How Lenovo and Intel quietly reinvented the ThinkPad while respecting the laptop's legacy

Note: This feature was first published on 3 April 2025.

I was in the port city of Yokohama, Japan, for a Lenovo media showcase of its Aura Edition line of laptops in February. While the products on show were the highlights, it was a Lenovo exec's presentation that piqued my imagination the most.

There’s something fascinating about hearing how two tech giants join forces in the “trenches”, working through design flaws, thermal bottlenecks, and the sheer physics of shaving grams off a chassis without making it feel like a flimsy shell. That was the sense I got after sitting through a long but insightful session at Lenovo’s Aura Edition AI PC media event in Yokohama, where Yasumichi Tsukamoto,  Vice President for Commercial Product Solutions Development, Commercial Product Center, Intelligent Devices Group at Lenovo, shared on stage what really went into the development of the ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition laptop.

Now, it’s easy to think of the term Aura Edition as a branding exercise (I did at first), but it actually represents something more substantial: a fully co-engineered process between Lenovo and Intel. It’s not just about throwing in an Intel chip and slapping a sticker on the laptop. This was a ground-up collaboration that Yasumichi says spanned multiple countries, involved custom hardware tweaks, and aimed to redefine what a high-performance, AI-capable ThinkPad should look and feel like.

What stood out immediately was how much of this project leaned into user insights. According to Yasumichi, Lenovo didn’t start with a wish list of new features or even a specific chipset in mind. Instead, they began with ethnographic research – speaking to users, observing use cases, and identifying pain points in real-world scenarios. The kind of details that don’t appear on a spec sheet, but make all the difference in daily use. That user-centric approach then informed everything from the placement of air vents to the behaviour of tap-to-connect file sharing.

The idea of having a product pipeline that flows from both customer insight and technical capability is not new, but Lenovo seems to have formalised it into an actual framework. Yasumichi says every new design is treated as a funnel that starts with a combination of user research and technical seeds – Intel’s roadmaps, Lenovo’s corporate strategy, and what’s happening more broadly in the industry. Once something promising emerges, they develop proof-of-concept models, test them internally, and only then begin productisation. That’s how the ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition laptop came to be – not as a standalone SKU, but as the culmination of a philosophy.

Intel’s role in this process went far beyond silicon, according to Yasumichi. For the Aura Edition, Intel engineers were physically embedded at Lenovo’s development facility in Yokohama’s Yamato Lab. There’s even a dedicated Intel lab within, built specifically for this partnership. Engineers from both sides worked shoulder-to-shoulder on everything from thermal modelling to camera sensor calibration. And this wasn’t a one-city affair, either. There were workshops across Tokyo, Beijing, Santa Clara, and even Haifa in Israel. I don’t think many people realise just how global this process is – and how much diplomacy is involved in getting engineers across four time zones to agree on a fan profile or a PCB layer count.

One of the more tangible outcomes of this collaboration is Smart Share, a deceptively simple feature that allows seamless file transfers between ThinkPad and mobile devices. The tap-to-share interaction seems effortless, but under the hood, there’s a machine learning model trained on thousands of tap gestures. Yasumichi even explained how Lenovo had to account for different phone covers, tapping angles, and even acoustic signatures across iOS and Android. What started as a standard proximity-sensing challenge evolved into an AI-powered solution that Lenovo claims significantly reduces false positives. Granted, it’s not the kind of feature that sells a laptop, but it does enhance the experience in a way that sticks after continuous use.

Then there’s the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which I still consider the gold standard among business laptops— and so do thousands of our readers. With the Aura Edition version, Lenovo set itself the unenviable challenge of pushing its weight below one kilogram, without compromising on durability or I/O ports. Achieving this involved some creative use of materials that – you wouldn’t have guessed it – come from recycled carbon fibre sourced from Boeing’s aircraft manufacturing waste. It’s a clever pivot that not only reduces weight but also improves Lenovo’s sustainability credentials. But of course, lighter materials mean thinner covers, and thinner covers often result in structural compromises. Lenovo’s workaround was to re-engineer the fibre orientation, changing the weave direction for added rigidity. These are pretty insightful things that you wouldn’t notice unless someone (like Yasumichi did for me) pointed them out, but once you know, you start to appreciate just how much thought went into something as mundane as a lid. (Fun fact: You can lift the ThinkPad X1 Carbon's lid with one finger without having to hold the base of the laptop down)

The same philosophy extended to the motherboard, which was trimmed from 10 layers to 8, which is an aggressive move when you consider how densely packed modern motherboards are. Less copper means less weight, but it also increases the risk of interference or instability. That’s where Intel’s validation process came in. Every deviation from Intel’s reference design had to be simulated, tested, and signed off. Yasumichi says no corners were cut here, even if it meant delays or extra tooling.

Thermals, too, got a complete rethink. Lenovo relocated the laptop’s air intake to the rear housing, which they refer to as the “engine bay.” A series of hidden vents pulls air in, routes it through diverters and heat pipes, and then pushes it out the back. I got a look at a cross-section model, and it’s quite an elegant airflow solution, especially when you consider the reduced footprint of the fan module. Despite being smaller, it manages to keep skin temperature and acoustic noise in check. Yasumichi said the team also implemented a diverter plate that not only guides airflow but helps dissipate heat via the keyboard deck. It's small optimisations like these that cumulatively improve the feel of the device – again, not something that shows up on a datasheet, but it’s definitely noticeable after a few hours of use once you're made aware on what to look out for. Think of this like a screen refresh rate; many consumers aren't aware of why this aspect matters or how it improves their user experience. However, once you point out to users how to view and compare the differences, most can't easily go back to a standard 60Hz display.

Audio quality was another area where the Intel-Lenovo partnership has paid dividends. With the limited space inside, Lenovo went with a screwless speaker mount to maximise acoustic volume. Not only does this improve repairability, but it also serves as a shock absorber, reducing unwanted vibrations. Paired with Dolby Atmos calibration and redesigned amplifiers, the result is surprisingly decent sound for something this thin. It's never going to replace your external speakers, but for a Teams call or casual music playback, it holds its own.

If there's one recurring theme here, it's that none of these features feel tacked on. There’s a through line that connects all of them – starting from user insight, shaped through cross-border engineering, and realised in hardware that actually solves problems. And that, to me, is what makes the Aura Edition interesting. Not because it’s radically different on the outside – frankly, it still looks very much like any contemporary laptop – but because of how it was built. Every feature, from airflow to audio calibration, exists because someone identified a need, prototyped a fix, and then had it validated across multiple teams.

It’s easy to get cynical about co-branded projects. So many of them are just marketing exercises. But after seeing how much actual engineering went into this one, I’m convinced that the ThinkPad Aura Edition is the result of genuine collaboration, not corporate fluff. And in an industry where specs are often commoditised and designs feel increasingly generic, that’s saying something.

Find the Aura Edition at Lenovo's website

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.