The 6 laptops that blew me away at IFA 2024

If you thought laptops were getting boring, think again. IFA 2024 in Berlin celebrated its 100th anniversary last weekend, and laptops were a big part of what made it feel special. A lot of futuristic concepts, next-gen processors, and AI at the forefront — of course.

Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, Asus, Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm were the major players, but even some surprise competitors like Honor made an appearance as well. After spending almost a full week in Berlin, here are the six laptops that blew me away from IFA.

Lenovo Auto Twist AI

You can always count on Lenovo to put out something interesting, at the very least. The Lenovo Auto Twist AI can open its lid, rotate its screen, or convert into tablet form, all activating by your voice alone. Perhaps the most useful piece of it is the ability to have it follow your face while on camera or not.

The company brought what feels like a culmination of a few of their previous concepts. It has “twisting” 180-degree hinge of the ThinkBook Plus Twist, combined with an advanced form of presence detection to even close automatically when unattended.

Call it gimmicky, sure — it’s certainly not something most people will be interested in buying. But it was pretty fun to play with in person, and for a proof-of-concept demo, it worked surprisingly well.

Acer Project DualPlay gaming laptop

Acer also brought a concept laptop to IFA this year, and this one totally came out of left field. On the surface, Project DualPlay just looks like a rather thick gaming laptop with lots of RGB light patterns around the chassis. But look closer, and you’ll see that the trackpad can be released and removed entirely from the body of the laptop, revealing a game controller.

The wireless wide controller can be used as is — or even better, can be split into two for multiplayer PC gaming on the go. It’s a great example of PC gaming taking some inspiration from the console world (the Switch, in particular), and doing something new with it. There’s a lot we don’t know about this concept, but I played a couple rounds of Street Fighter 6 with the controller — and let’s face it: It’s just plain cool.

Asus Zenbook S 14

Technically, this stellar laptop was previewed first at Computex, but we got to spend some more time with it at IFA to launch alongside Intel’s next-gen Series 2 Core Ultra processors. Chips aside, it’s an incredibly attractive little laptop. This 14-incher is more proof that when the Windows ecosystem works together closely, it can produce end products that are every bit as refined as a MacBook.

It uses an enlarged trackpad, has thin bezels around the screen, and comes in a gorgeous white colorway. The Zenbook S 14 also has a 2.8K OLED 120Hz screen, comes with a base of 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, and still manages to keep legacy ports around like USB-A and HDMI. It’s quite portable too, at just 0.51 inches and 2.65 pounds. There are smaller laptops, but the Zenbook S 14 feels like a good balance for the screen size.

Lenovo Yoga Slim Aura Edition

Lenovo is pretty chip-agnostic with its new line of laptops, supporting Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm in various different laptop lines. But that’s not to say it isn’t playing favorites. The company launched a new badge exclusive to Intel laptops called “Aura Edition,” which Lenovo says is the result of a long-time collaboration with Intel.

Aura Edition laptops, which include the Yoga Slim and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13, have a variety of new superpowers exclusive to this line. Smart Share is probably the headlining feature, which uses Intel Unison to allow for quick sharing of photos between your phone and your PC, with just the tap of your device against the side of the open laptop lid. There’s also Smart Modes, which provide a few unique AI features set into specific modes such as Shield, Collaboration, or Wellness.

As for the laptop itself, Lenovo has a beautiful device on its hands. The edges are rounded to perfection, and the 15-inch screen has been squeezed into the body of a 14-inch laptop. I really like the form factor, providing slightly more screen real estate without adopting some of the clunky aspects of the old 15-inch laptop designs. This is as premium a consumer laptop as Lenovo will sell, and it’s saying something that it’s still giving Intel the top spot.

Honor MagicBook Art 14

Honor probably isn’t the first company you think of when it comes to laptops — in fact, they aren’t sold in the U.S. right now. Even so, the company brought a fascinating laptop design to IFA 2024 that was hard not to be drawn to. The first thing you notice about it is how incredibly thin the top bezel is above the screen. No other laptop has a top bezel that narrow, and it makes it look rather spectacular.

The secret, of course, is that there’s no internal webcam built into the laptop. That sounds like a bad compromise just to get thinner bezels, especially considering how important video conferencing is for all of us. But Honor has an interesting solution use a wireless detachable webcam that is actually housed within the laptop itself. Using a slot on the left side of the laptop next to the ports, the Honor MagicBook Art 14 has a webcam when you need it — and ultra-thin bezels when you don’t. It then magnetically attaches to the top of your laptop lid. Companies like Dell or Huawei have tried ways to hide the webcam in the past, but Honor’s version might be the cleanest solution. This even allows you to flip the camera away from you, which could come in handy.

Beyond that, the MagicBook Art 14 has a sleek, modern look with its large trackpad, 3.1K resolution display, and small dimensions. It’s only downfall is the previous-gen Intel Core Ultra processor it’s using, rather than the new Lunar Lake “Series 2” chip.

Lenovo IdeaPad 5x

Qualcomm has had a huge year, and at IFA this year, the company followed up its 12-core Snapdragon X Elite with a lower-tier 8-core Snapdragon X Plus. The trilogy of chips is now complete, giving Qualcomm a full lineup of chips to hand over to laptop manufacturers like Asus. Representing the lowest tier, these new eight-core chips now bring Copilot+-qualified PCs under the $999 mark. This is important, especially if it hopes to undercut Apple in a more meaningful way.

There are only a few laptop models so far that use the eight-core chip — the Vivobook S 15, IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1, and IdeaPad 5x. It might be the IdeaPad 5x that I’m the most interested in personally. It comes with an OLED screen and 16GB of RAM, despite starting at just $850. Though it doesn’t have all the premium bells and whistles as higher-end laptops, the Arm efficiency at that price point makes it quite an attractive offer. Of course, it also has that same 45 TOPS NPU — if it ever becomes particularly useful.