Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15 vs X9-15p laptop comparison: Cheaper or faster

When a PC manufacturer releases a new version of an existing product, it is usually pretty clear which one is superior. The new version - in most cases - will be better, because it has faster CPUs, better GPUs, possibly better screens and so on.

In the case of the Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15 Gen 1, things are not quite as clear, at least on paper. This 15.3-inch premium business laptop came out in 2025, and it featured the Intel Lunar Lake platform. It received a great score in our testing, but so far, Lenovo has not released a successor to this ThinkPad laptop, as there is no ThinkPad X9-15 Gen 2.

There is, however, a new product, which looks almost identical to the ThinkPad X9-15, and almost bears the same name: The Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15p Gen 1, which we recently reviewed. This is not a straight successor, it is a new model. While aspects like the screen and the keyboard stay identical to the X9-15, the newer 2026 ThinkPad has some additional features, like a third Thunderbolt 4 port and a full-size SD card slot, as well as user-facing speakers.

More important than these surface-level features, however, are the changes under the hood: The ThinkPad X9-15p has a much more substantial cooling system that takes up a much bigger volume of the chassis, allowing Lenovo to use the powerful H class Panther Lake Core Ultra X7 CPUs with 50 W of sustained performance. In comparison: The X9-15 was only able to sustain 25 W. Overall, this, together with the new Intel platform, results in a 44 percent improvement on CPU performance and 76 percent better GPU performance. And the X9-15p does this without compromising other aspects, as the X9-15p still does very well on fan noise, temperatures and battery life.

If the X9-15p is so much better, are there any reasons to buy the X9-15? Of course, there is one: Pricing. While the X9-15 starts at around €1,500 here in Germany as of this article, you have to pay at least €2,500 for the X9-15p. Not everyone needs the extra performance, so if you just need a great everyday PC, the X9-15 can still serve you well. Still, the upgrade of the X9-15p is quite obvious, and quite hard to ignore.