Looks of a Yoga, quality of a ThinkPad, feature-set of a ThinkBook: Lenovo's ThinkPad X9-14 blurs the line

Lenovo is a laptop brand with many sub-brands: Lenovo IdeaPad, Lenovo Legion, Lenovo Yoga, Lenovo ThinkBook, Lenovo ThinkPad, Lenovo LOQ, those are the principle brand names Lenovo uses to market its different laptop series.

There is a clear pattern here, as there is a more premium line and a more budget one for each category. For consumers, for example, Lenovo IdeaPad is the budget line, while Lenovo Yoga is the premium brand. Same for Lenovo LOQ and Lenovo Legion for gaming, and Lenovo ThinkBook and Lenovo ThinkPad for business. Of those lines, the ThinkPad brand has the strongest brand-recognition, being known for its great keyboard, conservative designs and the red TrackPoint as well as for having a host of business features.

This is what makes the Lenovo ThinkPad X9-14 Gen 1 Aura Edition stand out. This model, which we recently tested, forgoes the known ThinkPad design in favor of something that looks more like it could be from Lenovo's Yoga consumer lineup. And in terms of the feature-set, it lacks many business features, like 5G/LTE, a Smart card reader or a mechanical webcam shutter, bringing it more in line with a small-business laptop like from the ThinkBook series. So: What is ThinkPad about it?

As it turns out, it is the quality. The device feels more well-made than either a ThinkBook or a Yoga and while the keyboard looks different, the typing experience is unmistakably ThinkPad. Also, the ThinkPad X9-14 has a very intelligent maintenance design, which makes it easy to assemble and disassemble, an important consideration for a business laptop.

The ThinkPad X9-14 may not look like a ThinkPad, but in terms of quality, it feels like a ThinkPad.