This years Computex, a leading tech show in Taipeh (Taiwan), has been dominated by one clear topic: AI. Anyone has now heard of ChatGPT but this simple to use AI chat bot might just be the start. Looking at the offerings from the PC industry one might realize that this wave is going to hit earlier than expected.

A new era of the PC: AI PCs

The future of the PC will be an ultimate AI PC that acts a copilot to everything you do on it. This at least is the vision of the coming year that many tech companies believe in. Acer for example unveiled their latest laptops boasting built-in AI capabilities. These AI PCs promise to revolutionize how we work by anticipating user needs and learning from past behavior to improve work flow, efficiency and our interactions with PCs. AI assistants could manage background tasks, adjust settings for better battery life or even predict what files you’ll need next.

Combine this with features like Microsofts Recall and we are getting increasingly close to the future of the personal computer that is so personal it might as well be a human inside you device.

Powering this AI future

Chipmakers like Intel and AMD are also unveiling next-generation processors specifically designed for AI applications. After Qualcomm Snapdragon took on the PC world the non-ARM manufacturers now need to compete with the new Player. These new processors come with significant performance boosts and maybe even more important improved power efficiency gains. Apart from the CPU and GPU performance the NPU, the neural processing unit, is getting increasing attention. These processors are optimized for AI models and act as AI accelerators for locally running models rather than cloud computing.

Back to the Real World

The AI hype is undeniable and with an increasingly inflating AI bubble the question remains how many of all these buzz words are actually here to stay and revolutionize the way we interact with devices and the world. The theoretical possibilities are seemingly endless.

Computex 2024 paints a clear picture: AI is no longer science fiction and here to stay to fundamentally the importance of technology and our interaction with it. In the end, time will show how much of this enormous AI wave is going to reach the shore.

Gaming laptops are flashy, overly expensive, run hot and have battery life that is measured in seconds. Thats the sterotypical view many people have on this portable computer category. For many years this was actually true but todays microchips have high enough efficiency to work at incredible speed and performance in small enclosures. Clever design and advanced liquid metal, vapor champers and special alloy technology have also solved the extreme temperature problems. There even is an increasing market for sensible gaming laptops without flashy RGB leds all over it. All problems solved? Not quite. One problem still persists!

Battery life problems

While the cooling solutions improved with the efficiency of the chips, running a modern CPU at its max draws huge amounts of power. A highend gaming laptop chip like the i9 12900H usually has a TDP of 45W with turbo peaks reaching to 115W! These are enormous amounts of power and need to be kept running somehow. In a laptop that needs to be used on the go all this juice is comming from a battery. And because they should not wheight 10kg and because there are airline travel limits on the battery capacity there are some general limitations regarding this part. The general maximum capacity you are going to find is 100Wh meaning you can draw 100W for an hour before the battery is empty.

When the laptop is drawing 50W only for the CPU and completly disregarding a potentially even more power hungry GPU you can expect the battery to last 2 hours in a good scenario. While this is a terribly unpractical battery life that is actually the reality of many gaming laptops making them unusable without a power outlet nearby.

The solution!

But there is a solution to this enormous problem: Power limits! As simple and profound this may sound it turns out to be not as easy in reality. Of course a chip made for 45W TDP wont simple throtle down to 3W and be happy performing like an ultrabook but there are some possibilites.

G-Helper for Asus laptops

If you own an Asus Laptop there is the community made G-Helper software that i can highly recommend for this. Download it from GitHub here. This programm is similar to ROGs native armoury crate but with a bit more customizability and lightweightness.

settings for maximum battery run time

1. Turn on Eco Mode for the GPU to turn it off completly
2. Set the screen to 60Hz
3. Turn off the keyboard lighting
4. Go to Extra and stop all the Asus services from running
5. Select the Silent Mode
6. Go to Fans + Power
7. Put windows power mode on best power efficiency
8. Put the CPU Boost to efficient aggressive
9. Put the Power limit 1 all the way down to 5W and Power Limit 2 to around 15W
10. Click apply power limits

Additional

Turn on the Windows energy saving mode, turn Bluetooth off, reduce the screen brightness to 80%,disable any other unused connections and reduce the background processes to a minmum.

Throttlestop Alternative

Throttlestop is a popular software that allows undervolting and power limiting for your CPU. There are many different tutorials on the internet on how to change its very confusing but potent set of settings to fit your needs and reduce the power consumtion drasticaly. The great thing is that this does work on nearly all computers (at least to some extent).

Result

Through the heavy cutting down of the processor power you should see your displayed discharging wattage go down. In my case of the i9 12900H it reached 10W. Should you reduce the screen brightness even further and have only lightweight office work running on your laptop you can manage to even get to around 8W on such a heavy duty processor. Naturally this allows for much better battery life with the Windows Display literally doubling the estimated runtime from 3,5 to 7 hours. A few tests proved this estimation right resulting in much better battery life then before. And while this has a significant impact on the overall performance, it allows for very long runtime with light offic work making this mode perfect for work, school and university.

The Thinkpad X270 is a highly portable laptop of Lenovos well known bussiness Thinkpad series. It has been released in 2017 and is therefore not really state of the art anymore. “Why write a review on it then?” you might rightfully think. Well because this might be one of the last laptops that offers such a good combination of usability, functionality and battery life. But let me tell you in detail.

The Thinkpad series

Everyone who knows a bit about computers will have heard about the well known Thinkpad series. Originally sold as laptops for bussiness use cases these devices do not feature any great designs or beefy power systems but were incredibly reliable and had great usability. Additionally they had to endure the challenges of daily extended usage and were built like tanks.

Design

The design language in the X270 is basic, square and black. The blackness is traditionally interupted by a red track point in the middle of the keyboard. The lid continues this design and is totally blackish with the Thinkpad logo in the top corner being the only interruption. It features a red led in the i dot as a status marker. In comparison to other laptops it simply looks boring but thanks to this also completely neutral and is perfect for every occasion from class room to bussiness meeting.

Durablity

Despite its rather elegant size this 20mm thick device is properly built and wont brake in your backpack however angry you shove it in there. The material used on the outside is durable and resistant ABS plastic that has been reinforced from the inside with magnesium. The lid is made out of ABS that has been given more rigidity through a glass fiber layer the same way it has been done on the base cover.

The hinge is made out of solid metal and feels smooth when opening. It holds the display securely in place even in a shaking environment.
In total this 1,4kg heavy package makes for a very dense and robust appearance and is without a doubt ready for the challenges of your daily life aswell as traveling and any other adventures you can think of. I had the x270 in multiple trans continental flights including one where the backpack around the laptop damaged in transfer. The Thinkpad itself was completely fine.

Furthermore, I found myself in a situation where the outside of the Thinkpad was completely wet and soaked, but the device itself, despite not having a special splash-proof seal and having been switched on in this state for several hours, was perfectly fine. That is truly impressive.

Functionality

Performance

Lets come to the elephant in the room first: the performance. When this device was released the 7th gen Intel processors were state of the art. The performance of these two core, four threads processors were not incredibly over the top back then and that very obviously hasn’t improved in the past years. To make a long story short if you are looking for a laptop to play AAA games on it, this is the wrong address. For everything like browsing, office work, writing, movies and light coding though this device is still perfectly functional though. Nonetheless i would recommend to use a light operating system like a Linux distribution or a debloated version of windows like Tiny11.

Extra: Gaming

If you are interested in playing some lightweight old games on it you can check out our recent test of Portal on this laptop. We came to the conclusion that old games like these that aren’t as graphic intense are still able to run decently on the integrated HD 620 GPU.

IO

While modern ultra books have a trend towards IO only consisting out of two USB-C ports the X270 features a wide assortment for everything you would ever need on the go. Charging is possible over the square Thinkpad charging port AND the USB-C port on the left. Via this port the Thinkpad is also capable of charging with extremely slow chargers going down to below 20W (need the Thinkpad to be turned off). This is incredibly useful while traveling or when you forgot the special charging plug.

Furthermore the Thinkpad offers a HDMI port, a Smart card reader, two classic 3.0 USB-A port, an AUX connector and depending on the model even a SIM card reader with a 4G modem.

The most important capabilities though are the included full size SD card reader making this perfect for camera and photography enthusiasts and the Ethernet port for on the go server administrators or pentesters. Additionaly the Thinkpad features a special power bank feature on one of its USB-A ports turning it into powerbank for your phone while turned off.

The X270 also has an integrated camera and microphone in the case you need to make a video call on the go.

The only big downside is the lack of a Thunderbolt port.

Upgradability

Although most other ultra books dont offer any upgradable parts anymore the X270 is different. Against its official stating it can acutally be upgraded to a full 32Gb of single chanel RAM. Some people were also able to change out the LTE modem against another SSD. In general the Thinkpad community is quite creative when it comes to modding these so there are many options to customize the X270 to your liking.

Input devices

Apart from the exceptional keyboard of the X270 it offers the well known trackpoint. If you dont like that one you also have the abbility to use the small but responsive track pad below. Above the trackpack are the dedicated left and right click buttons aswell as a middle click/scroll button. All of these offer the user a vast assortment of input devices making the X270 really comfortable to use without a mouse.

To unlock the X270 you have the option to use a fingerprint reader located on the palm rest.

Battery

The battery life might be one of the best selling points of the X270. The X270 is one of the newest Thinkpads that still has the Power Bridge technology. It allows the laptop to switch between an internal battery and one located in the removable slot in the back of the device. The internal battery of the x270 has 24Wh while there are multiple options for the external one. The biggest offers 72Wh making for a combined 96Wh of battery on a 12 inch laptop. Combined with the low power 15W TDP CPU this laptop can therefore last an eternity on this power system. Lenovo says it does above 20 hours while i managed to just get above 16 hours with casual use which is absolutely great.

The dual batteries also allow you to change the removable battery on the back of the X270 while its running. Should you run out of juice just change the battery! While this feature is only useful in edge cases and is generally only of use once every month, when you are really depend on your laptop continuing to run it quickly becomes one of the most important features.

Cost

At its release the X270 used to cost around and over 1000$. These days when looking at a used X270 you can find these at prices from 100 Euros to 200 Euros. Depending on the condition the prices are sometimes incredible low but be aware that you wil need to refurbish these devices if you are not trying to catch any decease from them. They are luckily incredible easy to take appart and is build to be decently easilly servicible.

Tips for buying

Buying a used X270 is easy as they are all over ebay and other such platforms. There are a few points to pay attention to before pressing buy:

• make sure to get the 1920×1080 display as it is by far better
• make sure it does have an internal battery there are some that lack these
• make sure it does have SIM card reader as some dont have the modem (if this is important for you)
• make sure it does have the right keyboard with background lighting
• the x270 was available with the 6th gen and 7th gen cpus. try getting the 7th gen.
• some have NVME SSDs some have SATAs try to get the NVMEs

Conclusion

Even in 2024 the Thinkpad X270 offers a great package of versatiliy, usability and compact form factor. Thanks to its exceptional battery life and power bank feature its ideal for travelling and is a thrustworty companion for any adventure. With its vast array of ports and functions it is the ideal carry around swiss army knife laptop. Furthermore its the last Thinkpad with the power bridge feature and this level of upgradability.

With PC hardware prices reaching normal levels again after the brutal chip shortage from 2 years ago it didn’t quite make sense to buy a state of the art Sony console, namely the PS5. Even Linus Tech Tips recently showed that there is, at least for the tech savvy people, a cheaper and (depending on the use case) a more performant way: building a PC!

But as everyone knows the market does evolve quite fast in the consumer electronics world and it is absolutely no surprise that Sony is already coming up with a follow up.

When is this new console going to be released?

In regular Sony fashion the PS5 should get a follow up after 3 to 4 years. Looking back at the PS4 which was released in November 2013 and its successor, the PS4 Pro which was released in 2016, it is now time due for the PS5.

Several leaks point to a release of the Pro version in late 2024. With Sonys tradition of releases around the month November you can expect the 5 Pro to follow this pattern.

What is going to change?

Judging of leaks from Sonys developer portal the PS5 Pro is expected to offer more than triple the performance of its predecesor. In numbers this means that instead of a raw GPU power of 10,23 Teraflops the new RDNA-3-GPU should put out 18 Teraflops. The theoretical maximum of Dual Issue RDNA 3 should be even above 36 Teraflops.

This is achieved by equipping the AMD manufactured chip with more than 30 separate work group processors rather than the 18 from the PS5. Moreover it also features a slightly higher frequency of 2,35 GHz compared to 2,23 GHz.

All in all it is expected to perform 45% better than the normal PS5.

What are the benefits of the performance improvements?

Since many games rely on upscaling to run smoothly on the current console, the PS5 Pro could help further satisfy this hunger for power. In a dynamic and so rapidly changing market it is also always a good idea as a manufacturer to future proof your hardware. In the best case the power improvements will bring some games closer to rendering at 4k 60fps. There are also rumors of a special AI upscaling technology that Sony is working on to deliver an unparalleled smooth gaming experience.

Really a PC Killer?

With a beefy upgrade to its performance the question if the PS5 Pro could be a PC Killer is now only dependent on its price point. Looking at the PS5 the minimum you can expect is around 499$ or 550 Euro. We will see what Sony comes up with but if the prices stay at a PS5 level the PS5 Pro could once again retake the price to performance crown from the PC!