During Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022, Lenovo unveiled the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5. The ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 is a powerful laptop designed for professional users. The all-new Gen 5 isn’t simply a hardware upgrade over the previous 4th generation, but also a refinement that addresses some of the pain points users had with its predecessor. With its cutting-edge specs and features, this new business laptop is sure to exceed your expectations.
Read more: MWC 2022: Highlights from Samsung, Lenovo, and more
Here’s everything you need to know about it:
When will the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 be released and how much will it cost?
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 was announced at the end of February during the MWC 2022 and is expected to be released sometime in June. However, plans may change and the exact release date has not yet been confirmed. Lenovo said it will have a starting price of $2,049. There are a lot of configurations so the price may be different based on what you choose. If you don’t want to wait, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 is currently available for $1,771.
Design
The ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 sports the same sleek and classic design with excellent inputs, and ergonomics as the previous 4th gen model. It is still 0.78 inches thick but other configurations may be thicker. It weighs in at 4.14 pounds, not too bad for a powerful laptop. This new laptop also has narrow bezels which make for an immersive experience when watching movies or working on creative projects. Both laptops include an optional IR camera in addition to the 1080p webcam, as well as a shutter for added privacy.
Lenovo also updated its cooling system with now a vapor-chamber cooling module. This vapor chamber has an integrated liquid thermal paste to improve heat transfer and increase performance by 10%.
This new laptop is MIL-SPEC tested so you know it can withstand some wear and tear. It is available in Deep Black and a black with carbon-fiber weave on the top cover for WQUXGA models.
Display
The ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 continues to feature a 16-inch display in a 16:10 aspect ratio. It comes in variable display options, including a new 16-inch QHD (2560 x 1600) IPS, with 500 nits of brightness, low blue light, 100% sRGB color coverage, and a 165Hz refresh rate. Another notable display option is a 16-inch UHD (3840×2400) IPS anti-glare 600 nits with 100% AdobeRGB, Dolby Vision, and ThinkPad HDR400 certification. It is available in either a matte non-glare or a touch-glossy variant. All displays support up to four independent displays or three displays with the laptop screen. It’s really a powerhouse laptop for creators, professionals, and gamers who need the best visuals for their work. It can even compete with laptops like the MacBook Pro 16-inch, Dell XPS 16, and many others.
Performance
The ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 uses the latest 12th-gen Intel processors. You can get up to Core i9 vPro chip, up to 64GB of DDR5 memory, and up to an 8TB SSD. In comparison, its predecessor had a maximum storage capacity of only 2TB.
Alongside Intel’s new Alder Lake processors, the fifth generation will also feature four dedicated Nvidia GPUs. This includes an RTX 3050 Ti, RTX 3060, RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti GPUs.
The new RTX 3080 Ti is especially important for this model because it comes with 16GB of video memory. This should offer some serious performance gains over the previous generation.
There’s also a Dolby Voice noise-canceling support, along with a top-firing speaker, Dolby Atmos. These two will help to improve the audio quality for conference calls and other multimedia consumption.
Connectivity and Battery life
The ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 will ship with a 90Wh battery. This should be more than enough for a full workday or taking it on long trips without having to worry about running out of juice. Depending on the configuration, battery life will differ.
For connectivity, it supports WiFi 6E and a lightning-fast 5G WWAN option. It also has Bluetooth 5.2 for connecting wireless peripherals. There are plenty of ports too, including dual Thunderbolt 4, dual USB-A 3.2, HDMI, SD card reader, and audio combination jack. Last but not least, there is a Kensington lock slot to keep things physically secure.
