Mobile World Congress 2021 kicks off next week (yes, it’s happening this year) and before the main event gets underway, Lenovo previewed some new hardware that it has been working on for its ThinkPad and Yoga notebook lineups in particular. It is the former which immediately drew our attention and a new flagship offering in the form of the fourth generation Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme.

As the name would suggest, the X1 Extreme is not holding back in terms of the specifications it can be set up with. To that Lenovo says up to an 11th Gen Intel Core i9 H-Series vPro processor can be found inside the notebook, with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050Ti, RTX 3060, RTX 3070 or RTX 3080 Laptop GPUs available to spec depending on the region.

Added to this, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme can be configured with up to 64GB DDR4 RAM and two 2TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs. Lenovo also says the 90Whr battery onboard yields up to 10.7 hours of use when fully charged.

The company has highlighted the near bezel-less 16″ display that has a 4K-supporting option in its ranks, with a new FullHD webcam and dual noise-cancelling microphones being added to the mix too. These new features are designed for those working remotely in particular, as Lenovo is integrating more WFH-focused elements into its hardware across the board.

“With 74 percent of companies planning to permanently shift to more remote working, users need an exceptional collaboration experience,” added the company in its pre-MWC 21 announcement.

Other features aimed at meeting these growing consumer needs include 5G and WiFi 6E connectivity, a larger 115mm touchpad and keeping the chassis as light as possible at 1.81kg.

Unsurprisingly, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme is not going to come cheap. Local pricing and availability has not been confirmed at the time of writing, but the fourth generation of this notebook is expected to land in selected regions in August, with it starting at €2 099 (~R35 724).

A full breakdown of the specifications on the ThinkPad X1 Extreme is as follows: