Announcements on CES: ThinkPad X1 Hybrid - x86 + ARM in one laptop

What is better to use on a business trip? Is a laptop a full-fledged computer with all the usual programs, or a tablet compact, lightweight, long-playing, but somewhat limited in functionality? Often, a laptop turns out to be more necessary (a tablet - it is still not for work, but for entertainment), but not every mobile PC is comparable to a tablet in terms of battery life.

In one of the main innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show, Lenovo tried to combine the cost-effectiveness of ARM devices and the power of conventional laptops with Intel processors. The result is a ThinkPad X1 Hybrid: a compact 13-inch laptop with an Intel dual-core processor and an optional ARM-based Qualcomm processor. Using an economical platform and a customized version of Android (called Instant Media Mode) doubled the battery life to quite a “tablet” 10 hours. I’m sure many of you will be interested in such a device not only because of the additional “autonomous” hours, but also because of the possibility of using the ARM part for some kind of your own tasks. Under the cut, I tried to collect all the information that is currently known about the X1 Hybrid.


The hybrid notebook was based on the ultra-compact 13-inch ThinkPad X1 - you can read its review here . “From Intel, you will still have access to a powerful dual-core processor in the company with a 160-gigabyte SSD or a 320-gigabyte hard drive. The 13-inch display, protected by Gorilla Glass, is complemented by an excellent island keyboard with the best performance in the ThinkPad series. A nice bonus is the very decent sound quality from the built-in speakers.



Now let's talk about the most interesting. An additional Qualcomm processor with 16 gigabytes of its own flash memory is located on the motherboard. At the touch of a button, the laptop automatically (and in just a couple of seconds) goes into “tablet” mode. Windows and the Intel part go into sleep mode, and on the ARM platform, its own Linux-based shell is launched. Its official name is Instant Media Mode, and it is made on the basis of Android.


Other photos of the X1 Hybrid can be found in this review on Engadget .

The capabilities of this Linux-system are modest enough, but in general they cover all kinds of travel entertainment: browsing websites, movies, photos or listening to music. In Windows mode, such a laptop will work up to 5 hours from a standard battery, while in ARM mode, the battery life doubles. If you use an additional battery, we get 10 and 20 hours of battery life, respectively.

I’ll tell you more about the world's first hybrid laptop when test samples get to us. Personally, I am very interested in the possibility of installing a full-fledged Linux distribution, which a dual-core ARM will completely pull. It is known that the laptop will be available for sale in the summer, and the cost in the United States will be about $ 1,600. Not cheap - in fact, for such a price you can buy a good laptop, and still remain on the tablet. However, the “pioneers” in any new technology have never been cheap. In the near future, we will find out how this technology will take root in the market of “classic” laptops, and whether a companion processor will appear in other Lenovo models.

In the meantime, I propose to watch a small commercial: