Like HP before it, Lenovo targets the corner office--or at least the cubicle--with its interpretation of Microsoft's Copilot PC concept. These computers are powered by Qualcomm chipsets based on ARM architecture, a breakaway from the traditional Intel-based laptops of old. They've been promising big battery gains, performance enhancements, and artificial intelligence tricks. The Yoga Slim 7x hardware is as tame as they come, a no-nonsense aluminum shell decked out in ThinkPad so-blue-it's-black paint and largely devoid of frills. A small tab above the screen serves as a place for the webcam to live and provides a way to more easily open the clamshell, and a speaker flanks the height of the keyboard on each side.

The arrival of Microsoft's AI-soaked Copilot PC has somewhat overshadowed the simultaneous launch of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X CPU, an upgraded, ARM-based alternative to Intel and AMD processors that have long dominated the laptop world. Qualcomm has made some incredible claims about what the Snapdragon X would be able to do since its announcement last fall, the most notable being a promise of double the performance over competing CPUs at one-third the power draw. Those competing CPUs have all been upgraded since that announcement, so examining the situation with the current environment fully accounted for is crucial. The catch is that Microsoft's Copilot PCs are only certified to run on Snapdragon X CPUs--for now, at least--so if you want the Copilot experience with all the new artificial intelligence features baked into Windows, a Snapdragon is the only way to fly. Before we get to the CPU, let's look at the laptop containing it more broadly.