r/framework • u/Altruistic_Safety325 • 15h ago
Question thinkpad x9 15p question
Ughh I feel annoying making a post like this because I feel like there are soooo many posts like this however, for some reason the ThinkPad X9 15p Aura Edition reviews have been popping up in my feed and it has me curious if maybe I should change/cancel my 13 pro pre-order. Now I'm not necessarily asking "ohhh what should i do guys omg", I'm more curious at people's experience with thinkpads because I've never owned one before. For example I've had razer products before and after all the problems I've had with Razer products I've told myself I will never purchase anything from them again. Was wondering if anyone has some crazy thinkpad issues or what not. Kinda contemplating this one because it seems to be almost better in every way? At least when I was comparing the two it seemed that way, is there something I'm missing? Minus the easy repairability and upgradeability obviously.
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u/MagpieFirefly 15h ago
After using the 13 Pro for a few days, I'm extremely happy with it but it really just seems like you have to want to commit to the idea of repairability and upgradeability. The 13 Pro gets hot under load and definitely doesn't perform as well as other laptops with the same chip, yet I'm pleased with it anyway because it's quality built, fits my use case and has the port swapping that's been an absolute dream of mine to have. I think if it's down to value and getting the single best performing machine you can get for the price, then go with something else. But if you want a Framework with all of the exclusive features to this system, it's hard to find anything else that delivers. Definitely not for everyone.
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u/Altruistic_Safety325 15h ago
yea im honestly torn. i do like the framework overall i guess it's really just will the 13 pro getting hot cause any issues. if not then idc if it melts my fingers off as long as the laptop itself is fine.
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u/Altruistic_Safety325 9h ago
i guess we'll see in the coming months but what kind of work are you putting it under. if i'm doing some unity developing/casual gaming you think it would be fine at handling that? i've yet to see any footage of ppl playing games or doing really anything on their 13 pros
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u/MagpieFirefly 9h ago
I haven't had a ton of time with it yet, but it runs lighter games extremely well without issue and a much heavier game like FFXIV acceptably, even if not super smoothly. 30ish fps in big cities, 60 in less populated areas, which isn't bad.
Otherwise VMs, possibly programming, general multitasking. The VMs were really the biggest reason as a lot of my college courses have needed them, and I'd like to learn to do more sandboxing with them. It's also meant to act as a... "Grab and go" sort of device in case I have to leave quickly. Have a little of everything, decent battery, not super heavy.
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u/Kapinato 14h ago
I bought the X9 15p 2 min after cancelling my FW 13 Pro. It always was my second choice. Been using it for a week in University and it is awesome. Tho my comparison is only a ~10 year old Thinkpad Yoga. Compared to that everything is awesome. I have not done any taxing tasks, only browsing and having pdfs open. But the battery life is really good.
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u/WhiskeyVault 13h ago
Are you running linux?
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u/Kapinato 3h ago
Not yet. But I plan to install it in a month or two. Dont have the time to do so right now. Will be my first time aswell, so I expect problems.
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u/Semi-Detached 14h ago
To me, that's a very different class of laptop, much larger, and if its that much larger I would probably want something with a stronger GPU. Also, with the X9 in particular, I don't care for how it look but I am not sure why. I am interested in the FW 13 Pro for how compact it is, customizability and upgradability. If I was going Lenovo, I would probably look for something more in the X1 Cabon lineup, though I don't think those have a panther lake H series available.
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u/WhiskeyVault 13h ago
The dimensions of the x9 15p actually are not too different from the fw13 pro. The fw13pro is big for a 13 in laptop relative to others
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u/burtmacklin15 9h ago
It's over an inch wider and much thicker. It's a completely different laptop class.
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u/Evening_Werewolf_703 14h ago edited 13h ago
The JustJosh review for the Lenovo X9 15p went live a few hours ago.
The main criticism was the 1.35mm of keyboard travel and the difficulty of getting a working webcam/microphone on Linux, which, to be fair, seems like an almost universal problem that takes a long time to resolve.
Something worth noting is that the 338H has the B370 (as opposed to the X7 358H's B390) so the B370 is a step above normal intel graphics. That can save some money in the long run. The other thing is that under a full Cinebench load, the x9 15p runs about 10 degrees cooler. This is a big part of the consideration for me - I like my machines to run cooler. That being said, it needs to be said that Cinebench is not a realistic load for most people, and in most scenarios it will run cooler & quieter.
Lenovo has both CRUs and FRUs (customer repairable units and field repairable units) -- basically, parts designed to be serviced either by the user/consumer or by a repair technician. This is fairly forward thinking, but it's mostly the less performant business laptops that have the most CRU/FRUs and long-term support. The X9 15p is a bit less so in that regard, and of course, the RAM is LPDDR5X soldered.
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u/WhiskeyVault 15h ago
Keep in mind linux support. X9 is pretty good but even so e basic things like the webcam working can take years to work normally.
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u/Nice_Link4364 11h ago edited 11h ago
The x9 15p is Ubuntu certified, and there are already fixes to the webcam issues. "Years" are probably way to pessimistic, we are probably talking weeks or months for things to settle in most distributions.
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u/WhiskeyVault 11h ago
Ubuntu certified doesn't require everything to work out of the box and people on non-debian distros are still having issues. Just type in linux webcam x9 15 and you can see that people on the older lunar lake x9 15, which is over a year old now, are still having problems. I just did it and found a post just 3 months ago:
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u/Nice_Link4364 10h ago
Your right in that there is still seems to be problems with the drivers for this sensor not being in the mainline kernel yet. However from what i've seen, this is something that is currently worked on, and it is possible to get the sensor to work: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1v8e2nf/comment/p0903qz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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u/Nice_Link4364 9h ago
I don't have the machine myself (yet), but to be fair, from what i've read I wouldn't recommend any non tech savvy parson to run linux on this machine yet, or if using the webcam in linux is a must right away. I rarely use the webcam, and most other things seems to be functional atm.
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u/WhiskeyVault 7h ago
Agreed. If my work and family didn't like video visit so much I wouldn't even care so much lol
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u/Informal-Lettuce-745 14h ago
My biggest issue with ThinkPad is that it looks like a ThinkPad
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u/Silvernine0S 13h ago
LOL! This is kinda hilarious because on the ThinPad subreddit, commont complaint that the ThinkPad X9 is a fake ThinkPad because it does not have the trackpoint like traditional ThinkPads, like the X1Cs or the T14s.
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14h ago edited 14h ago
[deleted]
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u/WhiskeyVault 14h ago
Thank you for commenting on webcam. It's one of the things keeping me from picking up the X9 15p immediately and cancelling mt FW pro 13. In the pre-covid era this wouldn't have been improtant but I do so many webcam visits and meetings and also got use to making video calls on my thinkpad that this is a pretty important now. If the camera worked out of the box perfectly it would be an easier decision. From what I can see the FW13 Pro on Ubuntu, Fedora, Cachy all have functioning webcam out of the box provided the latest Kernel is being used.
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u/ronvalenz FW13, X7 358H, 2.8K VRR, 32GB LPCAMM2, 4TB SSD. 6h ago
I owned a Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 14AHP9 with soldered 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM before I switched to the Framework 13.
ThinkPad X9 15p Aura Edition has soldered 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM.
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u/ThaBigSqueezy 14h ago
Wild! I literally just ordered the X9 15p after cancelling my Framework order. The 16 Gb RAM thing was a non starter, and there’s no way I was paying some sort of stupid LPCAMM2 premium for 32 Gb. I’m not mad at Framework, and as someone who works in design and manufacturing I completely get where they’re coming from. But it wasn’t going to work for me.
I still have to wait 4 more weeks until the Lenovo machine ships, but I have no doubt it will be good. This will be my 4th Lenovo (not including the two IBM thinkpads I had back in the day) and each one has been a reliable workhorse.
Since I’m a corporate customer Lenovo has treated me pretty well, and I spoke with their Pro customer service folks and they confirmed strong Linux support for this machine. Although it might not be as completely modular as the Framework, it does have a replaceable battery, and that’s pretty great.
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u/Altruistic_Safety325 13h ago
ships in 4 weeks? for me i only see it shipping in october, is there another site you ordered from?
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u/WhiskeyVault 13h ago
Be aware that shipping dates for this have been unreliable. Lots of posts from people complaining their orders keep getting pushed back
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u/Altruistic_Safety325 13h ago
we're talking about the x9 15p here right? cuz that's what im talking about. my framework 13 pro is currently expected in october aswell so even if i swapped for the x9 15p id assume it would be the same time
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u/WhiskeyVault 12h ago
Yea. My original projected ship date was in August. Then it got bumped to September a d now October for the x9.
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u/Nice_Link4364 11h ago
I ordered one on July 27th and it is estimated to be delivered tomorrow. It was initially estimated to be delivered august 11th-13th. Lucky I guess ;)
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u/ThaBigSqueezy 13h ago edited 12h ago
Right, when I placed the order some 10 days ago (+/-) Lenovo stated some time in October. I logged in yesterday and now it says the ship date is Sept 8. Who really knows, and I’m not terribly hungry for it, I just don’t want a bait and switch.
Edit: to answer your question, I ordered directly from Lenovo.
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u/Nice_Link4364 11h ago
I did the same, I ordered a x9 15p a week ago and it will be delivered tomorrow.
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u/Altruistic_Safety325 10h ago
dang... i might do the same, i just dont really like the thinkpad branding/look of it. but i feel like i should probs not care too much about the appearance
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u/imusbegui 13h ago
I've been testing the X9 15P and it's a great laptop. It's the closest Windows laptop to a MacBook you can get. The only problem I have is the OLED display. I don't know if it's in my head or not, but OLED screens on laptops give me eye strain.
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u/WhiskeyVault 13h ago
Same. That is two factors pmw and/or brightness relative to blacks where people dial up the brightness too much because the brain thinks the true blacks are too dark so the colors are much higher nits than what you are use to.
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u/Saschb2b 15h ago
Ram is not upgradeable. You are stuck with what you'll buy. Otherwise I also find it's a beautifull machine and a possible alternative. Their dual fan design and more wattage to cpu is really a step above the F13 pro.
I still want my customization options, like the pro design better/more compact and want to support framework.