The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 ($399) is the most unique tablet I’ve ever reviewed. It delivers exceptional sound thanks to the enormous JBL-9 speaker on its back. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s a speaker with a tablet attached! This is the most defining feature, but there’s more to like about Lenovo’s entertainment-focused tablet.

The bright, colorful 12.1-inch 2K display is ideal for watching your favorite videos and movies. The Tab Plus Gen 2 is also great for reading and web browsing. The large speaker can make the tablet uncomfortable to hold for too long, but the handy built-in kickstand balances that out, and you can rotate it for vertical or horizontal viewing.

If you’re looking for a powerful tablet for work, this slate isn’t for you, thanks to its relatively weak MediaTek Dimensity CPU and 8GB of RAM. But if you’re looking for an excellent entertainment machine with the best tablet sound, you should seriously consider the reasonably priced Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2. Find out more in my full review!

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 is an Android tablet built for entertainment.
• Who is it for? For folks who want a tablet to watch videos and that can deliver stellar, punchy sound.
• What does it cost? The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 is typically $399 but is often discounted. At the time of writing, it’s on sale for $289 on Lenovo’s website.
• What do we like? We like the giant speaker that pumps out phenomenal sound, the handy kickstand, and the vivid 2.5K display.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like that the tablet can be cumbersome to hold for long periods and that its performance isn’t suitable for productivity.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Specs

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: The ups

The Tab Plus Gen 2's giant speaker and rotatable kickstand instantly draw attention, but it also features a sharp, vibrant 12.1-inch display and long-lasting battery life.

Incredible speaker sound

Speaker quality is, at best, a footnote in my tablet reviews, since slates generally produce less-than-stellar sound. With the Tab Plus Gen 2, this is the first thing I want to discuss as it’s the standout feature—so much so that I had already written an entire piece about how the gargantuan speaker on this Android tablet isn’t a gimmick. If you’ll pardon the cliché, the speaker quality is music to your ears.

The JBL 9-Unit Pro speaker system is what makes the magic happen. As its name suggests, there are nine speakers: four tweeters, three woofers, and two passive radiators. Those last two speakers deliver deep bass, while the tweeters handle higher-frequency sounds.

Sound is great out of the box, but to make everything truly sound spectacular, you’ll need to head into the Dolby Atmos sub-menu in sound settings. There are three presets: Dynamic, which identifies the content and automatically adjusts for the best sound; Movie, which provides surround sound and clearer dialogue; and Music, which delivers detailed audio so every note and beat sounds punchy. Music also has presets: Detailed, Balanced, and Warm, plus a manual equalizer.

I’m a hard rock and heavy metal fan, and I’m almost always disappointed by the thin, flat sound from most tablets when listening to these genres. That wasn’t the case here, as everything from death metal bands like Amon Amarth to ‘80s tunes like Stan Bush’s “The Touch” sounded rich, punchy, and loud. Movies and podcasts also sound incredible in Movie Mode, with dialogue coming through clear and crisp.

The presets let you quickly enjoy whatever you’re listening to, but you can also dive into the equalizer settings to truly fine-tune how things sound. Regardless, your ears won’t be disappointed.

Built-in, rotatable kickstand

The other notable design feature is the built-in kickstand. Attached directly to the speaker, the kickstand can rotate 360 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise. This lets you comfortably orient the slate horizontally when watching movies or vertically for reading.

While the rotating kickstand moves smoothly, it firmly stays in place once you’ve set it to your preferred position. And when you’re ready to travel with the slate, the kickstand snaps back into place when you push it inward. This might be a minor thing to some, but rotating the kickstand is also enjoyable since you can feel small bumps along the way.

I enjoy reading digital comics, so I love propping the tablet up on my table in portrait orientation so I don’t have to hold it while I read. The 16:9 aspect ratio is relatively close to a real comic’s trim size, which also helps. Naturally, this is also a great way to read books.

Like the kickstand, the tablet is made of sturdy aluminum that doesn’t bend or flex easily. Even if you won’t hold the tablet very often (more on why shortly), its smooth metal body feels nice against your fingers. I also like how the concave volume and power buttons are on the back and easy to reach when it’s in the horizontal position.

Vivid display

The 12.1-inch (2560 x 1600) display on the Tab Plus Gen 2 might not stand out as much as the huge speaker, but it’s also no slouch. Even without an OLED panel, you get sharp image quality that’s bright and colorful.

When watching the latest trailer for the Street Fighter movie, I was impressed by how good everything looked. The detail and colors on the costumes and super moves pop. And thanks to the smooth 120Hz refresh rate, all the action moved smoothly. For watching movies, TV shows, and other videos, this display gets the job done.

Our lab test confirms what my eyes saw. Color reproduction (sRGB and DCI-P3) is generally oversaturated, which accounts for the vivid colors. Color accuracy (Delta-E) is also on par with other tablets. Those colors truly stand out thanks to the bright SDR and HDR brightness.

As you can see, Lenovo’s tablet quite literally outshines Apple’s iPad 11 and the OnePlus Pad Go 2 in both SDR and HDR brightness with adaptive brightness disabled. In fairness to the iPad, it delivers more natural hues than both Android tablets, since its sRGB and DCI-P3 values are closer to the 100% target.

Epic battery life

If you’re going to spend hours watching videos, then you’ll want a tablet that can last for the long haul. Thankfully, that’s the case here, as the Tab Plus Gen 2 offers astonishing battery life.

In our battery test, which involved continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, Lenovo’s slate lasted 16 hours at 60Hz and 13 hours and 39 minutes at 120Hz. While the OnePlus Pad Go 2 lasted almost 40 minutes longer, Lenovo’s tablet outlasted the iPad by nearly four and a half hours.

I should note that the Tab Plus Gen 2 takes a while to fully charge. In our testing and in my own experience, it took 30 minutes to charge the tablet to 20%. Though you won’t have to charge the battery very often, just keep in mind that you’ll have to wait a while to fully juice it up.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: The Downs

While the Tab Plus Gen 2 excels as an entertainment device, it falls short in some key areas.

Awkward to hold

The giant JBL speaker is the Tab Plus Gen 2’s main selling point, but it can also be a hindrance.

Because the speaker adds bulk to the tablet’s bottom, holding the slate like a traditional tablet can be burdensome. While 1.69 pounds doesn’t sound that heavy, the weight distribution makes the tablet feel heavier.

If you rest the tablet on your lap or use the kickstand to prop it up on your desk, then its weight won’t be an issue. However, this isn’t a slate you can easily hold with one hand, let alone two, for long periods.

Basic performance

I don’t consider this a major drawback since this is an entertainment-focused tablet. Still, if you plan to do serious work on the Tab Plus Gen 2, you might not get the smoothest or fastest experience because of its lackluster performance.

The Tab Plus Gen 2 handles basic tasks like scrolling websites in Google Chrome and reading books on Kindle without issue. However, when I opened multiple apps or Chrome tabs, performance suffered. If I wanted to use this for work, where I typically have 20 to 30 Chrome tabs open, I wouldn't have the smoothest experience.

While the Tab Gen 2 matches the OnePlus Pad Go 2 in both CPU performance (Geekbench 6) and gaming performance (3DMark), these MediaTek Dimensity-powered Android tablets still can’t compete with Apple’s entry-level iPad.

Again, you won’t have a sluggish experience when using this tablet for its intended purpose. Just keep your expectations in check if you try to run heavier workloads or graphically demanding video games.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Verdict

I’m an iPad Pro user, so an Android tablet truly has to go above and beyond to impress me. And that’s exactly what the Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 has done thanks to its amazing sound quality, versatile kickstand, and crisp image quality.

Sure, it’s not powerful for heavy workloads, but if you mostly watch videos or read, this tablet has everything you’d need. The fact that it tops out at $399 is just icing on the proverbial cake. If you’re looking for an iPad alternative for your entertainment needs, don’t ignore the Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2.

The Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 wants to be the ultimate convertible laptop for creative work. Announced during IFA 2026, Lenovo’s upcoming 2-in-1 packs an Nvidia RTX Spark chip for demanding workflows and features dual-surface pen input for increased flexibility. The OLED display and ability to handle AI work on-device are other highlights.

I got to see the Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 at a Lenovo IFA event and left with a strong first impression. Though I wasn’t able to get a taste of what RTX Spark is capable of, I was impressed by the slender 2-in-1 design and the ability to write or sketch directly on the touchpad. If you’re an artist, this seems like a great machine to bring your creations to life.

We don't yet have pricing for it, but the Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 seems like a convertible to watch out for. Here's why you should keep it on your radar.

Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 hands-on: Specs

Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 hands-on: Design and display

As its name suggests, the Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 is a convertible laptop with a 360-degree hinge that lets you switch between Laptop, Tablet, Tent, Stand, and Canvas modes.

The last mode is particularly interesting because it’s slightly angled rather than completely flat, making writing and drawing easier. Basically, the Yoga 9n can transform to suit your needs.

Measuring 14.17 × 9.57 × 0.69 inches and weighing 4.28 pounds, the Yoga 9n 2-in-1 is relatively large and bulky, which can make using it as a tablet cumbersome.

However, if you set it on a table or your lap, its weight shouldn’t be an issue. In my experience, the aluminum frame feels sturdy, and the 360 hinge makes it easy to open the laptop to your preferred mode.

There are a decent number of ports here to support your peripherals. This includes an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, a pair of USB4/USB-C ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a single SD card slot. I especially appreciate the inclusion of USB-A ports for legacy devices.

Since this is a 16-inch laptop, it has a spacious keyboard deck—one that even includes a full number pad. The membrane keys have a nice bounce and a short travel distance. The touchpad, or the Force Pad as Lenovo calls it, is not only large but also supports drawing with the Yoga Pen Gen 2. I wrote and doodled on it and found it smooth and responsive.

I didn’t get to test the speakers, but the six-speaker Dolby Atmos audio system has two tweeters built into the rotating soundbar, keeping them front-firing in every mode. There’s also a pair of woofers to round out the audio. Lenovo says that intelligent noise suppression and spatial audio will support meetings, livestreams, presentations, and more.

The 16-inch PureSight Pro OLED display (as Lenovo calls it) promises “creator-grade color accuracy,” according to the company. To my eyes, the 2.8K resolution panel looked sharp and vivid. The 120Hz refresh rate ensures that everything from pen input and animation previews to gaming and more moves smoothly.

Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 hands-on: Performance

I won’t be able to discuss the Yoga 9n 2-in-1’s performance until we’ve run it through our lab tests. Given how Lenovo is positioning this as a creator-focused machine and its use of Nvidia’s promising RTX Spark chip, I expect excellent overall performance.

The RTX Spark features a custom CPU, a Blackwell GPU, and unified RAM all on one chip. This allows the entire processor to share information faster than with separate, dedicated components.

Thanks to this efficiency, there’s also the promise of all-day battery life. The RTX Spark chip on the Yoga 9n will have up to 64GB of unified memory.

With the RTX Spark platform, Nvidia is working with Microsoft to shift personal computing on Windows from a passive tool to something proactive.

To that end, Nvidia’s chip can accelerate creative and AI tools such as Adobe Premiere Pro and local models like FLUX. Your mileage may vary depending on how much you rely on AI for work, but if you need to run it locally, you have that option.

Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 hands-on: Outlook

The Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 promises to be a versatile convertible for creatives and a powerful OLED laptop for those of us who aren’t artistically inclined.

I’ll need more time with it before rendering judgment, but based on what I saw, this is a notebook worth keeping an eye on. Hopefully, the Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 won’t cost too much when it eventually launches.

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The Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 is one seriously impressive monitor. Announced during IFA 2026, this is Lenovo’s first 27-inch 4K InkJet Printing OLED Thunderbolt docking monitor for productivity work. It can even synchronize with Lenovo laptops to create a more unified workspace.

I briefly went hands-on (or eyes-on) with the P27UL-40 during a Lenovo IFA event, and let me tell you, it was a sight to behold. The contrast provided by the OLED panel is excellent and helps make colors truly pop out.

I’m also a fan of the slender design, which includes a stand with a cutaway for your phone. This is exactly the kind of monitor I’d want for my own work setup.

Here are my early thoughts on the Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 and why it could be great for those who want a work monitor that’s a cut above the rest.

Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 hands-on: Specs

Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 hands-on: Display

There’s a lot of fancy tech in the ThinkVision P27UL-40, but suffice it to say that it offers excellent image quality for whatever’s on the screen.

The photos you see throughout this article don’t do the 27-inch 4K OLED panel justice, as it looks far superior in person. I actually asked Lenovo to dim the lights around the monitor, and that allowed me to see just how bright and vibrant the panel can get.

Lenovo says it will cover 99% of the DCI-P3 and 100% sRGB color spaces, and targets 500 nits of HDR brightness.

You don’t often see 27-inch 4K OLED productivity monitors, since these kind of monitors are usually gaming devices. But as someone who uses monitors for both work and play, I appreciate that Lenovo brought some of its gaming monitor tech to the ThinkVision P27UL-40. Trust me when I say that your eyes won’t be disappointed.

Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 hands-on: Design

The ThinkVision P27UL-40 might have a simple design at first glance, but it has some subtle features to help streamline your workspace and comfort.

The swivel connecting the monitor’s stand to the base makes it easy to twist the monitor left and right. Raising and lowering the monitor along the stand is also simple.

There’s a cutaway on the stand to tuck your cables through, which keeps your desk nice and tidy. Speaking of cutaways, there’s also another one right on the base for your phone, which is also very convenient.

Thanks to the built-in Thunderbolt hub, you can connect your laptop with a single cable to transmit video, data, and power simultaneously.

If the laptop is from Lenovo, you can synchronize brightness controls and even mirror the power button. I didn’t get to test this, but it sounds like it should streamline things for those with a Lenovo laptop.

Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 hands-on: Outlook

I'll need some proper time with the Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 before rendering a verdict, but based on my brief time, I think this could be a fantastic monitor for work, creative projects, and even gaming.

Our lab tests will also reveal if the monitor can hit those lofty color reproduction numbers that Lenovo detailed.

The Lenovo ThinkVision P27UL-40 launches in March 2027 with a price tag of $1,299. That's certainly a little steep, but given everything this monitor promises, it might be worth it. Stay tuned for more!

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The MacBook Neo had better watch out, because the Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe is coming. Starting at $699, this laptop comes in multiple colors and is designed for folks who want a reliable everyday notebook at a reasonable price. Lenovo also says the Vibe won’t skimp on performance or battery life.

I briefly went hands-on with the IdeaPad Vibe at a Lenovo IFA event and was impressed by what I saw. Not only is it colorful, but it also feels good to hold thanks to its sturdy yet lightweight design. It’s the kind of laptop I’d like to take on the road since it has such a thin and light profile. The promise of configurations with AMD, Snapdragon X, and eventually Intel CPUs is also exciting.

Here’s what I think of the Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe.

Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe: Specs

Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe: Price and availability

You won’t have to wait long for the Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe to arrive.

14- and 15-inch models with AMD start shipping in October with an expected starting price of $699. Models with Qualcomm Snapdragon X begin shipping in November with the same expected $699 starting price. Models with Intel chips will be available at a later date.

Given IdeaPad Vibe’s expected $699 price and holiday launch window, it’s clear Lenovo is positioning its laptop as a MacBook Neo and Dell XPS 13 competitor.

Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe: Design & display

If you want a colorful laptop, the IdeaPad Vibe has you covered. Lenovo partnered with the Pantone Institute to create a range of color options for its affordable laptop.

The available colors include Dreamy Violet, Spicy Gold, Zen Green, Chill Blue, Radiant Coral, Moody Blue, and Lowkey Green. These naturalistic colors won’t seem out of place wherever you’re using the Vibe.

The IdeaPad Vibe’s metal chassis complements the colors well and gives it a premium feel. As with the new Dell XPS 13, it’s nice to see budget-friendly Windows laptops that aren’t made of cheap plastic. The 14-inch model measures 12.35 × 87.59 × 0.59 inches and weighs 2.87 pounds, making it extremely portable and unobtrusive.

Unlike many thin and light laptops, the IdeaPad Vibe has a wide array of ports. On the right side, you’ll find a pair of USB-A ports, while on the left, there’s an HDMI port, two USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a MicroSD card reader. Port-wise, Lenovo’s laptop beats the XPS 13 and MacBook Neo.

The 14-inch model will have up to a 1920 x 1200-pixel OLED panel, while the 15-inch variant will sport up to a 2.1K OLED panel, with the latter offering a touch option. We’ll need to get the laptop into our testing lab to see what its display can do, but Lenovo says it’s rated for 100% DCI-P3 coverage. To my eyes, the display appeared sufficiently bright and colorful.

Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe: Performance & battery life

Based on its components, the IdeaPad Vibe should be sufficiently powerful for everyday work. And since this is a Copilot+ PC, expect it to handle some on-device AI workloads as well.

Configurations with AMD Ryzen AI will launch first, followed by Snapdragon X models in November and Intel variants at a later date. You’ll be able to configure the laptop with up to 32GB of RAM for AMD models and up to 24GB for Snapdragon X. Both can be configured with up to 1TB of storage. Interestingly enough, both RAM and SSD are upgradeable.

All machines in the Idea line will include Lenovo Qira, the company’s personal AI experience that provides contextual assistance across supported PCs, mobile devices, tablets, and even wearables. This feature wasn’t available for testing during my briefing, so I’m curious to see whether it provides useful assistance or becomes another feature you forget exists.

Lenovo says the IdeaPad Vibe has “all-day” battery life. Given that laptops we’ve tested with Snapdragon X and AMD Ryzen AI can last anywhere from 10 to 20 hours, I’m eager to see how long these laptops will last in real-world use.

Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe: Outlook

The Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe seems like a serious MacBook Neo rival, thanks to its array of colors, budget-friendly starting price, and the promise of all-day battery life and solid everyday performance. And if Lenovo Qira delivers helpful on-device AI, this could make the Vibe even more appealing.

The MacBook Neo was a warning shot, and it's good to see companies like Lenovo respond with their own affordable laptop that promises a similarly premium design, vivid display, and strong performance. We'll have to wait and see, but right now, I'm pretty excited about the IdeaPad Vibe.

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I still remember watching Steve Jobs pull the first-ever MacBook Air out of a manila envelope like it was yesterday. In the years since, the best laptops have gotten even thinner and lighter. But when I first held Lenovo’s new Project AeroBlade concept laptop at IFA 2026, I felt just like I imagined Jobs did with the original MacBook Air.

At just under 830 grams (1.83 pounds), this is a seriously light 14-inch laptop. What’s more, it’s also incredibly thin at just under 10mm thick to boot. The most surprising thing, though, is the new, completely fanless cooling solution Lenovo implemented under the hood, with help from Frore Systems.

Now keep in mind, this is just a concept device that isn’t being mass-produced yet. However, if Lenovo’s past concepts that turned into real products are any indication, we could soon see a wave of incredibly thin and light ThinkBooks and even ThinkPads that can finally rival Apple’s MacBook Air.

Here’s everything you need to know about Lenovo’s Project AeroBlade and why I could easily see it being my go-to laptop for both work and travel.

From ThinkBook to ThinBook

With Project AeroBlade closed, it’s clear we’re dealing with something completely different than your standard ThinkBook. In fact, while the front edge tapers down to being almost pencil-thin, you can see that Lenovo had to make the back of the device larger just to house its ports. Speaking of which, there are two USB-C ports on the back left.

To get Project AeroBlade this thin, Lenovo had to completely redesign its cooling. Instead of traditional fan-based cooling, the device uses a solid-state active cooling architecture developed by Frore Systems called AirJet, which uses ultrasonic vibrations to dissipate heat.

What makes this new cooling solution stand out is that, with it under the hood, Lenovo didn’t have to sacrifice sustained performance to make this laptop extremely thin. Other benefits include reduced noise, dust intake, and mechanical complexity. The last of which is one reason I think we might see Project AeroBlade’s tech find its way into a laptop you can actually buy sooner than you would with other concepts.

On the right side, you get another USB-C port, plus a power button that looks like it has an integrated fingerprint sensor and a toggle switch. At first, I couldn’t figure out what that toggle was for, but after Lenovo’s IFA 2026 keynote, I went hands-on with Project AeroBlade a second time.

Lenovo often includes privacy shutters on its webcams and for good reason. However, this concept device is too thin for one, so instead of putting it next to the webcam, it’s on the side. Given how easy it is to smudge your laptop’s screen or push it back when toggling the privacy filter on or off, I actually prefer having it on the side.

Despite its incredibly thin design, you get the same sturdy keyboard with excellent travel that Lenovo’s known for, along with a large trackpad. Surprisingly, the ThinkBook logo is stamped on the bottom right corner of Project AeroBlade.

While Lenovo’s ThinkPads — like the X1 Carbon — are known for being very thin and light, its ThinkBooks are more affordable and practical workhorses. This could signal a brand new direction for the line, or we could see Project AeroBlade’s tech make its way into a ThinkPad first; only time will tell.

Finally, the bottom of the device has no exhaust vents because it’s completely fanless. Based on the AirJet system and motherboard I saw next to the laptop, it looks like any heat is dissipated out of the back of the device.

Phone, wallet, keys… AeroBlade

Let’s face it, there are times when you just don’t want to bring your laptop with you to avoid adding extra weight and bulk to your backpack. With Project AeroBlade, though, I don’t think I’d ever leave my laptop at home.

While it’s technically heavier than one of the best tablets, it felt a lot lighter in hand, especially with the screen open. I know there are times I’d bring a tablet instead of a laptop, but here, that little bit of extra weight would absolutely be worth it to have a keyboard and a full computer on my person at all times.

We’ll see if and when Project AeroBlade becomes an actual laptop you can buy, but given Lenovo’s quick turnaround with its concept devices, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being one of the highlights of CES 2027, complete with a price tag and a launch date.

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For years, my ultimate computing friction point has been the two-device compromise: I buy a thin and light MacBook for productivity, and keep a massive gaming rig at home for play. But after going hands-on with six Nvidia RTX Spark laptops launching later this year, I can confidently say that era is over.

Put simply, this is shaping up to be a game-changer. Packing 6,144 CUDA cores into thin and light notebooks like these, it’s bridging the gap between serious productivity and high-end gaming. And crucially, game developers are already jumping on board to support it — ensuring vital anti-cheat software compatibility is ready to go.

But packing a powerful GPU into a sleek chassis doesn’t automatically make it a great gaming machine. Other factors are just as vital like how the keyboard feels, how loud the fans are and display quality.

I spent extensive time playing on six different models, and here’s my definitive RTX Spark gaming tier list, ranked from worst to best.

A dream for gamers

Before I get there, though, this isn’t my first rodeo with Spark. I did get to try the chip out at Computex this year (on my Birthday of all days). And since that was a much earlier version of what I saw here at Gamescom, here are some general updates:

• More laptops, more fun: At Computex, only the Surface Laptop Ultra was turned on and usable. However, this time around they were all active and usable.
• Backing up their claims: Nvidia is touting 1440p gaming at over 100 FPS. Of course, with no visible FPS counter, I can’t confirm that specifically, but to the eye, all the games were running significantly over 60 FPS — settings at a range of medium to high (depending on the title) and DLSS turned on.
• So many developers on board: Turns out if you’re Nvidia, you have a fair bit of influence to get publishers on board. Windows on Arm is getting a shot in the arm thanks to anti-cheat support and a massive number of studios jumping on board to work on Arm-native versions of their games.
• Emulation looks much better: The fact Pragmata was even running through the Windows Prism emulation layer to make it play nice on an Arm chip was quite the achievement at Computex. But there definitely was a little bit of fuzziness to the gameplay looking back. Now, with four games including 007 First Light all emulated, they’re all crystal clear and playing great with no discernible latency.

Put simply, things have definitely moved on since June, and anything with that RTX Spark sticker on the body is going to be a mighty tasty machine to get, come this fall. That being said, I’m here to talk about how some of these specific laptops fare for gaming on a build level — not a chip level.

RTX Spark laptop (for gaming) tier list: Specs

C-tier: A laptop wearing a suit

Now don’t get me wrong, the Dell XPS 16 is an undeniably good-looking laptop that will easily elicit an “oh that’s a cool thing” reaction when you pull it out in a meeting. The utilitarian body is sleek and that Tandem OLED display is super vivid.

But is this a safe space? Because that keyboard is problematic for gaming to put it mildly. It’s a flat chiclet board with zero gaps between the keys. Doom: The Dark Ages exposed the gaming flaws of a keyboard like this, as the lack of key definition had me panickedly looking down mid-battle to ensure I was on the WASD.

Like I said earlier this year, with a little time you can get used to this for productivity. But for gaming, it's not quite there.

B-Tier: Productivity first, gaming second

These two are quite a bit better for gaming on an ergonomic level, but aren’t all the way there compared to some superior tactility further up this list.

First up is the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra: packing a delicious 15-inch mini-LED PixelSense Ultra touchscreen display with 3:2 aspect ratio. That taller screen may be more productivity-focused, but it’s gonna be great for RTS games too.

But again, the keyboard falters here slightly. Not that it’s bad, it’s a great-feeling tactile set of keys for productivity for sure. But for gaming, the dish of each key is far too subtle and the sharpness of those edges do cut into your wrists. So it firmly sits in the “it’s okay” category for gameplay.

Slightly better for play is my original personal favorite from Computex — the Asus ProArt P14. Basically, Asus understood the assignment and gave me a Windows equivalent of a MacBook Pro in its design and ergonomics. The keyboard’s better here for demanding gameplay too, and that 3K OLED display is mesmerizing.

But what do you get when you cram this much power into a small body? Loud fans to get all the heat out. To my ears at least, this was the loudest laptop in the testing room. It’s a great hybrid machine, but make sure you get a good gaming headset to drown out that fan noise.

A-Tier: Great all-rounders

Now we’re moving closer to the elite if gaming is a priority for your RTX Spark machine. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9n boasts a great premium design with another vivid OLED display.

For gameplay, there are very few genuine downsides here — capped off by Lenovo’s trademark excellent keyboard ergonomics. The only reason it’s here in the A-tier is because one company has pulled a blinder with its board (more on that in a moment).

Then there’s the MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+. Yes, the keyboard is a little too heavy on the RGB lighting for my personal taste, but it feels good to tap away on, the OLED screen is a lovely flash flood of color, and it’s a 2-in-1 form factor that allows for tent mode gaming with a controller. That’s something none of these other options can do.

S-Tier: The unexpected champion

Which leaves one: the HP OmniBook Ultra 16. When I first saw this laptop at Computex, it looked like a decidedly “just fine” device. I expected it to just be another laptop more suited to work over play. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There’s of course a crispy and gorgeous OLED panel here that moves fluidly, but that’s not the real champion feature here. That belongs to the keyboard, which elevated this machine to the top of the list. It’s a chiclet board, but the well defined keys and travel make it feel almost mechanical-like. It feels fantastic during gameplay, and with slick stylings to the chassis, it’s the ultimate stealth gaming laptop.

Plenty to look forward to

The RTX Spark lineup proves that the days of compromising between a sleek daily driver and a capable gaming machine are finally coming to a close. These six distinct options will hit the market soon, and while I can scrutinize them from a gaming perspective, they’re meant for so much more.

As CEO Jensen Huang said himself when I got the chance to talk to him: “we’re focused on reinventing the PC.” There’s going to be something for everyone in this range. So I have to ask — if you’ve got the budget for one of these notebooks, which one would you spend your money on?

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The Lenovo Yoga Mini breaks free from the rectangular-shaped mold of other mini PCs with a sleek new circular design and plenty of useful extras. However, Lenovo didn’t compromise to get this shape — every curved side of this puck-shaped mini PC is put to good use, from its generous port selection to its built-in microphone and fingerprint scanner.

From the moment I laid eyes on the Yoga Mini back at CES when it was first unveiled, I knew we were dealing with something completely new here. While other mini PCs come with brackets so you can mount them behind a monitor, this one is designed to sit front and center on your desk.

The RGB lighting that wraps around its base can alert you to incoming notifications or even just greet you when you approach. Likewise, thanks to a built-in accelerometer, the top of the Yoga Mini acts as a customizable button to launch apps or instantly transform this mini PC into a pseudo smart speaker.

After using the Yoga Mini as my daily driver for a month, I’m impressed with its near-silent operation and speedy performance thanks to the Intel Panther Lake chip inside.

I wasn’t able to try out Lenovo’s local AI assistant Qira with the base model sent over for review but that won’t be a problem with the higher-end configuration which comes with more memory and a more powerful Intel Arc B390 integrated GPU.

Likewise, while upgradeable, you can only swap out the SSD on the Yoga Mini and doing so isn’t nearly as easy as on other mini PCs. Still, this is the Windows-powered Mac mini alternative I’ve been waiting for.

My Lenovo Yoga Mini review will help you decide if this is the best mini PC for your desk and whether or not it’s worth spending more on the upgraded version over the base model.

Lenovo Yoga Mini: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? A small yet powerful mini PC with a circular design intended to sit front and center on your desk.
• Who is it for? Anyone looking for a stylish, space-saving desktop that doesn't compromise on ports or performance.
• What does it cost? The entry-level configuration of the Lenovo Yoga Mini costs $999 while the more powerful version costs $1,489.
• What do we like? Its unique circular design, USB-C power delivery, generous port selection, near-silent operation, and smart extras like the fingerprint scanner and RGB underglow.
• What don’t we like? The steep hike over its original starting price, the 16GB RAM limit on the base model that prevents it from supporting Lenovo's local AI assistant Qira, and how difficult it is to open and upgrade.

Lenovo Yoga Mini: Specs

Lenovo Yoga Mini: The Ups

The Yoga Mini instantly sets itself apart with its unique look, but it’s how you interact with this mini PC that elevates its circular shape beyond a simple gimmick.

Lenovo has also packed it with a generous port selection, while the Intel Panther Lake chip inside delivers the punchy performance you’d expect from a premium desktop.

Rounded but not stripped-down

At just 5.12 x 5.12 x 1.91 inches, the Yoga Mini is an ultra-compact desktop PC that’s only a hair larger than Apple’s Mac mini M4.

However, it’s both shorter and lighter at 1.32 pounds versus 1.5 pounds. Unlike the Mac mini, it’s powered directly via a standard USB-C cable, making it much easier to pack up and take with you on the go.

Above the front Yoga logo, two small pinholes house the built-in microphones, while an integrated fingerprint scanner is built right into the power button on the right side.

For easy access, the left side features a 3.5mm headphone jack and a full-featured USB-C port with video output. I particularly loved this side port during testing — it allowed me to instantly plug in a portable monitor when I needed extra screen real estate, as well as a pair of the best smart glasses, the Viture Luma Pro, which worked like an absolute charm.

Around back, things get even more versatile. Power is supplied through a dedicated USB-C port positioned directly underneath the HDMI 2.1 (TMDS) port.

That means you aren't forced to use the included power brick — any GaN charger rated for 100W or higher will do the trick. Alongside the power input, you get a high-speed USB-C port with DisplayPort Alt Mode, a 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 port, a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, and a high-speed USB-A port.

While you do get one less USB-C port than on the Mac mini M4, having that USB-A port means you won't need to hunt for a dongle every time you want to plug in a flash drive.

Under the hood, my review unit came equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 5 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Lenovo also offers a higher-end configuration outfitted with an Intel Core Ultra 7 chip, 32GB of memory and a 1TB SSD.

While you can swap out the primary SSD for more storage down the road, keep in mind that this mini PC’s RAM is soldered to the motherboard and can't be upgraded.

Reach out and touch

Unlike other mini PCs, the Yoga Mini is immediately inviting thanks to its RGB underglow. This is a device that wants you to interact with it, which is clear from the get-go thanks to this small but meaningful addition.

Within Lenovo’s Turbo AI Engine app, you can fully customize the color and effects of the Yoga Mini’s RGB underglow. For instance, with a little help from Intel’s built-in Wi-Fi sensing tech, I set the mini PC to greet me with a violet light show complete with a bouncing ball lighting effect the second I approached my desk.

Alternatively, you can set the underglow to react to music or light up in a specific color when an important notification arrives.

Lighting isn't all the software can control, either. Thanks to a built-in accelerometer, the top of the Yoga Mini acts as a customizable button.

By default, a single tap turns off the ambient lighting, while a double tap launches Lenovo’s Voice Mode to let you speak directly to the mini PC via its built-in microphone and speaker. You can also reassign either the single or double tap to launch any application on your PC.

You won’t just be touching the top surface, though — the fingerprint scanner integrated into the power button is also extremely useful.

I used it for instant, secure Windows logins, but because it’s tied directly into Windows Hello, you can also use it to log into supporting websites via your browser or unlock apps like one of the best password managers.

It’s worth noting that during my testing, the customizable tap feature was slightly finicky. While I could use it to turn off the Yoga Mini’s ambient lighting, I couldn’t get it to launch third-party apps just yet. Lenovo assured me that a fix is coming in a future software update, so this should be resolved shortly.

Puck-sized power

Despite its small size, the Yoga Mini is a surprisingly capable desktop. To put it through its paces, I built a minimalist desk setup with the PC front and center beneath a 5K2K ultrawide monitor. For an even cleaner look, I swapped out the included power supply for a 100W GaN charger paired with a braided USB-C cable.

Over a month of daily use, the base model with 16GB of RAM handled my standard workflow smoothly — even with dozens of Chrome tabs open across multiple windows alongside light photo editing in GIMP.

What impressed me most wasn't just the speed, but how whisper-quiet it remained under load. Compact mini PCs often rely on aggressive, high-pitched fan curves to manage their thermals, but the Yoga Mini stayed virtually silent throughout my entire time using it as my daily driver.

Even if the Yoga Mini technically underperformed in benchmark testing at our lab compared to the Mac mini M4 and the newer Geekom A9 Max 2026 Edition, in my real-world experience it held its own quite well.

The machine booted quickly, apps opened fast and I didn’t experience any significant slowdowns. While I would have loved having the extra memory and better integrated graphics you get with the higher-end model, the base Yoga Mini handled everything I threw at it and more.

I always get excited when testing a mini PC that uses a USB-C port over a barrel port for power since I’m not chained to the included power adapter.

However, as I had the MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G monitor I recently reviewed on hand, I decided to see if I could power this mini PC and get video out using a single cable. Surprisingly, I could.

From there, I wanted to try out the gaming capabilities of the Intel Core Ultra 5 CPU inside it as Panther Lake has made impressive improvements when it comes to integrated graphics.

While I did have to play at 1080p on that 4K monitor, I was able to run my go-to game, the skateboarding sim Session, on the Yoga Mini surprisingly well. Obviously your gaming experience will vary significantly depending on the game, but for older or less demanding titles, you can certainly play some games during your downtime with this mini PC.

Lenovo Yoga Mini: The Downs

The Yoga Mini is certainly an impressive mini PC, but it’s not without its downsides. These include not being able to run Lenovo’s AI assistant Qira on the base model, along with the fact that opening it up for upgrades requires having a suction cup at the ready.

A Copilot+ but not quite a Qira PC

With 50 TOPS from its NPU, the Core Ultra 5 inside the base Yoga Mini is more than capable of running local Copilot+ features like live captions with real-time translation and Windows Studio Effects.

However, if you stick with the entry-level model over the upgraded configuration, you’ll completely miss out on one of Lenovo’s most exciting AI features.

Alongside the Yoga Mini, Lenovo unveiled its new on-device AI assistant, Qira, at CES earlier this year. Designed to handle conversational voice commands, transcribe meetings in real time, and translate conversations on the fly, Qira showed a ton of promise.

After learning all about it back in January, I was genuinely excited to test it out here, especially since the Yoga Mini's puck-shaped design and built-in mic array seem tailored for it.

Unfortunately, running Qira requires a minimum of 24GB of RAM. Since my review unit only came equipped with 16GB, I couldn’t even install it — and trust me, I tried. While this won't be an issue if you spring for the higher-end configuration, it's disappointing that Qira’s memory requirements lock out the base model entirely.

Thankfully, if you want to mess around with on-device AI, you can still run plenty of lightweight open-source models like Llama 3 8B or Mistral on the base model using tools like LM Studio.

Bring your own suction cup

Upgradeability is something I always like to see on the mini PCs I review but sometimes, given their form factor or the company that makes them, this just isn’t possible.

For instance, you can’t easily open the Mac mini M4 to add a larger SSD. At first glance, I thought this was true with the Yoga Mini because when you flip the device over, there aren’t any visible screws.

As it turns out, you can upgrade the Yoga Mini but doing so required a bit more work than I’m normally accustomed to. With mini PCs like the Geekom A9 Max, you just take off the feet on the bottom and unscrew a few screws. With the Yoga Mini, you need a suction cup.

I tried using a pry tool to lift off its top lid at first but that didn’t get me anywhere. That’s when I discovered you need a suction removal tool to do so. Since I didn’t have one on hand, I improvised by using a strong suction cup I had left over from installing one of the best dash cams in my car.

That did the trick and with the case off, I now had access to the Yoga Mini’s internals. As I mentioned before, you can’t swap out the RAM since it’s soldered but you can remove the stock SSD and replace it with one with more storage.

However, since there isn’t a second M.2 SSD slot, you need to clone the original drive and move its contents to your new one before you do so.

Now don’t get me wrong, the fact that you can upgrade the Yoga Mini’s SSD is great. Still, I wish Lenovo just would have put an indent around back to get its top lid off. Or alternatively, they could have included a suction removal tool in the box.

Lenovo Yoga Mini: Verdict

The Lenovo Yoga Mini is unlike any mini PC I’ve tested yet, but in the best possible way. It trades the traditional rectangular form factor for a circular puck design without compromising on ports or performance.

The customizable RGB underglow, integrated fingerprint reader, and tap-enabled top lid add a ton of personality to this mini PC without feeling gimmicky in the slightest.

While I wish I could have tried out Lenovo's local AI assistant Qira on my review unit, the base model of the Yoga Mini is still an excellent choice if you’re after a sleek, ultra-compact, and quiet desktop PC.

You might pay a slight premium for the novel form factor, but Lenovo didn’t skimp on ports or performance to get there—and you won't have to deal with annoying fan noise, either.

Lenovo’s Legion laptops traditionally sit comfortably in the chunky, high-performance desktop replacement zone. They’re thick, with heavy power supplies, and abysmal battery life. However, this year’s Legion 5i changes that formula.

The Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 11 offers a more streamlined chassis and better battery life compared to previous models, but still offers the same robust gaming performance, a crisp OLED display, along with Lenovo’s industry-leading keyboard for an all-around powerhouse of a laptop. If not for a sub-par onboard audio experience and expensive upgrades, it would be perfect.

The real question is: are those downsides enough to keep the Legion 5i Gen 11 from becoming one of our best gaming laptops?

Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 11: Cheat sheet

• What is it?: The Legion 5i Gen 11 is a more toned-down version of Lenovo’s Legion Pro, offering a fantastic balance between powerful gaming performance and crisp visuals with more affordable pricing compared to the Pro model.
• Who is it for?: Gamers and STEM students who want a powerful RTX 50-series laptop with Lenovo’s sturdy build quality, while sticking to a more affordable price tag.
• What does it cost?: The starting price for the Legion 5i Gen 11 is $1,899 while our review spec costs a bit more, running the tab up to $2,825. However, Lenovo is running a special on an RTX 5060 configuration that brings the price down to just $1,899.
• What do we like?: The new, sleeker chassis makes the Legion 5i a bit more portable, and the improved battery life is fantastic for students or working professionals. The Legion 5i also sports one of Lenovo’s fantastic keyboards, a crisp OLED display, and a powerful Nvidia RTX 50-series GPU.
• What don’t we like?: Upgrading your RAM and storage, or switching to the RTX 5070 model come at steep premiums which make the affordable Legion 5i Gen 11 a much less attractive bargain.

Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 11: Specs

Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 11: The ups

The Legion 5i is Lenovo’s mid-tier gaming laptop, and it’s got plenty to recommend it as your next gaming laptop. Between the new sleek chassis, crisp OLED display, fantastic keyboard, useful battery life, and powerful NVIDIA RTX 50-series graphics the Legion 5i has some serious selling points.

Sleek redesign

Lenovo has been thinning out the Legion lineup a bit over the years, and the 11th Gen Legion ditches the clunky hub on the back for a more beveled edge across the entire laptop. While it doesn’t shave a ton off the Z-height of the laptop, the loss of the hub and the bevelling make the Legion 5i feel much slimmer despite being nearly equal in thickness.

The design overhaul also makes the Legion 5i a bit easier to carry, even with a slightly heavier weight than the 10th Gen Legion 5i which was 0.8 inches thick and weighed 4.1 pounds. The 11th Gen is 0.79 inches thick and weighs 4.25 pounds.

Overall, the new design still keeps some recognizable Legion touches from the smudge-magnet Eclipse Black colorway to the Legion logo on the top cover panel, and Lenovo’s camera and microphone hub at the top edge.

While this doesn’t drastically change the dimensions of the Legion, it does make it feel more like a modern gaming laptop than previous iterations (particularly the 9th Gen and earlier) which were starting to feel dated.

Industry-leading keyboard

Lenovo makes good keyboards. That’s just kind of a universal fact at this point. And the Legion 5i Gen 11 is no exception to that rule.

The typing experience is the perfect combination of crisp with deep keytravel to avoid bottoming out your fingers while frantically typing instructions to your party in the in-game text window. It’s both satisfying and comfortable, which is a hard sweet-spot to hit for a laptop keyboard.

The off-set arrow keys also make navigating games a little easier and the included num-pad is great for binding macros and additional skills for input heavy RPGs and MMOs.

The Legion’s keyboard features 1.6mm key travel with a 0.3mm dish on each key, with swappable keycaps and Lenovo’s Spectrum RGB software for controlling the 1-zone or 24-zone RGB depending on your keyboard upgrades.

And even with just 1-zone RGB, you still get the same 1.6mm key travel and 0.3mm dish, which means if you don’t go for the 24-zone RGB upgrade, you still get the same great typing experience.

Crisp display

OLED displays offer some serious gaming benefits, and they’re even better when you’re using your gaming laptop to binge a TV series over a weekend. Getting an OLED display on a mid-range gaming laptop isn’t always a guarantee, so it's incredible to see that as a standard panel option on the Legion 5i.

From crisper blacks and more vibrant colors, the Legion 5i’s display looks absolutely stunning when watching nature documentaries like The Loneliest Whale or when playing visually intense games like Avowed. Toggle on HDR, and you’ve got a gaming laptop that can actually display the final season of Game of Thrones.

While my eyes absolutely enjoyed my time with the Legion 5i, that experience is also backed up by our lab testing. The Legion 5i Gen 11 covered 137.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average brightness of 490 nits and a peak HDR brightness of 1,049 nits.

This is pretty great for an OLED, and absolutely fantastic when compared to other mid-range gaming laptops like the MSI Stealth 16 AI+ or HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition which both lack HDR support and manage just 85% and 81% coverage of the DCI-P3 spectrum respectively.

Solid RTX 5070 gaming chops

While the Legion 5i isn’t Lenovo’s flagship gaming laptop, it should still have solid gaming performance. Particularly our review model which features the powerful Intel Core Ultra 7 251HX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 combination.

My current go-to games aren’t exactly strong benchmarks so I expected the Legion 5i to have no problems whatsoever running Baldur’s Gate III and Final Fantasy XIV on high graphics presets at the Legion’s max 1600p resolution. In Baldur’s Gate III, I had the Legion running on High graphics presets at 1600p and was easily getting over 90fps.

In Final Fantasy XIV, I had the Legion running High (Laptop) graphics presets at 1600p and could get frame-rate peaks of over 100fps though the game tended to settle around 90fps in most zones. Any frame drops I noticed were more due to pop-in rate and high player traffic than anything hardware wise with the Legion.

To make the Legion 5i work a bit harder, I also booted up Avowed which has a tendency to run at low frame-rates because of its intense graphics and poor optimization. The Legion did stumble here a bit, but then I’ve also seen RTX 5090 laptops struggle with Avowed.

However, while keeping my resolution set to 1600p (because Avowed sometimes gets awkward on lower resolutions) , opting for Medium graphics settings got me a perfectly playable game which held at about 59 to 61 FPS, and I didn’t lose too much graphic detail either.

In our lab tests, the Legion also performed well. Our review unit for the Legion 5i Gen 11 features the upgraded Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 (12GB) model, which outperformed the HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition which featured the 8GB version of the RTX 5070. The Legion also held the lead over the MSI Stealth 16 AI+ which featured the RTX 5060.

This meant the Legion 5i averaged 9 fps more than the HyperX and 21 FPS more than the Stealth on Black Myth Wukong at 1080p on Medium settings. The Legion’s lead died down a bit on Cinematic settings and 1600p resolution. The Legion also held a 9 FPS lead on the HyperX on Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p and a 6 FPS lead at 1600p. The Stealth lagged behind the Legion by 12 FPS at 1080p and 8 FPS at 1600p on Cyberpunk.

While the Legion can still struggle to surpass 60fps on intense titles at max resolution, it can easily clear the 60 FPS mark on High or Ultra settings at 1080p. Which is pretty impressive for an RTX 5070 laptop. It does help that Lenovo opted for the 12GB VRAM model which gives the Legion’s RTX 5070 just enough extra horsepower to clear the competition.

Respectable battery life

Legion laptops rarely win awards for having long battery life, and usually that’s expected. Legion laptops tend to sit in the desktop replacement sector, where you don’t really expect much in terms of unplugged performance for laptops that feature power-hungry CPUs and GPUs.

However, the Legion 5i Gen 11 does pack a pretty respectable punch when it comes to web surfing and gaming battery life. The Legion 5i lasted 7 hours and 3 minutes on our web surfing battery test and it survived an impressive 1 hour 27 minutes on the PCMark 10 Gaming battery life benchmark.

For context, the HyperX Omen 16 lasted just 2:41 on our web surfing battery test, while the MSI Stealth was one of our longer-lasting gaming laptops with a web surfing battery life of 10:49. For a Legion laptop to get over 7 hours of web surfing battery life? That’s a pretty damn impressive turnaround. The Legion 5i Gen 9 barely made it three and a half hours.

As for the PCMark 10 Gaming battery benchmark, the HyperX Omen 16 lasted 1:30 and the Stealth lasted 1:55. It’s pretty rare to see a gaming laptop hit 2 hours on the PCMark 10 test since any discrete GPU is going to put a major drain on the laptop’s internal battery. However, getting 1:27 is pretty solid. It’s not a great amount of game-time but it is enough that you don’t need to immediately worry if your cat unplugs your laptop mid-raid.

Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 11: The downs

The Legion’s downsides aren’t particularly plentiful, and there are ways to avoid these pitfalls. You can avoid the pricey upgrades by sticking with the pre-configured $1,899 model and you can use a quality headset or set of speakers to get better audio, they are problematic enough to be considered downsides.

RAMaggeddon Strikes Again

Gaming hardware has always been expensive, but budget gaming hardware is now almost non-existent.

Lenovo is currently offering a pre-configured version of the Legion 5i Gen 11 at $1,899. That model features the same Intel Core Ultra 7 251HX CPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and 15-inch OLED display as our review configuration. However, it has the Nvidia RTX 5060 onboard instead. This is actually cheaper than the $2,355 starting configuration with just 512GB of SSD storage.

And really, that $1,899 price tag wouldn’t be considered budget just a year ago, but the RAM shortage has made any gaming laptop under $2,000 feel like a steal.

Unfortunately, the base configuration is more expensive, so if Lenovo ever stops running that sale, the Legion 5i goes from somewhat affordable to expensive. Especially if you need to upgrade the RAM, SSD storage, CPU, or GPU as those will come at steep premiums.

Upgrading to the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX processor costs an additional $110 while upgrading to the Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card adds $300 to the total price. Upgrading your storage to 1TB will set you back $190, upgrading to 2TB will set you back an additional $430 on top of that, while increasing your memory from 16GB to 32GB will come with a $370 price-tag.

Which is how you get our RTX 5070 configuration at $2,825. And that’s the kind of prices we saw on RTX 5090 laptops just a year ago. So if you want the Legion 5i Gen 11, you better grab the pre-configured model while Lenovo still has that special running. Because otherwise its hard to justify the price.

Don’t rely on the built-in audio

Considering the Legion 5i’s status as Lenovo’s mid-range Intel gaming laptop, a certain level of quality is expected on all fronts. And audio is no exception.

While laptop audio setups often have to make sacrifices due to the form factor, some laptops offer more robust built-in sound systems than others. And while the Legion 5i’s audio is perfectly usable, it’s hardly enjoyable.

Lenovo packed a quad (2x2W) Harman speaker system with Nahimic Audio drivers into the Legion 5i chassis. Unfortunately, those speakers are bottom-firing which leads to some issues based on your gaming surface.

Downward-facing laptop speakers rely on audio engineering to bounce the audio to the user, so they can be less consistent in audio quality than top or side-firing audio systems.

While the Legion 5i’s speakers are perfectly fine at lower volume levels (40% and below), the bottom-firing speakers get muddied, and everything sounds overly-sharp with no bass when played at higher volumes.

So it’s not exactly ideal for a movie or TV show binge. And while you might be able to play a casual game with the Legion’s speaker system, I would opt for a quality studio headset for anything more intense than Runescape.

Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 11: Verdict

Traditionally, a Lenovo Legion laptop is a chunky, high-performance desktop replacement laptop that you’d rarely dream of carrying to school or to work.

Between the previous generation and this current gen, that’s starting to change. The Legion 5i offers a sleeker, more modern chassis that’s much easier to carry, and it’s got battery life that’s actually useful for getting some work done.

Combined with one of Lenovo’s industry leading keyboards, a crisp OLED display, and the same robust gaming performance you’d expect from a Legion laptop and the Legion 5i is a potent powerhouse.

It could be the perfect laptop, if only its onboard audio system was a bit more robust and its base price and upgrades weren’t so expensive.

If you are going to nab the Legion 5i Gen 11, I would absolutely recommend sticking with the discounted $1,899 preconfigured model as it's actually affordable and comes with nearly all the same features as our review model.

The gaming performance will be a bit weaker, but it’s not worth the nearly $1,000 increase in price just to upgrade to the RTX 5070 model.

As someone who reviews the best mini PCs for a living, I keep coming back to Apple’s Mac mini M4. With its all-aluminum chassis, perfectly rounded corners, and — for the first time on a Mac mini — handy front ports, it’s the redesign and power boost we’d been waiting for. It’s certainly not the only game in town, but it’s easily the prettiest.

At least, I thought so until Lenovo unveiled its Yoga Mini at CES earlier this year. While other mini PCs stick to the same tried-and-true square or rectangular box, this one is completely round — so much so that you could easily mistake it for a smart speaker or a screenless smart thermostat.

Even though there aren’t any front ports next to the Yoga logo — just two small pinholes for the built-in microphone array — this is the kind of mini PC designed to sit front and center on your desk. Just like the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG, I wouldn’t dream of mounting the Yoga Mini behind a monitor. Lenovo clearly agrees, as you won't find any VESA mounting holes on its underside. Instead, you get 360-degree ventilation, a built-in speaker, and the cherry on top: customizable RGB underglow.

I was immediately impressed during my initial hands-on with the Yoga Mini. Now, after spending two weeks using it as my daily driver, I’m even more taken with how Lenovo has managed to turn traditional mini PC expectations on their head. Or rather, on their side.

Here’s what it’s been like living with this Panther Lake-powered, puck-shaped mini PC on my desk — and why, given the choice, it wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

360 degrees of usability

Even with its compact 5.12 x 5.12 x 1.91-inch footprint, I was a bit surprised by how few extras Lenovo included in the box with my Yoga Mini review unit. Alongside the device itself, there was only a 100W power brick — which, as it turns out, you don’t strictly need to use, but more on that shortly.

If you pick one up at retail, Lenovo's site notes that you’ll get a bundled wireless mouse and keyboard. Still, with no video cable listed, this mini PC will pair quite well with one of the best monitors equipped with a USB-C port capable of power delivery.

Around back, you get a nice selection of ports given the Yoga Mini’s very compact size. There’s a Thunderbolt 4 port, two USB-C ports which both come equipped with DisplayPort functionality (one even features power delivery), an HDMI 2.1 port, a high-speed USB-A port and a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port.

Though there aren’t any proper front ports, Lenovo didn’t let the sides of the Yoga Mini go to waste. On the left, there’s another Thunderbolt 4 port also equipped with power delivery with a 3.5mm headphone jack next to it. Then on the right side, there’s a power button with a built-in fingerprint scanner for secure logins.

At 1.32 pounds, Lenovo’s Yoga Mini is just slightly lighter than the Mac mini M4 at 1.5 pounds. While I doubt you’ll be holding it like this as often as I have, its aluminum finish feels great on your fingers and the whole mini PC fits neatly in the palm of your hand. Thanks to a few extras Lenovo worked into its design, the Yoga Mini is the kind of mini PC you can travel with too if you prefer using an external mouse and keyboard over your laptop’s keyboard and trackpad.

Hiding this mini PC isn’t an option

Back when I first laid eyes on the Yoga Mini at CES, I imagined it sitting front and center on my desk. After using it for two weeks that way, I can easily see it becoming a permanent fixture. Sure, it is small enough to tuck under a monitor stand, but that would defeat the point. This is a mini PC that’s meant to be seen — and it sees you, too.

The Yoga Mini comes equipped with Intel’s Wi-Fi sensing tech, allowing you to use Windows’ settings menu to wake up your monitor when you enter the room or put it to sleep when you leave. As someone who often leaves several desktop computers running simultaneously, walking into my office to see a blank display for once was a welcome change. But that’s not the only trick up the Yoga Mini’s rounded sleeves.

Within the Lenovo AI Turbo Engine app, you can customize the default lighting and change how the RGB underglow responds to different scenarios. Although I set the default lighting to teal to match the accent keys on my Keychron Q11 Ultra keyboard, I really liked the soft violet hue it was set to out of the box. I decided to keep that shade to greet me when I sit down at my desk, paired with a bouncy ball lighting effect to boot.

There’s more you can do with the underglow, too. While testing the built-in speaker, I forgot I had Sound Lighting enabled. As a 21:9 music video played on the Innocn 401CU ultrawide monitor above it, Lenovo’s mini PC treated me to a miniature light show that I enjoyed more than I’d like to admit. You can also enable lighting effects for notifications, though I typically keep those off in Windows since my phone buzzes enough as it is.

One detail I particularly like in mini PCs designed for the center of a desk is a built-in fingerprint scanner, like the ones on MSI’s Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG or the Mind Graphics 2 eGPU dock I use with the Khadas Mind 2S. The one on the Yoga Mini’s right side works quite well and makes logging into Windows a breeze — especially when paired with presence detection to re-authenticate after stepping away.

If the fingerprint scanner, RGB underglow, and built-in microphone array aren’t enough to convince you to make the Yoga Mini your desk's centerpiece, Lenovo included one more trick.

Just like a smartphone, this mini PC features a built-in accelerometer under the hood, allowing you to use the top of its case like a large touch-sensitive button. In the Lenovo AI Turbo Engine app, you can enable tap interactions: by default, a single tap toggles the adaptive lighting on or off, while a double tap activates voice chat mode. You can also remap either gesture to launch any program installed on your PC.

Since my review unit arrived early, Lenovo is still ironing out the software kinks for gesture remapping. While tapping to toggle the RGB underglow worked fine, I couldn’t get it to launch Chrome with a single tap or Steam with a double tap (more on that in a bit). This will be addressed in an upcoming software update though.

Since there’s only one USB-A port on the back of the Yoga Mini, I initially relied on my monitor’s built-in KVM switch for the 2.4GHz dongles for my keyboard and trackball mouse. That worked well until I needed to offload photos from my camera’s SD card, leading me to an unexpected discovery.

Although you get one USB-A port with the Yoga Mini, you don’t get any with the Mac mini M4. That’s why the first accessory I tried out with Apple’s redesigned mini PC was Satechi’s Mac Mini M4 Stand & Hub. Alongside three USB-A ports, it also has an SD card reader on the front. I had tried using it with a few other Windows-based mini PCs in the past and while everything worked, it was far from a perfect fit. Since the circular base at the bottom of the Yoga Mini has more or less the same dimensions as the one on the Mac mini M4, the two look like they were made for each other — especially with that same anodized aluminum finish.

While I’ve spent most of my time using the Yoga Mini for work in my office, I decided to give another setup a try to put the graphical power of its Panther Lake chip to the test.

Power-brick optional

If there’s one thing I hate seeing on the back of a mini PC, it’s a barrel connector for power. That usually means you're stuck using the bulky included adapter to power the device. Fortunately, with the Yoga Mini, that’s not the case.

The included adapter uses a USB-C connector, which means as long as you match the wattage, you can swap it for a compact GaN charger instead. I did just that in my office for a cleaner look with braided cables. However, I also wanted to see if a monitor with USB-C power delivery could do the same thing

I brought the Yoga Mini to my game room and plugged it into the MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G monitor I recently reviewed. At first, the mini PC refused to turn on. Then I remembered this MSI display has two USB-C ports: one capped at 15W and another that provides 98W of power delivery. After a quick cable swap, I hit the power button again and we were in business.

I’d previously tried this with that Innocn ultrawide monitor and while it worked, I kept the Yoga Mini plugged into a power outlet there just to be safe. The main reason I moved it to the game room setup was to see how well I could game on its integrated Intel Graphics. On the 5K2K ultrawide, I could manage windowed gaming, but full screen was asking too much.

While a native 1080p display would have been better suited for testing than a 4K monitor, playing my go-to game — the fast-paced skateboarding sim Session — was a pleasant surprise. The visuals were a tad soft rendered at 1080p on a 4K panel, but the framerate stayed solid and the game was completely playable.

Intel’s integrated graphics performance has come a long way over the years — something I first noticed when I built a triple-monitor setup with the original Khadas Mind. Panther Lake takes those built-in graphical capabilities even further. While you won't be running demanding AAA titles on the Yoga Mini, it has plenty of power for older or lighter titles when you need a gaming fix.

I’m definitely going to try out a few more games ahead of my full review, but for a productivity-focused device, I’m thoroughly impressed with what this round mini PC is capable of.

Circle gets the square

Now don’t get me wrong, the Mac mini M4 is one of the best Macs Apple has ever made — both in terms of design and performance — and I can’t wait to see what Cupertino does with the next generation. Still, while it’s one of the most recognizable mini PCs, it’s far from your only option. And let’s face it, not everyone can or wants to daily drive macOS.

I’ve tried out plenty of mini PCs with a similar footprint and performance to the Mac mini M4, like the Geekom A9 Max. However, while Geekom has continued to improve upon its designs with each new mini PC it releases, the Yoga Mini is an entirely new form factor for Lenovo and one that works surprisingly well.

After testing this mini PC for two weeks, I hope the puck-shaped Yoga Mini becomes a mainstay of Lenovo’s lineup going forward. Given the company has "Intel" in parentheses next to its name, who knows? Maybe we’ll see an AMD version or even one equipped with Nvidia’s upcoming RTX Spark chip sooner rather than later, too.

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The humble computer monitor — they come in all shapes and sizes and with all kinds of display tech, but the way you use them hasn’t really changed since the early 1950s. You plug it in and a pretty picture shows up … That’s about it!

But Lenovo’s Vice President and GM of Visuals business, George Toh, has ambitious dreams for how this peripheral will not only develop over time, but actually change the future of how we go about doing things at our desk.

I got the chance to speak to Toh following a bunch of concept device unveilings over the past few months, to see where he thinks things will go, and being real, I don’t think my desk is ready for the glow-up it’s going to get over the next few years.

Appearances will be deceiving

One of the first things Toh mentioned is that if we were to get into a time machine and travel forward, “the physics of a display won’t change.” It will be that same familiar rectangle on your desk. “I anticipate it to be a lot thinner, but still physically large — I expect it to look a lot more attractive than what it is today,” Toh added.

You can see this pursuit of thinness in a lot of monitors today, which comes up against the simple physics of the heat generated and the dimensions of the panel inside the case. Given the iterative pace of monitor tech, it really doesn’t surprise me that the sleekness will get even sleeker. On top of that, the price of these materials to build panels is coming down too — one of those rare moments in computing where something gets more cost effective.

“Even OLED panel costs are coming down,” Toh proclaimed. “We spend time working with panel and scaler manufacturers to figure out how to get higher refresh rates in a more cost effective way. For example, the cost is very minimal from 144 Hz to 160 Hz.”

But the real differences will come with what they can do, rather than what they look like.

The seamless hub of everything

So chances are you’ve seen us show off all the concepts and prototypes Lenovo brings to trade shows like CES and MWC — whether it’s the rollable ultra-wide gaming laptop, the AI Sense display that moves around with you, or the AI frame gaming display that can enhance resolution to zoom into areas of gameplay on-the-fly.

Lenovo shows these off to get feedback on ideas they have that could become features in future products, and George started to paint a picture of how these will come together. “I anticipate that more and more likely, your display will also be the center hub of your desk,” Toh explained. “When you walk close, it detects you and powers on, and if the device’s app your opening uses a camera, it will start to capture [from the camera on the monitor].”

Right now, the back of my desk looks like a nest of aggressively hostile snakes. I have dongles for my dongles. But Toh’s vision is a monitor that acts as an omniscient overlord. You walk up, it detects you, and it hijacks your camera automatically. The monitor isn't just a dumb screen anymore; it's the brains of the operation.

His vision is a monitor that is “smarter to what content you are displaying on the screen,” which is “able to adjust its own settings and know automatically for you.”

So it should come as no surprise that the key behind this will be agentic AI that runs locally on the monitor. This is something you’ve seen in a couple of conceptual forms — that AI frame gaming display concept used deductive AI to enhance details like flight simulator dials or distant enemies in an FPS with a chip built into it.

"We use a deductive AI mechanism that fills in the blanks on-the-fly, to smooth out the resolution — meaning you’re able to zoom in deep and get a quite good picture," Toh adds.

PC gamers are currently selling internal organs to afford GPUs that can render a blade of grass at 4K. Toh’s solution? Make the monitor do the heavy lifting. By putting agentic AI directly into the display to upscale the image on the fly, the monitor essentially becomes a co-pilot, saving your graphics card from catching fire during a Cyberpunk 2077 boss fight.

Next generation eye health

Then we turn our attention to Lenovo’s AI-powered personalized display and the wellness features it incorporated. We gravitated towards this a lot in our time going eyes on, and it seems like Lenovo’s planning a runway to this new version of eye health that transcends minimizing blue light.

“It tracks how often you blink and yawn. It tracks how much time you rested and can prompt you,” Toh added. “And also it uses things like a circular polarizer that diffuses light in a manner that is more attuned to natural sunlight.”

Modern monitors are essentially high-powered interrogation lamps aimed directly at our retinas. Toh's integration of circular polarizers doesn't just 'reduce glare' — it stops the screen from treating your eyeballs like a laser-tag target, diffusing the light so you don't feel like you've been staring at the sun after an eight-hour shift.

As someone who's spent far more time in front of a screen than he'd like to admit, this is probably the most welcome news of all.

Outlook

For the last 70 years, we've treated monitors like hostages — chaining them to our desks, plugging them into increasingly expensive PCs, and demanding they just sit there and look pretty. We've accepted the cable spaghetti and retinal fatigue as the inevitable cost of doing business.

But speaking with Toh, it's clear the industry has realized that just making a screen thinner isn't going to cut it anymore. Lenovo's vision is to finally give the monitor a brain.

Now, it might take a few years for agentic AI upscaling and circular polarizers to become standard. Until then, I'm stuck battling my nest of hostile cable snakes. But when this glow-up finally arrives, the monitor won't just be a passive window on your desk — it will be a bodyguard for your graphics card, a shield for your eyeballs, and the boss of your workspace.

The days of the "dumb" display are officially numbered. And honestly? Good riddance.

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Chromebook Plus models typically dominate our best Chromebook recommendations, and some of the features of the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 make it easy to understand why. It boasts a durable Lenovo chassis, a bright 15.3-inch touchscreen display, and a superb 5MP webcam. But is that enough for me to recommend it?

While your basic computing needs could be met by a cheaper Chromebook like the sub-$300 Asus Chromebook CX15, there are many quality-of-life improvements when moving up to this mid-tier range. The hardware feels more sturdy, the display is better, and you get better overall performance. However, at $579, it lands in an increasingly competitive segment of the laptop market, with options like the MacBook Neo and the Dell XPS 13 announced at Computex 2026 that are a little more expensive but offer considerably more capabilities.

But more capabilities come with tradeoffs; part of the appeal of ChromeOS is the simplicity and ease of use. Chromebooks offer more features than they once did while remaining the simplest laptops to maintain from a software standpoint. However, even among Chromebooks, the Lenovo Chromebook Plus faces stiff competition for just a bit more, like the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 or the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus.

I’ve spent the last two weeks using the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 daily to get a good feel for its advantages and its limitations. Read on to see if this relatively affordable Chromebook might be the right choice for you.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 review: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 is a mid-range Chromebook.
• Who is it for? People who want the simplicity of Chrome OS in an affordable package without sacrificing hardware quality.
• What does it cost? The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 starts at $579 but is often on sale for less.
• What do we like? We like the durable build quality, the bright display, and the solid performance.
• What don’t we like? Battery life comes up short at just over eight hours, the keyboard isn’t up to typical Lenovo standards, and the lack of an NPU hurts in the AI era.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 review: Specs

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 review: The ups

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 hits a few high points for a budget laptop with a bright touchscreen display, a sturdy build, an outstanding 5MP webcam, and every port you could ask for.

Built to last

While a plastic chassis doesn’t scream premium, it’s not a surprise at this price, but what is surprising is how sturdy and well-built it feels. Picking it up to toss it in my bag or just move to another table at the coffee shop, there is no noticeable flex in the chassis.

The hinge is also remarkably stiff, holding perfectly in place during even my most aggressive typing sessions and my occasional taps on the touchscreen.

At 14.05 x 9.76 x 0.61 inches and weighing 3.44 pounds it isn’t challenging for any thin-and-light awards. However, that isn’t really the goal for this laptop, which is primarily targeting the education market. It isn’t exceedingly heavy, and it will hold up well to the drops and bumps.

A display to brighten your day

The display on the Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 is the biggest upgrade you are getting by opting to upgrade from a true budget Chromebook. It hit 379 of brightness in our testing, which is more than 100 nits brighter than the likes of the Asus Chromebook CX15 or Acer Chromebook Plus 515.

It even slightly outshines the pricier Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus on brightness, and while it can’t hold up to Samsung’s color, it again destroys the budget competition at roughly double the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut.

The display easily handled adverse lighting conditions in the coffee shop, even when I had to sit right next to a bright window I was able to view everything on the screen. Avoid direct sunlight, but otherwise you will be absolutely fine in any conditions.

I watched the trailer for The Odyssey and everything looked crisp and vibrant. In a close-up on Matt Damon’s face a small trail of sweat was visible on his brow and you could count every hair in the small section of his bristly beard that was in focus.

A plethora of ports

Given the education focus for the Lenovo Chromebooks Plus 15I TN10, it perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that it offers so many ports, but regardless I love to see them.

Most critically have two USB-C ports supporting up to 65W charging and DP 1.4 along with two USB-A ports. Then you also get an HDMI port, a combo 3.5mm headphone/mic jack, a microSD card reader, and finally a Kensington Nano Security Slot.

This is an embarrassment of riches for any laptop, let alone one at this price point.

Keyboard is good, but not great

Lenovo is a victim of its own reputation here as I just expect a stellar keyboard every time. This is a very solid keyboard for a budget laptop. I was able to maintain about 86 words per minute on it, which is just a bit off my normal speeds of 92 words per minute.

However, I had more errors than normal and the keys don’t have sufficient bounce back, so I came away more fatigued from typing after a full day. Overall, it is a good keyboard and particularly if you have to do any data entry you’ll love having the number pad as well.

Ready for your close-up

Whether you are using this for education, work, or personal use, it’s a safe bet that you will have an occasional video chat. This is another area where budget laptops typically skimp and you either need to buy one of the best external webcams or look like a blurry mess to everyone on the call.

The Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 doesn’t fall victim to this trend with a 5MP webcam that looked excellent in my testing. The colors and details in my office were captured perfectly and it handled the overhead lighting well. And for those that have privacy concerns, there is a physical shutter to slide over the camera whenever it isn’t in use.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 review: The downs

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 punches above its weight in several areas, but a few key features let me down, which may prove to be dealbreakers for you.

Don’t leave your charger at home

Over the last few years I’ve seen battery life dramatically improve on most laptops, so my expectations have changed.

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 lasted just over 8 hours in our testing, which involves web-surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 150 nits of brightness. That would have been a middling result a few years ago, in 2026 it is bordering on completely unacceptable.

The more powerful (and admittedly more expensive) Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus pushed past 11 hours in the same test and Lenovo’s own Chromebook Plus 14 even managed to last 13 hours and 19 minutes.

Again just thinking of the intended users for this laptop, in an educational setting you do not always have access to an outlet and if you are using the screen closer to full brightness, you won’t get close to making it through a full day on a single charge. If however you are picking this up for use around your house, the battery life is far less of a concern.

Even Chromebooks need better performance than this

I tested the highest configuration of the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10, which offers an Intel Core 3 N355 CPU and 8GB of RAM. I concede that I am accustomed to using much more powerful laptops, but even with that in mind I found the performance to be disappointing.

I didn’t try to push it with my typical workload of dozens of Chrome tabs, and yet even with just a handful of tabs I found things slowing down and the fans running, particularly when running a YouTube video in one of them.

I adjusted to it, but there’s just a slight delay to navigating around the operating system that feels like it shouldn’t be there even on this level of hardware. Our benchmark testing supports this with the Lenovo Chromebook Plus falling well behind the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus, but more importantly the Acer Chromebook Plus 515. The latter uses a much older 12th Gen Intel CPU and of course is much cheaper at under $400.

While again I was able to adjust to the slower performance after spending some time with the laptop, it falls short of what I would expect in this price range.

Bring your headphones

The bottom-firing speakers on the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 are only worth using if you are trying to watch something with a friend briefly. Otherwise you should invest in one of the best wireless headphones or best bluetooth speakers rather than listen to the tinny and muted audio coming out of the laptop.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 review: Verdict

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 15I TN10 offers a lot of hope when you take it out of the box. It feels so solid and I was thrilled at all of the ports available on it. Then you power it up for the first time and that bright, vivid image pops off the screen at you. But unfortunately things start to fall down from there.

Eight hours of battery life just isn’t cutting it in 2026 for all but the cheapest laptops, and the performance also feels like a Chromebook from a previous era. While the overall package is otherwise solid, these are two absolutely crucial features for any laptop, so it spoils the entire experience.

As I mentioned in the intro, this is just a tough segment of the market right now, so Lenovo could not afford to miss on any fronts to keep up with the competition. You would be better off spending up just a bit for either one of the best Chromebook alternatives in the $600 to $800 range or taking a look at the MacBook Neo or Dell XPS 13 if ChromeOS isn’t a must. Or if you are on a budget, look to some of the sub-$400 Chromebooks like the Acer Chromebook Plus 515, where the price excuses some of the trade-offs.

Lenovo is the official technology partner of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but what exactly does that mean? And more importantly, how is Lenovo using its tech might to improve the spectator, organizer, and team experience?

To find out, I sat down with Ryan McCurdy, SVP and president of Lenovo North America, just before the start of the U.S. vs Australia match.

From digitally smoothing jittery ref cam footage to creating digital avatars of all 1,200+ athletes to help officials make more accurate calls and fans better understand the game, our conversation covered nearly as much ground as Bruno Guimarães does in a match.

Smoothing the match day jitters

Sticking cameras on refs for a live on-field POV is not new, but the footage has historically been shaky and unsettling. For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Lenovo decided to address this.

"Head cams have been around for a while, but the problem is the referee is really moving, and it was too jittery to kind of get a good picture,” says McCurdy. “We're able to — with technology — reduce jitter by 60%. So now you're seeing these really unique, never-seen-before views, literally right in the middle of the action."

The key here is using technology, i.e., digital stabilization, to keep footage smooth, rather than affixing the refs with bulky physical stabilization rigs, which might slow them down or prove distracting.

1,200+ digital athlete avatars

One of the biggest undertakings before the start of the tournament was the process of 3D-scanning every athlete (1,200+) to create digital avatars. These avatars serve several purposes.

“They can be used to help in the determination of offsides,” says McCurdy during live games. The digital avatar also appears in live broadcasts to help fans better understand ref calls and reconstruct on-field moments for armchair analysis.

For the actual teams, these scans play a crucial role in powering Lenovo’s FIFA AI Pro app, a fancy, post-match analysis tool for assessing performance and team strategy. It provides insights and metrics for everything under the sun, and more importantly, FIFA AI Pro is available to every participating team’s coaching staff.

Democratizing post-match data

"When we look at the FIFA AI Pro today, this has been distributed to about 300 team analysts from all 48 teams, really democratizing the access for all these clubs that have the latest, greatest information," says McCurdy.

At present, FIFA AI Pro's insights are for teams and officiants only, but there is talk of opening up post-match insights to fans, as well. This is something that the NHL did in 2023 with game data, much to the delight of hockey fans everywhere.

Moreover, ensuring every FIFA World Cup team has access to the same level of AI-backed individual and team insights during the tournament ultimately makes for a fairer and more fun competition.

Improving the live fan experience

When it comes to match day, Lenovo’s role in making sure things run smoothly might not seem obvious, but the tech giant is responsible for everything from helping keep facilities secure to ensuring that those watching worldwide don’t miss a beat of the action on TV.

When it comes to safety, similar to the digital player avatars, Lenovo “made digital twins of all 16 stadiums,” says McCurdy. “This allows for the FIFA Command Center in Dallas to look at what's going on in [real-time] and monitor the situation there.”

Lenovo is also helping fans enjoy the game in more pragmatic ways. For example, to help folks avoid wandering a packed stadium, “we have a wayfinding app where fans can find the best path to their seat. For fans who haven't come to an enormous event like this, it really makes the experience better.”

Lenovo’s World Cup app can also be used to check concession and bathroom lines in real-time, all to help you avoid missing a moment of World Cup fun.

Bigger than the Super Bowl

Ultimately, the FIFA World Cup is right up there with the Olympics as one of the largest sporting events in the world.

"It sounds hyperbolic, but we’re expecting over 5 billion unique humans to consume and watch the World Cup—1.5 billion fans watching for the final. The Super Bowl is around 125 million. So we're talking 5 to 10x the size of the audience," notes McCurdy.

Translation: a whole lot of people are counting on Lenovo, as the tournament's tech partner, not to drop the ball. With over 100 matches, that sounds pretty stressful. So, why do it? Obviously, there are clear branding benefits to such a massive partnership, but what else is Lenovo getting out of this arrangement?

"If you can deliver at scale to billions of fans, you can certainly integrate your technology into a company that has a distributed workforce and a global supply chain,” says McCurd. “So it really helps us to kind of prove out and test the technology on just a massive scale"

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This year has been plagued by price hikes and skyrocketing RAM prices. Unfortunately, it may be the "new normal" according to Lenovo.

At a recent conference, Lenovo said that DRAM and NAND prices will "never" return to pre-2025 levels. And this is despite companies like Micron and SK Hynix building new fabs and adding capacities to try to meet the supply gap.

The "never" was apparently presented as a joke, per the German site ComputerBase. The company's presenter then went on to say that higher prices would be the "new normal" in 2030 and beyond.

It's not a comforting statement from a company that has been quite open about the RAM crisis spiking prices and changing their computing strategy. Memory and storage prices have come down a bit since a peak in April, but they're still hundreds of dollars more expensive than they were a year ago.

And we can see the impact on gaming with Xbox raising prices again and Apple issuing broad price increases this week.

Shifting blame

AI is to blame for the ongoing memory crisis. Datacenters that power large language models and other AI tools are demanding and have bought up most of the capacity of the big three memory manufacturers: Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix.

Micron's chief business officer didn't blame its biggest customer for the memory shortage this week and instead obliquely hinted that Apple is behind it to the Wall Street Journal.

In his remarks, CBO Sumit Sadana didn't name the Cupertino giant but suggested that tough supplier negotiations meant the company couldn't invest in more fabs or capacities.

"We told a couple of the customers who were being very aggressive with pricing at that time that this is not constructive. A lot of the industry investments got shut down in 2023 because of really poor pricing and really poor margins," Sadana told the WSJ.

Micron is a memory supplier for Apple, providing DRAM and NAND chips that are used in iPhones, Macs and iPads. Apple has been known to push for long-term purchasing contracts, where other companies might only get short-term six-month to one-year deals.

Sadana's comments surfaced just as Apple announced its price increases.

Apple's outgoing CEO warned about price hikes in an interview with the Wall Street Journal a week ago, calling the shortage a "hundred-year flood." He pointedly blamed the demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers that shrinks the memory supply for consumer devices like the MacBook Neo.

For now, you're screwed because some guy on LinkedIn wants to generate a picture of a cat dressed as Napoleon taking over Disneyland and call it "good business."

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The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10 is one of the rare Chromebooks that I actually think is a great little device. Most Chromebooks are disappointing enough that not even the low price tag is enough to save them from ending up as a mediocre compromise.

Not only is the Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 a fantastic bargain with a low price of just $439, it’s also got Lenovo’s premium build quality and industry-leading keyboard, along with performance that’s reliable enough for your average ChromeOS user, and has access to all the web apps you could need, from the Google suite to TikTok and the GeForce Now app.

The only things holding the Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 back from pure perfection is its disappointing battery life and dim display. But how does it compare to the best Chromebooks?

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10: Cheat sheet

• What is it?: The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 (2026) is a ChromeOS laptop with a 2-in-1 convertible chassis that can switch between laptop, tablet, and tent modes to meet a range of uses.
• Who is it for?: Students, employees, and individuals who need a laptop to access web applications like the Google suite, email, and social media sites.
• What does it cost?: The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 (2026) has a starting price of just $439.
• What do we like?: The luxurious build quality and sturdy convertible hinge, the fantastic keyboard, reliable performance, and incredible value.
• What don’t we like?: The battery life and display could be better, also, the Chromebook Plus label could do with a stronger identity.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10: Specs

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10: The ups

While I may not be the target audience for a Chromebook, there’s plenty to appreciate in this particular 2-in-1, from a fully aluminum chassis with a sturdy convertible hinge, to a fantastic keyboard, and reliable computing power.

This chassis might just be too premium for a Chromebook

Oftentimes, Chromebooks offer low prices to offset mediocre specs and build quality. While the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1’s Intel Core 3 N355 processor isn’t winning any benchmark races, it’s definitely got enough power in it to run all the apps you need, and the Chromebook’s chassis is fully aluminum, with a keyboard that feels like it belongs on a more premium laptop.

Not only does the Chromebook Plus 2-in-1’s chassis look like it belongs to a Lenovo Yoga laptop with its full aluminum paneling and camera hub bump along the top edge, it’s also got a ribbed pattern on the bottom panel that offers some nice detail on what is otherwise a standard Lenovo chassis. The Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 comes in the standard Luna Gray, but it’s also got a stunning Cosmic Blue color option which really helps set it apart from other, lackluster Chromebooks.

Lenovo used its sturdy convertible hinges on the Chromebook Plus, so opening and folding the laptop into tablet or tent modes feels smooth and secure. The inside of the hinge has some nice detailing on the vents which adds visual interest while also keeping the Chromebook operating at cool temps, and the bezels are nice and slim so the Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10 looks and feels like a premium laptop.

As for the keyboard deck, there’s nothing to complain about at all. Between the top-firing speakers along the edges of the keyboard, nicely spaced keys with a crisp activation and comfy key travel, to a touchpad that’s just on the right side of large.

If you told me Lenovo simply re-used a Yoga chassis for this Chromebook generation, I’d believe you without question. It’s honestly way too good for a $400 Chromebook.

Dependable performance

Chromebooks aren’t exactly known for setting performance records, and that’s okay. ChromeOS laptops and tablets are intended to be budget devices that run web apps well, but some Chromebooks handle large workloads better than others.

Thanks to its Intel Core 3 N355 processor, the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 (Gen 10) is one of the more responsive laptops in its class. While it isn’t going to be doing much heavy video editing, the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10 is more than capable of streaming video, managing your emails, and keeping a good 10 research tabs open without major slowdowns. Anything past that is just asking for trouble with how memory-hungry Chrome tends to be.

As for the numbers side of things, the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 fares well when compared to similar Chromebooks like the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2025), Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus, and Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 (2025). The Lenovo 2-in-1 Gen 10 underperformed on our Geekbench 6 benchmark on both single and multithreaded workloads, and its JetStream 2 and WebXPRT 4 scores were also behind its competition. However, Chromebooks don’t often need to leverage that much multicore performance given their app-bound usage.

So while the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 underperforms on benchmarks, its actual usability is not in question. While you can get more horsepower from any of the other three, that doesn’t equate to a huge difference in actual use. The 2-in-1 is powerful enough for what it is, without needing to be the most powerful Chromebook on the market.

And if you want to game on the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1, it runs the Nvidia GeForce Now app just fine. Thanks to Nvidia’s recent upgrades to the GeForce server rigs, the base tier of Geforce Now gets access to RTX 3050 GPUs, allowing you to play games like Baldur’s Gate III on High to Ultra settings without stuttering or drastic frame drops.

Incredible value

Google’s Chromebook Plus tier is intended to be a more powerful, more premium product and that usually means Chromebook Plus models retail for about $600 or more. The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus was $699 at launch, and is now selling for $799 at most retailers. The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 (2025) was originally $649 and the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2025) was $699 at launch, though both are often on sale for as low as $389 now that the newer generations are available.

But the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10, despite having the Chromebook Plus label, has a base price of just $439. That’s regular Chromebook territory in terms of cost. And yet the 2-in-1 has some serious premium chops thanks to its elevated build quality, crisp keyboard, and solid performance.

Finding a laptop of any kind for under $800 these days often feels like an impossibility, and yet here’s a Chromebook Plus for just about half that price. $439 would be an absolute bargain on a good day, when compared to the rest of the laptop market that’s suffering due to the RAM shortage, it’s practically a miracle of value.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10: The downs

Just about any laptop is going to have some downsides. It’s just part of the process in cramming as many features and performance into a constrained chassis. But some downsides are better or worse than others. And the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10 does have some proper faults.

Chromebook battery life isn’t what it used to be

Chromebooks used to be the best option for folks who wanted a laptop with at least 8-hours of battery life. However, standard Windows laptops have gotten significantly better than they used to be, often averaging well over 10-hours of battery life for a 14-inch laptop.

Chromebooks, meanwhile, have stayed the same. And the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10 is no different. The 2-in-1 lasted 8 hours and 32 minutes on our web surfing battery test. Which is disappointing but not particularly below the Chromebook average.

However, there are some Chromebooks that break the 9-hour threshold. Last year’s Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 lasted over 13 hours on the same battery test while the Acer Chromebook Plus 514 Spin got over 14 hours, and even the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus lasted over 11 hours.

While 8.5 hours of web surfing battery life looks like it’ll get you through a work or school day, chances are you’ll be doing more than just surfing the web in a single tab all day. Which means your actual battery mileage may be closer to 6.5 hours like mine was.

The display appears better than it is

In the right setting, the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10’s display looks brighter and more vibrant than it actually is. It’s only once you take it near a window or out in the sunlight that it becomes obvious the display barely breaks the 200-nit threshold.

With a glossy IPS LCD panel, the Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 will catch a glare from any stray sunbeams or hanging pendant lamps, which isn’t ideal for a Netflix streaming binge.

The Lenovo 2-in-1 display is also a bit flat in color, covering just 65% of the sRGB gamut. So if you want to do any photo editing on your Chromebook, you’d be better off with the Galaxy Chromebook Plus, which has a far superior display.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10: Verdict

Lenovo’s Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Gen 10 combines Lenovo’s fantastic keyboard, premium build quality, with dependable performance and fantastic value for a Chromebook that finally feels properly premium.

If anything, the 2-in-1 is such a good value, Google now has an identity crisis on its hands with the Chromebook Plus branding since the 2-in-1 is a good $150 cheaper than most other laptops in the Chromebook Plus bracket.

I’ve tested Nvidia’s RTX Spark laptop chip (spoiler alert: it’s mindblowing), and now I’ve gone hands-on with every single laptop launching in just a few months time to set up a ranked list.

Eight premium notebooks are launching — each with their own unique features and quirks that I’m keen to share, so that when the launch date arrives, you know which one is best for you. Of course, this is personal preference, and certain systems I put in a lower grade may be better suited for you!

These are all incredible-feeling laptops, but grading them allowed me to get brutally honest with where I’d put them. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

While the Microsoft Surface Laptop was used in the demos, other models were turned off. This was something Nvidia required to ensure journalists (like me) don’t sneakily benchmark the laptops! That being said, these notebooks are basically pre-existing laptops but with RTX Spark inside and some tweaked cooling, so I can use past experience to fill in some gaps.

Nvidia RTX Spark laptops: Tier list

S-Tier: Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra and Asus ProArt P14

I’ve already shared my experience with the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra — it’s a spectacular-feeling laptop in terms of a premium build quality, fantastic mini LED screen, tactile keyboard and a utilitarian aesthetic.

But the big showcase feature here (that no other Spark system has) is that breakthrough touchpad, which is able to communicate back to you with haptics across the UI. It’s a unique sensation like when snapping apps to the sides of the screen.

That being said, it is a 16-inch beast of a system, and the reason why I love my 14-inch MacBook Pro is the power paired with portability. Enter the Asus ProArt P14, and when I say Apple’s pro notebook is in trouble, this is the most direct competition to it in terms of premium build, fantastic ergonomics, port array and that RTX Spark chip.

Throw in an OLED display, and you’ve got a phenomenal ultraportable that I’d be willing to trade off a little bit of battery life to get — but hopefully Nvidia’s “all-day battery life” comes true to make this less of a fear.

A-Tier: MSI Prestige Flip N16 AI+, Asus ProArt P16 and HP Omnibook X 14

Kicking off with the Prestige Flip N16 AI+, I’ve already gone hands-on with the Intel version of this system back at CES 2026, and I’m a huge fan of it. This is the only 2-in-1 in the lineup, and that flippable hinge has a smooth glide and strong staying power at all angles.

On top of that, the touchscreen OLED panel on the pre-existing model is gorgeous; the keyboard is nicely tactile; and the touchpad is absolutely massive. Plus, there’s a stylus stowed in the bottom of the shell magnetically.

Then there’s the ProArt P16 from Asus, which is the same as that P14, but only bigger. If 16 inches is more than your speed, this is a fantastic option. But I’ll always opt for something more portable.

And finally in the A-tier is the HP Omnibook X 14, which immediately tickled my inner love for 14-inch laptops. Premium build quality, good I/O and a top notch OLED panel up top — so why the lower grade? Well, it comes down to that keyboard.

Whenever I’m typing on laptop boards, I’m more of a fan of a subtle dish that my fingers can fall into, whereas the keys on here are much more pronounced. It definitely has its fans, but I’m a little more mixed towards them.

B-Tier: HP Omnibook 16 Ultra, Lenovo Yoga Pro 9N and Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition

Now for the B-tier. Again, not any real slight, and this is my way-too-early impressions based on holding the systems. But personal taste made this an easy decision.

The HP Omnibook 16 Ultra felt like the heaviest laptop of the bunch, and while it has all those same winning specs as other options like an OLED display and a ton of I/O, that keyboard has those odd raised keys again and the edges can feel a bit sharp on the wrists when leaning on this to type.

Next, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9N. From my time going hands-on with the Yoga Pro 9i (the same laptop shell), it’s a real prosumer piece of hardware with a nice aluminum build and those classic Lenovo ergonomics (a phenomenal keyboard for example).

But amongst a bunch of laptops that have some real unique elements that make these devices shine, it’s a rather unremarkable option. Not to say that’s a bad thing — I’m all for laptops that nail the fundamentals, but some just reinvent those fundamentals.

And then, there’s the Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition. In many ways, this is very much a Surface Laptop Ultra alternative, and another chapter in the book of Dell’s XPS apology tour for ditching the brand for a weird year back in 2024. The screen’s great, the touchpad is massive, and the I/O is plentiful.

My only main gripe is the keyboard — chiclet keys with no gaps between them. In my time testing XPS 16s of old, it took me a while to get used to a board like this, and I found myself often losing my place and making a couple of spelling errors.

Outlook

Of course, there's a lot more we need to find out first — not just actually testing these systems, but the big question of price. In a Q&A session, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang did say this is the top-tier chip as part of a whole family.

That does mean we could get cheaper, lower-end models too. But looking at what we tested, we can get a somewhat decent guess of the price based on the fact its essentially the same silicon (and RAM) as the DGX Spark mini AI PC — a device that costs $5,000.

So if you want the top-tier model, this could get real pricey! But all I can say is I hope there are more reasonably priced RTX Spark laptops, which in the midst of RAMageddon may be tricky.

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• I gamed for 250 hours on AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE — it’s a $549 nightmare for Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti
• I just tested the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ — it leaves ROG Xbox Ally in the dust with breakthrough Intel Arc G3 power

Lenovo’s Yoga Pro series brings high-performance components into the slim form factor to create an ideal laptop for content creators and creative professionals alike. We did enjoy the previous model for good reason. Lenovo makes incredibly reliable laptops, and the Yoga Pro always promises a great balance of performance, stunning displays, and high-fidelity audio and this year’s Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition doesn’t disappoint in any of those categories.

The real hamstrings for the Yoga Pro 7i are its price point and its sub-par battery life. The newest Yoga Pro 7i is significantly more expensive for its base configuration compared to the previous generation, and it’s hard to justify a price hike of over $600 even with the current hardware shortages and US foreign manufacturing tariffs.

Between that steep entry-level price tag with just under 7 hours of web surfing battery life, can the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition still make the cut for our best laptops page?

Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition: Cheat sheet

• What is it?: The Yoga Pro 7i is a thin and lightweight laptop with a discrete GPU.
• Who is it for?: Creative professionals and content creators who want a powerful, thin Windows laptop.
• What does it cost?: The base configuration of the Yoga Pro 7i Aura Edition starts at a staggering $2,149, while our review configuration with upgraded CPU and GPU costs just $250 extra.
• What do we like?: The Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 boasts powerful performance designed to handle creative workloads, a gorgeous OLED touchscreen, Lenovo’s industry-leading keyboard, robust audio system, and reliable build quality.
• What don’t we like?: The base configuration is rather expensive for an Intel Core Ultra 7 and RTX 5050 combination, and the battery life could be a bit better.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition: Specs

Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition: The Ups

There’s a reason why Lenovo laptops often make it onto our guides, especially the more premium tier laptops like the Yoga and Yoga Pro series. The Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 is no slouch, offering a minimalist design, satisfying keyboard experience, sturdy build quality, stunning display, robust audio, smooth content creation performance, and even a quality gaming experience.

Minimalist design and a user-forward experience

Lenovo’s streamlined design for its Yoga and IdeaPad laptops may not have a ton of visual interest, but the clean lines, embossed Lenovo logo, and camera hub on the lid are ideal for a more professional environment which fits the Yoga Pro well.

The streamlined design follows through with a clean keyboard deck with front-facing speakers on either side of the lattice keyboard and oversized touchpad. Add in the etched Yoga logo on the right-hand palm rest and you’ve got Lenovo’s answer to the MacBook layout.

But the real highlights of the Yoga Pro’s design are the keyboard and camera and mic hub on the top of the display. Due to that extra bump on the top lid, the Yoga Pro’s webcam and mic array don’t need a display notch, nor do they add a lot of overall bulk to the Yoga’s display bezels, which offers a much better fullscreen experience than the notorious MacBook notch.

The Yoga’s webcam is a 5MP IR camera with a built-in privacy shutter, and thus nothing particularly spectacular to write home about. However, it’s more than enough for any virtual meetings and calls you might need to handle.

As for the keyboard, Lenovo’s been making some of the best laptop keyboards for years and the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition is no different. The keyboard switches have plenty of key travel for a comfortable typing experience, combined with a crisp click for a more mechanical, bouncy feel.

Stunning display and powerful audio

Since the Yoga Pro is a creator laptop, it needs a vivid, color accurate display. Lenovo rates the Yoga Pro 7i’s OLED touchscreen at 100% accuracy on the sRGB, DCI-P3, and Adobe RGB color spaces, with a maximum peak brightness of 1100 nits.

Our testing indicated that the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 covered 199% of the sRGB and 141% of the DCI-P3 color spaces, making it one of the more accurate displays we’ve tested. As for the brightness, our HDR testing did peak at 999-nits, while the overall average SDR brightness of the Yoga’s OLED panel was 448-nits.

This makes the Yoga Pro an ideal laptop option for photo color correcting, digital design, and video color grading. So it’s an all-around fantastic choice for creative professionals who need color-accurate displays. Paired with a powerful, front-facing 4-speaker audio system with Dolby Atmos tuning, the Yoga Pro 7i is a fantastic choice for video editors and content creators.

Strong creative performance chops

When it comes to general and content creation specific performance, the Yoga Pro 7i’s Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor and discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card provide respectable amounts of processing power across a variety of multithreaded uses from video and photo editing to overall productivity.

Compared to last year’s Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i Gen 10, the 11th Gen Yoga Pro 7i packs a more powerful punch on our Geekbench and Handbrake video encoding benchmarks, with multithreaded performance gains of 43%.

The Yoga Pro 7i is also a bit more potent than our favorite 2-in-1 laptop, the Asus Zenbook Duo (2026) on both Geekbench and Handbrake. As for the MacBook Pro 14 M5, the Mac still holds a bit of an edge on Geekbench 6 multicore performance, though the Yoga Pro 7i outpaces the Mac by just a few seconds on our Handbrake benchmark. On the PugetBench Photoshop benchmark, the MacBook Pro M5 still holds down a steady lead, but the Yoga Pro 7i isn’t too far behind.

So if you’re looking for a Windows alternative to the MacBook Pro, the Yoga Pro does put up quite a good fight on the raw performance benchmarks. And that comes through even outside of the synthetic benchmark zone. I blazed through some photo editing and graphic design tasks on the Yoga Pro in Adobe Photoshop, with no major processing bottlenecks even when breaking out the more intensive tools like smart object selection.

Respectable gaming performance

While the Yoga Pro 7i is designed for content creation, it does have an Nvidia gaming graphics card on board. Sure, the Yoga Pro’s RTX 5060 may come with studio drivers installed, but you can swap those out for Nvidia’s gaming drivers if you’d like. And the Yoga is an absolute treat for gaming thanks to its highly accurate OLED display.

Of course, the Yoga Pro 7i will fall a bit behind in comparison to a more dedicated gaming laptop like the MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026) I reviewed recently, mostly because the Yoga’s thermal management isn’t designed for sustained, high-intensity gaming. But even then, the Yoga is just a few fps off from the Stealth even on more intense benchmarks like Black Myth: Wukong, Doom: The Dark Ages, and Cyberpunk 2077.

While both RTX 5060 laptops struggled with hitting the 60 fps mark on these benchmarks, particularly at 1600p resolution, the Stealth was about 5ps faster on average than the Yoga.

But if you only plan to play more casual games on the Yoga, or if you don’t mind gaming at lower graphics presets, the Yoga is more than sufficient for some quality gaming. I booted up Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, and averaged about 100 fps at 1600p on Laptop (High) settings even in high-traffic areas or during large-scale raids.

And if you plan to use the Yoga for gaming content creation, it’ll do well enough for some game capture footage all on its own, particularly if you’re looking at running games at 1080p rather than the Yoga’s max 1600p resolution.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition: The Downs

The Yoga Pro 7i’s pitfalls are, unfortunately, difficult to overcome. While all tech hardware has gotten more expensive, the Yoga Pro 7i’s starting configuration comes at a steep price considering how affordable the upgrades are in comparison. Combined with sub-par battery life, it becomes hard to justify the Yoga Pro 7i’s high starting price.

The RAM shortage strikes again

Unfortunately, the Yoga Pro has gotten much more expensive this generation thanks to the AI industry’s stranglehold on the RAM supply chain, which has increased memory and GPU prices across the board. Last year’s Yoga Pro 7i Gen 10 pricing started at $1,400, while this generation’s entry level configuration starts at $2,149. That’s a price increase of almost $750. Granted, the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 10’s starting configuration had just an integrated GPU rather than a discrete Nvidia RTX GPU.

The Yoga Pro 9i Gen 10, which did feature a discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050, started at $1,949. Which was still a pretty hefty retail price, but isn’t as far off from the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11’s starting price. However, the Yoga Pro 9i did come with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H processor, which helps justify that steep starting price. The Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11, meanwhile, starts at $2,149 for an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H. It’s hard to completely quantify the CPU cost differential since mobile CPUs are never sold separately from systems and the Yoga Pro 9i Gen 10 didn’t feature an Intel Core Ultra 7 option. But it’s probably closer to a $300 price difference between the two generations when you consider the CPU difference. Not the worst price hike we’ve seen with the RAM shortage, but it is a hard pill to swallow, particularly on the entry-level spec.

However, our review configuration did feature upgrades to the CPU and GPU, bringing the price up to $2,399. Which is just $250 more to upgrade to a 16-core CPU and more powerful RTX 5060 GPU. And that feels far less egregious than the Yoga Pro 7i’s starting configuration price tag.

But if you’re looking for a great content creator laptop and you don’t mind switching between Windows and macOS, the Apple MacBook Pro 14 M5 starts at just $1,699. Granted, Apple’s upgrades do get expensive so if you want to upgrade your RAM, storage, CPU, or GPU configuration it comes at a much higher price than Lenovo’s upgrade cost.

Sub-par battery life

Which leaves battery life as the Yoga’s most major hangup. On our web surfing battery test, the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 lasted just 6 hours and 56 minutes on average. My own anecdotal testing got me about 6 hours of web surfing, writing, and photo editing before I needed to find an outlet for the Yoga.

While laptops with discrete GPUs often take a hit to battery life, the Yoga Pro combines an RTX 5060 with an OLED display leaving it with two major issues when it comes to battery efficiency. If you plan to always use the Yoga near a power outlet, or just need it for quick short bursts of inspiration, its battery life isn’t too abysmal.

But if you need a great creator laptop that can last a long time on a single charge, you may just be better off with the MacBook Pro or even the Asus Zenbook Duo.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition: Verdict

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition is nearly a complete package as far as content creator laptops go. It’s got powerful CPU and GPU performance, a stunning OLED touchscreen, sturdy build quality, an industry-leading keyboard, and powerful built-in audio. If you’re looking for a Windows alternative to the MacBook Pro, the Yoga Pro is a solid competitor. And unlike the MacBook, it can run any game in your Steam library.

But if you need a cheaper entry level configuration, or if you need a laptop that lasts for over a full work day on a single charge, the MacBook Pro, Asus Zenbook Duo, or even the previous generation Yoga Pro 9i would be a better choice.

Yes, the MacBook Neo has leapt into a lot of hearts and minds as the best budget laptop you can get. And yes, other laptop makers are out here calling it a tablet — completely missing the point of it. But that doesn’t mean the competition isn’t responding. In fact, it’s happening quietly beneath the radar with companies dropping prices.

But this isn’t just dropping prices on random laptops to look like they’re offering something to compete with the Neo. These are three laptops that I’ve personally tested and love for their bang for buck, which are sure to make those laptop engineers at Cupertino nervous.

So if you’re feeling the value notebook vibes and want to see what else is out there beyond Apple’s offering to make a well-thought out decision, here are my personal picks from months of daily driving that I believe are every bit a match for the Neo’s prowess.

Asus Zenbook A14

I first went hands-on with the Asus Zenbook A14 at CES last year and fell in love with it. Then when the pricing was revealed for my final review, that love affair fell away slightly, as the initial plan to compete with the MacBook Air fell apart by making this at least $100 more. Fast forward a year, and you can now get this for $699.

So if we were in the business of re-reviewing laptops, this would be an easy 4.5 stars for that insanely good value for money. Thin dimensions and a featherweight construction from ceraluminum (the surface feels like paper, it’s so cool) give way to:

• A gorgeous 2K OLED panel
• Snapdragon X Plus performance that steps up to the A18 Pro in the Neo with faster multi-core speeds, zippier graphics and faster data transfer speeds (it’s an actual laptop chip after all)
• And an 18+ hour battery life in my testing.

Throw in nice ergonomics with a generous touchpad and great keyboard, and you’re onto an ultraportable winner with a low price tag.

Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514

The idea of a Chromebook Plus laptop has been through a bit of a spirit journey of sorts, as nobody could figure out how to make a premium Google laptop. Making the build and specs uber premium at a sky high price tag didn’t work, and neither did throwing in 12 months of free Google AI Pro.

But Acer stumbled on the answer with the Chromebook Plus Spin 514: focus on the fundamentals and throw the MediaTek Kompanio Ultra 910 chipset in for a peak pairing of performance and power efficiency. This Arm chip has been the bang-for-buck comeback of ChromeOS, and in my time daily driving it, you can feel that in the serious zippiness of app opening and multitasking.

Add in an unmistakably premium build quality, another gorgeous OLED display (always surprising you can get this at such low prices) and a 15-hour battery life, and you’re onto a winner. But one catch: this is ChromeOS. You’re not going to get the vast amount of apps to choose from that you’d get on the MacBook Neo or a Windows laptop.

However, for the casual productivity purposes you’d pick up a Neo for, Google’s OS offers more than enough of the essentials to get through your day-to-day.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x

Back at MWC last year, Lenovo brought a whole lot of awesome ultra-expensive prototypes and laptops to the party. But out of everything there, the often-forgotten budget system in the corner caught my eye the most.

The IdeaPad Slim 3X brings that Lenovo experience in the finite attention to ergonomics (a beautiful-feeling keyboard), zippy performance with Snapdragon X and a super long 16-hour battery life.

That’s not to say it’s all the way there in terms of competing with the MacBook Neo — the display is rather underwhelming and you can feel some of that cheapness in the build quality.

But on balance, this is a stellar budget machine that is at an impressively low price of entry.

More from Tom's Guide

• I ditched the MacBook Air for a MacBook Neo for 48 hours — and I'm shocked
• 'I am completely blown away by it,' Ex-Windows Chief calls MacBook Neo ‘paradigm-shifting'
• Apple's $599 MacBook Neo can actually play Cyberpunk 2077, new tests show

The hits keep coming for PC and laptop makers as RAMaggeddon, and now the U.S.-Iran war, disrupts everything from supply chains to component costs. Apple and the MacBook Neo may be the beneficiaries, thanks to a disappearing market of budget-friendly computers.

Nikkei Asia is reporting that many of the major PC makers like Asus, HP and Lenovo are being forced to raise prices thanks to astronomical memory prices. Plus, the unwarranted U.S. attacks on Iran are actively affecting the oil industry which will cause shipping and manufacturing prices to increase as well.

"There is only so much PC companies can do to absorb the costs and we have to pass on the surging costs to consumers,” an unnamed gaming PC executive told Nikkei Asia.

Yep, AI is the problem

I’m getting tired of saying the same thing over and over, so I’ll just cut to the chase. The demand for AI compute is getting out of hand — with DRAM demand accounting for 50% of the globe’s memory consumption in 2025.

That has left PC and smartphone makers scrambling for supply, and that demand is driving the prices up to lofty numbers. Acer’s Chairman Jason Chen has said the cost of memory and storage chips had risen “between 50 to 100%,” and companies would have to “reflect” this in their prices to us.

And over the course of this year so far, we’ve had:

• A roughly 20% increase in Asus prices
• Dell jumping by around 20-25%
• Lenovo warning that prices will start to go up this month
• HP confirming its prices will rise
• And Acer flagging price increases of 10-20%

And we’re only in March?! I’m tired, boss, and so are the companies. “I am very pessimistic about the PC industry this year,” a gaming PC company executive told Nikkei Asia. “January was my final call for friends to buy PCs this year before facing more expensive price tags."

Ditching the budget end

Most interestingly in this report, the writers spoke to an executive at ELAN Microelectronics — a company that makes the controller chips for touchpads across laptops from brands like Lenovo and Dell. Basically, a critical part of the manufacturing process that can be the eyes and ears of what’s happening on the ground.

“We are seeing laptop builders shift to prioritize…higher-end commercial notebooks rather than entry-level products to boost revenue and make better use of the limited memory supply,” the executive commented. “Overall shipment volumes are still declining but the value per unit is increasing.”

You see, companies started stockpiling memory chips in the third quarter of last year, which has quickly started to run out.

Advantage, Apple MacBook Neo

Apple recently announced the new $599 MacBook Neo, an attempt by the Cupertino company to directly compete with budget-friendly Chromebooks and low-end Windows notebooks. Whether Apple read the tea leaves or is launching at the most opportune time, the company is going to benefit massively.

As Nikkei reports, many PC manufacturers are turning away from their cheapest offerings in favor of premium laptops and PCs to make the most of the RAM they have available. It’s a matter of survival as the companies attempt to recoup more profit from higher-priced laptops over reducing specs and memory in cheap sets.

Even Apple has been forced to raise prices on its higher-end MacBooks. The just-announced MacBook Pro M5 Pro starts at $200 more than the previous generation. Additionally, Apple just discontinued the six-month-old 512GB MacBook Pro M5 in favor of a starting model with 1TB of storage.

It’s so dire that one PC maker declined to even make an estimate for 2026 due to the memory shortage and rising prices.

Meanwhile, Apple locked the Neo to 8GB of RAM and 256 or 512GB storage. These aren’t spectacular numbers, but they are more than adequate for the target audience.

More from Tom's Guide

• The RAM crisis is out of control: Here's the most alarming tech products affected (so far)
• Your computer is slow because the RAM is full — 7 ways to free it up
• I edit video for a living — and this is how much RAM you need in 2026

Mobile World Congress (MWC) used to just be about phones! But just like CES back in January, it’s basically now also a computing show where you can see a whole lot of new laptops in action.

And a few of the biggest companies on the planet have gone all out to win the hearts and minds of general users, pros and gamers alike with their contributions to the year of the laptop.

Just because the MacBook Neo is hogging the spotlight doesn't mean there aren't any blockbuster announcements happening here. From Lenovo’s zany concepts to machines you can buy today, here are my 5 favorite machines coming out of Barcelona and onto my desk soon.

1. Honor MagicBook Pro 14

Honor is back again with the MagicBook Pro 14, and this time it’s outfitted with Intel Core Ultra Series 3. I’ve always been a massive fan of Honor’s laptops for finding an ideal balance between the three P’s — performance, power efficiency and portability.

This does exactly that for another consecutive year, while also adding in some real premium upgrades here like a gorgeously vivid 3120 x 2080-resolution OLED display at 3:2 aspect ratio, a top-notch feeling keyboard and a weight loss over last year’s model (coming in now at 1.39kg).

And all of this is thrown into a sleek aluminum chassis that’s quite the looker from all angles and easy to stow away in the backpack — along with a stupendously long battery life courtesy of that 92Wh cell inside.

2. Lenovo Legion Go foldable prototype

It started life as a quirky gaming handheld with a folding screen, but once fully unfolded, you can attach that 11.6-inch panel to a keyboard deck to return to your netbook era. I know this is just a concept — a prototype you’ll never be able to buy.

But in that brief moment of going back in time, it made me realize just how much I had started to legitimately miss using something so small. The more compact frame does feel far nicer to carry around, while not giving up on the ergonomics of that keyboard. I just hope that 11-inch laptops make a comeback.

3. Lenovo ThinkBook Modular concept

Part two of the Lenovo trio blends a Framework laptop with an Asus Zenbook Duo to make for an impressively modular prototype that I so hope becomes real soon. Welcome to the ThinkBook Modular concept — a pogo pin-driven dream of versatility that lets you use the system in any way you see fit.

Want a dual-screen experience? Just pop the keyboard deck off and replace it with a second display. Want to present something cool, take the display off, connect it via USB-C and attach a stand to it to show things off. Looking for another USB-C port? Slide that HDMI socket off the side and replace it.

Repairability and ease of upgradeability is becoming more and more crucial in 2026, and Lenovo’s concept shows how exciting this could be.

4. Lenovo Yoga Pro 7a

I was a big fan of the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition at last year’s show, but one thing became a limiting factor — battery life because of the use of a dedicated RTX 50-series GPU inside.

But as I predicted way back in January last year (and have been so vindicated on), integrated graphics have evolved at such a rapid pace and AMD’s Strix Halo is the crown jewel of an example of this.

So what happens when you take that Yoga Pro lineage and mash it with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chipset? Simple, you get the Yoga Pro 7a. This is a mighty MacBook Pro competitor with a massive OLED panel, a touchpad that sports stylus support for doodling, and a way better battery life.

5. Tecno Megabook S14

And finally, a shout out to my ultraportables crowd. Getting something uber thin and light is getting very pricey nowadays, but the Tecno MegaBook S14 would beg to differ. It is officially the world’s lightest 14-inch OLED laptop at just 899 grams.

The aluminum body feels premium to the touch with good keyboard/touchpad ergonomics to boot. Power-wise, there is a bit of a compromise with Intel Core Ultra Series 1 silicon, but still good enough for general office productivity and binge watching the night away.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just went hands-on with Nothing Phone (4a) — this could beat iPhone 17e to be the budget phone of 2026
• I tried Lenovo’s mindblowing modular ThinkBook concept — and now I want this in every laptop
• I went hands-on with Lenovo's wild 3D laptop concept — and it genuinely surprised me

Lenovo has been prolific with its handheld efforts in recent years, releasing devices like the Legion Go 2 and Legion Go S. Not to be outdone, the company has now unveiled a truly unique concept that’s bound to turn heads: the Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept.

Unveiled at MWC 2026, the Legion Go Fold Concept is a foldable handheld featuring a POLED panel that expands from 7.7 inches when folded to a full 11.6 inches when unfolded. Pair that with its detachable controllers, and the device supports up to four distinct usage modes, something no other handheld currently offers.

Here are my impressions after brief hands-on time with the Legion Go Fold Concept at a pre-MWC event. Could this be the future of handheld design, or is it too niche? Let’s dive in.

Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept: Design

Design-wise, the Legion Go Fold Concept builds on the original Legion Go’s tablet-like form with attachable controllers, but the big differentiator is the folding display. That single change unlocks four versatile modes for gaming and beyond.

In the handheld configuration, the device feels relatively light. It can get a bit wobbly when fully unfolded to 11.6 inches, but it’s not a deal-breaker. This is something Lenovo would almost certainly refine before any potential release. Being able to fold the screen and detach the controllers also makes it fairly travel-friendly.

As the images hopefully show, none of the best portable gaming handhelds look like this one. However, it still delivers all the core features gamers expect. There’s room for refinement, especially around sturdiness in hand. Overall, it already looks very promising.

Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept: Controllers

The controllers feel and look very similar to the TrueStrike controllers on the Legion Go (and its successors). They feature a familiar button layout, so you’ll feel right at home, plus shoulder triggers with stops, which are a carryover from the Legion Go family.

The right controller also supports FPS Mode by functioning as a vertical mouse. It includes a small built-in touchscreen that doubles as a touchpad, displays performance metrics and settings, and can be assigned as a customizable hotkey. Having that little screen right next to the face buttons and analog stick feels unusual at first, but it’s genuinely cool.

Attaching and reattaching the controllers along the side rails is straightforward: just press and hold the release button, and they slide off. It’s not quite as seamless as the magnetic system on the Nintendo Switch 2, but it works for a concept and clearly something Lenovo could polish further.

Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept: Modes and features

As mentioned, the expandable display enables four distinct modes:

Standard Handheld Mode: The traditional experience with the screen folded (7.7 inches). This is probably the most comfortable for extended play sessions when you don’t need (or have space for) the larger screen.

Vertical Split-Screen Mode: Unfold the device and hold it in portrait orientation, like using a large phone or tablet upright. Perfect for gaming in one window while streaming, following a guide, or multitasking on another. Old-school shmup fans will also love it for vertical shooters like Ikaruga.

Horizon Full-Screen Mode: The full 11.6-inch unfolded display with controllers attached for maximum immersion in landscape. It feels the least rigid of the handheld modes, but the device is light enough that it never feels cumbersome. This is the one I’d use the most.

Expanded Desktop Mode: Use the built-in (and surprisingly sturdy) kickstand to prop the unit on a desk without the controllers. It becomes a mini Windows PC by pairing it with the included wireless keyboard and touchpad, or use the right controller as a mouse for productivity.

Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept: Specs

Since this is a concept device, final specifications aren’t locked in, but Lenovo shared enough details to paint a clear picture of its potential.

The Legion Go Fold Concept is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (Lunar Lake) processor, the same chip found in the MSI Claw 8 AI+. Combined with 32GB of RAM and a 48Wh battery, it should deliver solid gaming and productivity performance, especially at the efficient TDPs this platform supports.

You might wonder why it isn’t using Intel’s newer Core Ultra Series 3 (“Panther Lake”) chips. My educated guess: the Lunar Lake silicon has already proven itself in gaming handhelds, and for a concept that may or may not reach production, Lenovo likely didn’t want to commit newer, unproven silicon.

I wasn’t able to play games during my hands-on, but based on the hardware, I expect the Legion Go Fold Concept (if it materializes) to perform at least on par with the MSI Claw 8 AI+. Real-world lab and battery tests would be needed to see exactly how it stacks up.

Lenovo Legion Go Fold Concept: Outlook

Most gaming handhelds deliver very similar experiences, so it’s refreshing to see Lenovo think outside the box with the Legion Go Fold Concept. With four modes and strong specs, it could expand what a handheld can be.

Of course, it’s impossible to say whether this concept will ever make it to market. I hope it does, even if only to inspire other manufacturers to get more inventive. Either way, the possibilities are exciting.

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According to Lenovo, the Glasses-free display market is set to triple in size between now and 2032… I’m calling “suspicious” on that, but at least it’s giving me a cool concept to try!

This is the Lenovo Yoga Book Pro 3D concept, and it’s the company’s vision of a portable system primed for 3D creativity — using AI to automate the more user-intensive tasks like rendering and editing.

And after testing it for myself, while I’ve been burned by the 3D hype at the cinema before, I can see how this may be genuinely useful.

Seeing double

This isn’t your average laptop — it’s a workstation for creativity across a third dimension. You’ll find nothing but gorgeous dual PureSight Pro Tandem OLED displays, and the top one packs glasses-free 3D thanks to that camera module up top.

You throw an image from the creation app on the bottom screen with a two-finger swipe, and the internals get to work turning it into a 3D object. And you know what? It’s an impressive effect. I may be a little suspicious that 3D displays are still a thing, but the depth effect is good here as elements pop out of the screen.

And in terms of manipulating the image, you have several options. First, there are physical slider pads you can add to the bottom screen. These small plastic elements are independently set to activate certain features like a color slider, perspective changer and a light source mover.

Second, there are hand gestures. You can go all “Minority Report” on this and resize the image/rotate it with simple flicks of the wrist and multi-hand control. It’s rather cool!

But of course, to do all this 3D object manipulation, you need serious horsepower. That is where the Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU and GeForce RTX 5070 GPU come in. You can definitely hear them under pressure with the fans working overtime, but for something this system-intensive, that’s to be expected.

As the name suggests, this is a concept device. But given this is a modded version of a Yoga Pro, it’s not a stretch to imagine this being in people’s hands if this 3D trend were to pick up.

More Yoga

So Lenovo’s got you in the door with its luxury prototype — what can you actually walk out with? Well, there’s plenty of refreshes. The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition is getting a jump to Intel Core Ultra Series 3, and a price hike too, up to $1,949.

The company also snuck in easily one of the best-feeling mechanical keyboards I’ve ever typed on. The AngryMiao Edition of the Yoga Creative Keyboard has sensationally satisfying tactile key presses, along with a giant knob at the top right for moving playheads in editing software easily. You can pick this up in May at $299.

And the final big one here is Lenovo’s big adoption of AMD Strix Halo in two flavors. There’s the creativity-focused Yoga Pro 7a with a beautiful PureSight Pro OLED panel and a touchpad with Wacom technology for stylus compatibility ($2,099 — launching in August).

And for the gamers, you’ve got the Legion 7a with the Ryzen AI+ Max 392 — moving to integrated graphics allowed the company to create an impressively lightweight system at 1.65kg ($2,299 — launching in July).

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A laptop being repairable, upgradeable or modular in any way has been a running joke for years now. Sure, Framework is doing the thing, and I’m impressed by it. But that always comes with a price premium and older specs to get there.

However, Lenovo’s picking up the bag and taking it seriously with the ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept — the result of what happens if an Asus ZenBook Duo got busy in the bedroom with a Framework Laptop.

With detachable displays, keyboards and modular I/O, this unlocks a world of versatility that is rare in portable tech like this, and I got to go hands-on with it.

A Zenbook Duo in Framework clothing

You may take a look at this and think “that looks familiar,” and you’d be right. This is giving the ZenBook Duo vibes with its tower of screens, but the real party trick is in its modularity — a “carry small, use big” mentality in Lenovo’s own words.

This starts as a 14-inch base system, but the way you build on top of it is entirely up to you. There’s the dual screen layout as you see above, or you could go more traditional laptop and use the screen to one side like an external monitor.

It really broadens the appeal to be able to go from both what I call the “working hard/hardly working” orientation of productivity on the bottom and binge watching on the top, all the way to a full vertical side panel for typing this story (like I am right now).

However, the real Framework magic comes in when you see those interchangeable I/O ports — using pogo-pin connectors to all join up is a cinch based on whatever connectors you need for the moment.

Modularity, repairability and upgradeability. In a time like this, when we need to preserve our tech’s lifespan, this kind of thinking is more important than ever.

The ThinkBooks you’ll be able to actually buy

This is Lenovo’s bread and butter — lure you into the dealership with a supercar, and you’ll walk out with the sensible station wagon that can do it all. And this year, the ThinkBook and ThinkPad lineups are getting even more thinkier with internal refreshes to the latest silicon.

The ThinkPad T-series systems are all getting better 5MP webcams with HDR, upgrades to either Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3, Snapdragon X2 Elite or AMD’s new Ryzen AI Pro 400 series chipsets, and serviceability at its core (a simpler internal layout to make them much more repairable by you).

For those who want something uber portable, you’ve got that Surface Pro-esque ThinkPad X13 revival with Intel Core Ultra Series 3. And just like the above, Lenovo wasn’t kidding about its price increase warnings: T-series starting at $1,799 and launching sometime this Spring, and the ThinkPad X13 for $1,999 this summer.

Need to expand that field of view? In the spirit of the ThinkBook Modular, Lenovo is launching a $259 ThinkVision M16 in Spring too — a vivid 16:10 panel with a wide 178-degree viewing angle and a decently sharp 1920 x 1200 resolution.

More from Tom's Guide

• Cheap MacBook leaks reveal what Apple is willing to sacrifice for a lower price
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Lenovo has already been warning that the RAM price crisis will force the company to raise prices of PCs, tablets and Motorola phones. Now, it seems set for March, as CRN reports that the company’s North America channel chief has warned partners to “place orders as soon as possible.”

Wade McFarland, VP of the North America channel at Lenovo, has spoken out about how the ongoing AI data center buildout is causing the company to “continue to adjust” prices, and that there’s “no way around it.” His warning is simple: “place orders as soon as possible,” and the deadline given to distributors is by February 25 to get their orders in.

So from next month, the “AI PC” premium is going to hit again, and I’m tired of this happening over and over again.

The AI tax is a killer

It’s getting diabolical. We’re barely two months into the year and I’ve lost count of how many price increase/stock issue stories I’ve had to write. The AI gold rush is hoovering up all the DRAM and NAND flash chips, and in the end, we’re left picking up the overinflated tab.

From the perspective of someone who just wants cool tech, I really hope this bubble pops. But it’s not just me saying that. “We're waiting for the AI bubble to pop,” an anonymous spokesperson from a small PC manufacturer told Wired.

This is a similar sentiment to what I heard across many companies at CES 2026, and people are getting tired of it — not just from the “AI is making everything more expensive” side of things, but also just getting serious feature fatigue.

In Pew Research Center's late 2025 report, for the first time, a growing majority of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI at 50% (a sharp increase from 37% in 2021). The reason is not about the idea of “Skynet” killer robots anymore; it’s about the erosion of human skills.

53% believe AI will worsen human creativity, and 50% believe it will harm our ability to form meaningful relationships. I mean, you can see that from the subtext of reading stories, like using ChatGPT to help with small talk.

And the rest of the stats that I found continue to paint a worsening picture. The trust gap is huge, with 25% of respondents saying the benefits of AI are “high,” while 57% say the risks to society are “high.”

In fact, there’s almost a mirroring of sorts to the K-shaped economy we find ourselves in — where the rich are getting richer, and the poor get poorer. 54% of low-income respondents to the Edelman Trust Barometer believe they will be “left behind” by generative AI, and 55% of Americans told Ipsos that AI will lead to income inequality and a polarized society (up nine points from 2023).

Can this bubble just burst already?

Put simply, we’re hearing about all of these benefits AI will give us, but not seeing them. We’re feeling the damage to our bank balances, and seeing people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressing AI’s environmental impact by saying “it also takes a lot of energy to train a human” certainly doesn’t help.

Like I’ve been saying (just so you know I’m not fully a doomer), I don’t believe that AI, in terms of the benefits it could provide in healthcare and society, is a bubble. I believe that this current idea of generative AI is a bubble — generated by outrageous spending commitments that companies will not be able to keep up with. And the burst could very well be a global reset to focus on the priorities of social good.

Because right now, we have something that takes away from human creativity and connection, generates slop like The Rock wrestling a baby (no joke) and is forced down our throats in OS features that have no real reason for being.

And the cost of this bet is significant — possibly up to $1.5 trillion in new debt by 2030 to complete the global AI infrastructure needed. It’s why you’ve seen stocks of the Magnificent 7 cool recently, because investors are looking at this money wall and asking, “wait, do we actually get our money back?”

But to you, the end result is being priced out for consumer tech. We’re paying for this. A rebalancing needs to come. We can’t wait for 2028 (the general prediction of when companies think this could end).

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The RAM crisis shows no sign of stopping, as manufacturers continue to prioritize AI data centers over memory, resulting in an ongoing shortage. And Lenovo believes buyers should act fast before pricing and availability get worse.

With the RAM shortage expected to last until 2028 or beyond, as even manufacturer Micron believes, and with the shortages already making Nvidia put off releasing a gaming GPU for the first time in decades, it's clear the lack of available memory is causing a stir in the industry.

In light of this, Lenovo North America President Ryan McCurdy has spoken up about the supply chain with CRN, stating that buyers will find "the most attractive product pricing" right now.

Buy now, save later

“If the infrastructure is critical in the next three, six, 12 months, and the pricing sensitivity is high, then we get into a scenario where we’re acting quickly because essentially the current stock that is at our distributors and at our partners [has] some of the most attractive product pricing that will exist for the next six to 12 months,” McCurdy states. “So it’s really a bias for action if that infrastructure is critical and if the sensitivity is high.”

With RAM and the parts for products that use memory, whether that be phones, laptops, tablets or gaming consoles, being scooped up by companies large and small, pricing has already been on the rise.

But costs haven't reached their pinnacle point yet, with McCurdy warning it could be as little as six months before prices see an even higher spike. Right now, Lenovo's partners and even consumers are seeing the lowest prices around — but these aren't expected to last.

This backs up Intel's claim that laptop makers are sitting on 'about 9 to 12 months' of stock before price spikes, along with an Asus rep stating when the RAM crisis will affect costs. But it isn't just about pricing, as a Lenovo executive has also noted that availability is going fast.

Availability is getting scarce

According to an anonymous U.S. systems integrator speaking with CRN, despite the urge for company partners and distributors to buy now, supply for products, specifically servers in their case, is running out post-haste.

“If [customers are] ready [and] they know they want it, buy it as soon as you can because the pricing is one thing. The actual availability of the parts is the other. That’s what I’m more worried about,” the integrator states.

As an example, when this U.S. systems integrator tried getting GPU-accelerated servers from Dell, only for the products to be out of stock despite the deal being put in place.

"At the end of the day, they said, ‘Sorry, we’re sold out.’ We couldn’t even get the deal because the product’s not there anymore. It’s that fluid," the integrator explained. This goes to show that while pricing for buyers is at its "most attractive," companies are already grabbing what they can before they disappear, and there's no sign when these products will be back.

It continues to become clear that were into for the long haul when it comes to the memory shortage, and we're still only seeing its effects ignite. If anything, it may even be worth checking out these DDR4 RAM kits to stay on top of the RAM crisis.

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If you know me personally or have been following my journalistic work, you'll know that there are few things I love more than gaming. When I'm not working, you'll usually find me sinking hours into my favorite RPGs. They're like my safe space, and playing single-player games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Baldur's Gate 3 feels therapeutic to me.

My favorite and go-to console is the PS5 Slim. I've logged in thousands of hours on it. When I test the best gaming headsets or the best controllers, I usually play on my PS5. But I also review the best computer speakers and the best gaming keyboards, and I test them by playing games on the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora.

Recently, I've tested some gadgets that make them feel like they would make the ultimate gaming setup. So if you're looking to upgrade your monitor or add a new controller to your collection, let me take you through my must-have peripherals.

A monitor with a rapid refresh rate

The first and most important thing you need to elevate your PC gaming setup is a good, competent monitor. There are so many out there, though, that it can be overwhelming to make a decision. I'm here to make that easier. Get the Lenovo Legion R27qe Gen 2 if you're based in Europe, or get the first-gen R27qe if you're based in the States (as there isn't much of a difference between the two models).

Lenovo's R27qe Gen 2 is an absolute beast for productivity and gaming. You get a QHD panel, and a 200Hz refresh rate and 0.5ms response time which means you don't experience motion blur, choppiness or input lag. The monitor also brings all the dark and light shades to life thanks to impeccable color accuracy and coverage, as shown in our lab testing too — the results of which you can see in my full Lenovo Legion R27qe Gen 2 review.

I love just how bright the R27qe Gen 2 is too, with SDR brightness topping at 321.2 nits and HDR brightness at 222 nits. This is more than enough, as I was able to read and see everything on screen accurately and in great detail. The monitor itself is well-built and its head has a -5° to +22° tilt, 30° left and right swivel, and a -90° to +90° pivot, providing great flexibility.

Speakers that pack meaty bass

I've tested many speakers in my time so believe me when I say that the Edifier QR65 are some of the best-looking speakers money can buy today. Wrapped in textured faux leather that's soft to touch and fitted with customizable LED lighting panels, the QR65 strike a great balance between gaming and bookshelf speakers. One of the reasons why they still haven't left my desk is their design; the "infinity mirror" lighting effect really does turn my frown upside down.

Of course, there's no point in spending any amount of money on speakers if they fail to create immersive soundscapes — and the good news is that the QR65 excel at that. Fitted with two 1.25-inch tweeters and two 2.75-inch mid-low drivers, they cover a frequency response range of 55Hz-40KHz. Sound is reproduced faithfully, and Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 comes to life, while you can hear the quiet hum of dungeons while thoroughly enjoying the power ballads in in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

If you're an FPS player, you'll appreciate just how clearly footsteps sound through the QR65. What I also love is that the speakers create a sort of virtual surround sound where you can hear audio not just around you, but above you too. This makes you feel immersed and you end up feeling like the main character. The QR65 are the perfect computer speakers for those who want aesthetic flair as well as bonkers sound quality.

An ergonomic Hall Effect controller

As a console gamer, I'm more comfortable using a controller than a keyboard and mouse for gaming. Few controllers are better than the GameSir G7 Pro, especially if you're a PC gamer who doesn't mind a wired gamepad. If you game for long periods of time, the G7 Pro should be right up your alley as it's inspired by the Xbox Elite Series 2, so it sports chunky grips that are comfortable to hold.

There's one area where the G7 Pro upstages the Xbox Elite Series 2, and that's performance. Unlike the first-party Xbox gamepad, the G7 Pro is fitted with Hall Effect triggers with adjustable sensitivity, and TMR thumbsticks which register even the most minute adjustments. User-friendly companion software makes customization easy too, and 1,000Hz polling means latency issues are basically non-existent.

The G7 Pro is compatible with an array of consoles and devices too. You get Bluetooth LE and a 2.4GHz dongle to effortlessly and wirelessly connect to PC and Android devices. You can use the controller with your Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S too, by simply plugging it in. This versatility makes the G7 Pro the controller to beat.

A 96% keyboard for work and play

If you're someone who loves gaming but also types for a living, the best keyboard you can get right now is the Keychron Q12 HE. This 96% layout keyboard packs Gateron Double-Rail Hall Effect switches whose sensitivity can be adjusted all the way down to 0.1mm for ultra-responsive gameplay in FPS titles. The 1,000Hz polling rate should suffice most players, and it means that you don't experience any latency issues or input lag.

The Q12 HE is a joy to type on too, with double-shot PBT keycaps which feel soft to touch. Being able to adjust each switch's sensitivity means you can tailor it to your liking. The keyboard also sports a southpaw design, meaning the numpad is on the left-hand side, saving you space to move your mouse around freely, and using the numpad with your left hand feels more natural.

If you want a well-built keyboard that will stand the test of time, I can't think of one better than the Q12 HE. The durable PBT keycaps won't be worn down or get glossy from sweat, and the full CNC-machined case means this deck could probably fell a tree!

A speedy mouse

Any gaming desk setup is incomplete without one of the best gaming mice — after all, you need it to accompany your keyboard, right? For competitive gamers, an 8,000Hz polling rate and 30,000 DPI are non-negotiable. These give you a competitive advantage and enable you to tailor the settings to your gamestyle. Oh, and who can forget angle snapping? The Keychron M3 Mini V2 8K packs all this and more, and it's my top pick for PC gamers.

The M3 Mini V2 8K's 8,000Hz polling means there are no latency issues or input lag, and the DPI button on its body enables you to change it on the fly, so no need to dive into companion software to adjust it. Aside from boasting powerful gaming performance, the M3 Mini V2 8K is built of high-quality plastic and it's lightweight but sturdy. The mouse itself is ergonomically-designed so it's comfortable to use for long periods of time.

What's great about the M3 Mini V2 8K is that it doesn't break the bank, so it's perfect for gamers on a budget. It packs pro-level specs and delivers them at an affordable price, and it's the cheapest 8,000Hz polling mouse I've tested yet.

More from Tom's Guide

• I’ve been testing Lenovo Legion’s 200Hz QHD monitor for a week — and it 'puts most other budget screens to shame'
• ‘I didn’t think a traditionally budget brand could make such good premium speakers’ — here’s why the Edifier QR65 are never leaving my desk
• I’ve tested dozens of gaming keyboards and this Keychron deck is the only one I’m using from now on

In a surprising twist, a new leak regarding Lenovo's next gaming laptops may have come from the company itself. And the leak appears to reveal the first true Windows 11 on ARM gaming laptop based on the upcoming Nvidia N1X chip.

The new laptops were spotted by dataminer Huang514613, who tweeted out a series of product codes for upcoming Lenovo devices.

Here's what we know about Lenovo product codes to help us understand what these actually mean. Typically, the first number you see in the code is the screen size. So for the Legion Pro 7, found on the Lenovo site, the product code is 16IAX10H.

So, that device has a 16-inch display. The first letter in the code refers to its platform: A= AMD, I= Intel, N= Nvidia and Q= Qualcomm. Other information includes the chip number.

On the Lenovo Legion Space support page under the supported devices section, a surprising code makes an appearance; the Legion 7 15N1X11, which means its a 15-inch gaming laptop powered by the Nvidia N1X chipset.

Here are other devices that Huang spotted that will likely be powered by Nvidia N1X and N1 CPUs.

• Ideapad Slim 5 14N1V11
• Ideapad Slim 5 16N1V11
• Legion 7 15N1X11
• Yoga Pro 7 15N1V11
• Yoga Pro 7 15N1X11
• Yoga 9 2-in-1 16N1X11

What makes this leak stand out is that it hasn't yet been revealed when Nvidia's consumer N1-series would actually debut in gaming laptops. It was suspected that we would have to wait at least a year before anything would actually debut.

This means Lenovo will ship a Legion gaming laptop powered by the N1 chip as a direct competitor with AMD and even Qualcomm, which makes ARM systems. However, laptops and mini PCs that use Qualcomm's systems aren't gaming machines.

This could be one of the first true Windows 11 on ARM gaming laptops. However, the dataminer didn't provide more information beyond the code existing.

The question is whether or not Lenovo's Nvidia laptop will debut before Dell's version. Earlier this week, our colleagues at Tom's Hardware reported that a Dell laptop featuring an N1X chip is will debut in the "first quarter of 2026" and will likely be under the company's Alienware brand.

What's so special about the Nvidia N1-series?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has previously confirmed that the N1-series is based on the company's DGX Spark AI systems and is powered by a GB10 superchip based on N1 silicon.

The GB10 features a 20-core ARM CPU, but is paired with an RTX 5070 GPU. It could have up to 128GB of LPDDR5X memory, though how much it actually ships with may get altered by the ongoing RAM crisis.

Meanwhile, Nvidia may already be developing a second-generation N2 chip that will debut in 2027.

Stay tuned to Tom's Guide for the latest and we can't wait to get one of these new Windows 11 on ARM gaming laptops in to test out for ourselves.

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• ‘RTX 5070 is the sweet spot’: Scan CEO reveals what Nvidia GPU PC gamers actually want
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