Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETZDNET’s key takeaways
- Lenovo announced several new laptops and computers today at IFA in Berlin.
- Two proof-of-concept devices show promise, including a rollable and an ultralight laptop.
- The IdeaPad Vibe is a new line of colorful, affordable laptops to combat the MacBook Neo.
What would IFA be without a wild new proof of concept from Lenovo? This year, we got two, and instead of going big, we’re seeing a more focused approach. The “Project Swan” rollable sticks to a subtle 17-inch horizontal extension, while the “Project AeroBlade” weighs in at just 1.8 pounds and features a unique fanless piezoelectric design.
Also: I went hands-on with Lenovo’s latest rollable laptop – is it finally practical?
As far as devices that you can actually buy go, Lenovo announced several new Yoga and ThinkBook devices, including its first workstation for power users with Nvidia’s new RTX Spark CPU: the Yoga Pro 9n.
On the other end of the cost spectrum, Lenovo’s new IdeaPad Vibe line takes aim at the MacBook Neo with an affordable, battery-efficient device in a range of unique colors and swappable keyboard colorways for a personalized look.
1. ‘Project Swan’ rollable laptop
Lenovo is notorious for showing off wild proof-of-concept devices at trade shows like IFA and CES. They’re mostly niche (and a little gimmicky), but sometimes they actually make it to market, like last year’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6.
Joseph Maldonado/ZDNETBut this year’s rollable takes a more practical approach than some of its rather excessive predecessors. Codenamed “Project Swan,” this rollable ThinkBook extends horizontally to a maximum screen size of 17 inches — a size that’s definitely impactful, but doesn’t cross into the realm of the absurd. On the laptop’s 14-inch chassis, it doesn’t look precarious when fully extended.
Lenovo may have taken a more measured approach to this one to rein in both potential consumer cost and practicality, but of all the rollable prototypes I’ve gone hands-on with, it’s one of the more realistic. Still, there is no guarantee it will ever make it to market — though if you ask me, it’s a lot more likely than the rollable Legion Pro we saw earlier this year at CES.
2. Project AeroBlade
What’s considered thin and light in 2026? It’s gotta be under two pounds. Lenovo’s aptly named “AeroBlade” is an ultrathin (0.39 inches) and lightweight (1.8 pounds) laptop that foregoes a traditional fan design for a unique solid-state active-cooling architecture. The technology was developed in collaboration with Frore Systems and moves air through the chassis while being virtually silent.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETAside from the lightweight build, the device aims for a more premium featureset, with a magnesium-aluminum body, OLED display, Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, and Wi-Fi 7. This puts it in contrast to a similar new device from Acer, the Swift Blade 14, (noticing a trend, here?), which also has an OLED (and weighs slightly less, at 1.7 pounds) but caps out at 12GB of RAM and Intel’s Core 7 “Wildcat Lake” processors and Wi-Fi 6.
3. Yoga Pro 9n
First announced at Computex, Lenovo showed off its new power-user-focused workstation with Nvidia’s RTX Spark chip. With both a 15-inch traditional clamshell and a 16-inch 2-in-1 form, the Yoga Pro 9n is perhaps the most powerful and premium laptop in its IFA lineup.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETThe 15-inch Yoga Pro 9n features up to 128GB of 9400 MT/s unified memory to run complex local AI systems, demanding content creation, and 3D rendering. The 16-inch convertible features a dual-surface pen, enabling Nvidia AI and RTX technologies with the CUDA stack for sophisticated on-device AI models.
This also translates to gaming performance, with Lenovo’s “X Power” thermal structure for sustained workloads or gaming sessions on the OLED display, a high-resolution 9.2MP IR camera, and a haptic touchpad to round out the device’s overall premium experience.
4. IdeaPad Vibe
This year at IFA, we got several laptops designed specifically to counter Apple’s MacBook Neo, which dropped a bomb on the budget PC market with its colorful, effective package for $699 — running circles around the PCs at that price point with worse hardware, dingy displays, and chunky builds.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETNot so much, anymore. Lenovo’s response to the Neo is the IdeaPad Vibe, a younger, more playful laptop available in a range of colors (red, blue, green, purple, and gold) and featuring a replaceable keyboard panel for personalized color combinations at that $699 price point.
The Vibe has a broad range of configurations, in both 14- and 15-inch configurations with AMD’s Ryzen AI 400 series processors, 24GB of RAM, 1TB of local storage, and up to a 65Whr battery.
Also: Dell 14S first look: Taking on MacBook Neo… again
The display, like the other Neo competitors, skews toward premium options with a 120Hz refresh rate, OLED panel options, and 100% sRGB coverage. Besides the new colorways, the design is thoroughly Yoga, with the same rounded edges and camera bump.
We also saw Dell’s 14S lineup announced at IFA with similarly colorful builds, modest but battery-efficient hardware, and an unannounced but easy-to-estimate $699 starting price.
