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Lenovo ditches fans in favor of solid-state AirJet tech in super-slim, 1.8-pound AeroBlade laptop concept – company also lands at IFA with a 14-inch rollable screen notebook that expands to 17 inches

read original get Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Laptop → more articles
Why This Matters

Lenovo's IFA concepts show two paths toward more portable laptops: a fanless 14-inch machine using Frore's AirJet solid-state cooling to hit 30W of active heat dissipation at under 1.83 pounds, and a rollable 14-to-17-inch screen notebook. If AirJet scales, it could let ultraportables sustain performance without fan noise, a long-standing tradeoff in thin-and-light PCs.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Laptop — If Project AeroBlade's featherweight, ultra-portable vibe appeals to you, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the shipping version of that idea inear-2-pound carbon fiber chassis, Intel Core Ultra silicon and a legendary keyboard. It's Lenovo's real-world take on maximum portability while you wait for solid-state cooling to go mainstream.

See Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Laptop on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.

Lenovo has a history of bringing concept laptops to the IFA trade show in Berlin, and this year’s pair are all about improving productivity and portability. They also feel closer to something you might actually buy than some concepts we’ve seen in the past.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

First up, Project AeroBlade is a 14-inch laptop where, as the company’s press release puts it, “every component is re-engineered around mobility.” For starters, the laptop foregoes fans in favor of Frore Systems’ AirJet solid-state cooling tech, which uses piezoelectric membranes that vibrate ultrasonically, beyond the range of human hearing. There are four AirJet Mini modules here, which is three more than the single AirJet Mini we saw in Intel’s Wildcat Lake reference design back at Computex earlier this year. That should mean much better sustained performance than we’ve seen from passively cooled PCs in the past.

Frore System’s latest AirJet Mini modules are rated to dissipate 7.5 watts of heat, giving the AeroBlade laptop 30 watts of active heat dissipation. This pairs well with the 17-30W-TDP Intel Lunar Lake silicon Lenovo is using in this concept. The more recent Wildcat Lake chips are rated from 15-35W, so should also fare reasonably well with a similar solid-state cooling setup.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Project AeroBlade also uses a tiny motherboard, which, along with a magnesium-aluminum frame, results in a laptop that is just 0.39 inches (10 mm) thick and weighs less than 1.83 pounds (830 grams). The slimness means you’ll have to live on USB-C /Thunderbolt 4 ports alone, but the laptop includes three of them, along with an OLED screen and Wi-Fi 7.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

The company is using Intel’s Lunar Lake here, but of course, if the concepts behind this design eventually become a laptop you can buy, it will ship with a more modern CPU. I’d love to see what kind of performance and battery life Wildcat or Panther Lake could deliver in this svelte laptop form factor.

The company is using Intel’s Lunar Lake here, but of course, if the concepts behind this design eventually become a laptop you can buy, it will ship with a more modern CPU. I’d love to see what kind of performance and battery life Wildcat or Panther Lake could deliver in this svelte laptop form factor.

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