particularly cheap. The first wave of Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus laptops started at $999, but new, cheaper options are on the way.
One of the first is the Lenovo IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1, an $849 laptop powered by Snapdragon X Plus.
The IdeaPad lineup is Lenovo’s more budget-focused series, but it can still deliver on fantastic hardware and performance, often with more bang for your buck. The IdeaPad 5x is a great example of that. Powered by Qualcomm’s latest, cheapest Snapdragon X Plus, the machine has an 8-core CPU alongside up to 32GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, and with a 14-inch 1920×1200 60Hz display.
The $849 configuration of IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1 that will be sold in the US will include 16GB of RAM, though Lenovo hasn’t directly confirmed how much storage it will have. It will be available for purchase in October.
That’s considerably cheaper than Lenovo’s other Snapdragon laptop, the Yoga Slim 7x, which has X Elite starting at $1,199.
Beyond the new IdeaPad, Lenovo is also jumping on the first AMD-powered CoPilot+ PCs with its new Lenovo Yoga 7 Pro which is powered by a Ryzen AI 9 365 processor, a chip that actually has a bit more AI processing power than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. That machine will also help usher in Lenovo Creator Zone, a new piece of software that can leverage all that AI power for tasks such as text-to-image, sketch-to-image, and other advanced, AI-assisted image editing using an exclusive version of Stable Diffusion 3.0.
Creator Zone will be available on Lenovo Yoga devices with discrete GPUs starting on October 15.
Other new laptops announced at IFA include the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition which is coming to the US for $1,299 with Intel Core Ultra chips, as well as AMD Ryzen 7000-powered IdeaPad Slim 5 machines launching internationally in October.
The proof-of-concept “Auto Twist” also has a screen that can rotate and be controlled with voice commands.
More on Windows:
- ‘Google Essentials’ is a new Windows app, coming first to HP
- Microsoft’s controversial Recall feature is coming to Windows 11 in October
- Windows adds fluid new Nearby Share option for linked Android phones
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