A look at the latest ThinkPad, a mouse with the perfect hand angle, and a laptop with desktop specs.
Spring is in the air, and you know what that means: tech, and lots of it. Here are three new gadgets you may have missed this month.
Thinking Ahead
Lenovo’s slimmest mobile workstation has powered up yet again. Lenovo launched the ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 last week, and while it’s not quite the Extreme Makeover: Laptop Edition we saw last year, it’s a healthy refresh for the P1.
The premium ThinkPad now packs the latest specs, including 12th Gen Intel Core H-series processors (i7 or i9), professional NVIDIA graphics (up to the RTX A5500 mobile GPU), up to 8TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage (twice the capacity of the P1 Gen 4), and up to 64GB of DDR5 4800MHz memory.
The ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 maintains a 16-inch, 16:10 display, with a resolution of up to 3840×2400 pixels and optional touch support. New to this generation is the option of a 165Hz high refresh rate display (available only with a 2560×1600 resolution).
Like the P1 Gen 4, the P1 Gen 5 has a 90Wh battery and weighs 3.99lbs. It offers the same port selection of two USB-A 3.2 gen 1 ports, two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, one HDMI 2.1 input, an audio jack, an SD card reader, and an optional SIM card slot (and yes, before you ask, Gen 5 supports 5G).
The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 is available now with a starting price of $2329.
Put Your (Tiny) Hands Up
If you have small- to medium-size hands and they’re getting tired of your flat computer mouse, Logitech has just what you need: the Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse. This wireless mouse is tilted to supinate the hand by 57°—the “perfect hand angle” according to Logitech’s ergonomists—and it’s contoured for those of us with hands that struggle to palm a basketball (and maybe even a grapefruit).
If you’ve never used a vertical mouse, you’re missing out. They provide a more natural resting position for the hand than horizontal mice, and Logitech says the Lift will improve posture and reduce forearm muscle fatigue. I’ve used a vertical mouse for years and would never descend back.
The Lift connects wirelessly over Bluetooth or a Logitech USB receiver. It is compatible with every mainstream operating system—Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPadOS, and Chrome OS—as well as Logitech’s Flow software, which lets users switch the mouse between any three devices. The mouse’s magnetic “SmartWheel” silently scrolls in two switchable modes, speed and precision.
The Logitech Lift is available in three colors (graphite, off-white, and rose; aka black, white, and pink). There’s also a Lift for lefties, but it’s only offered in black. The mouse is available now from Logitech’s website for $89.99.
Jurassic Tech
Canadian computer maker Eurocom dubs its high-performance laptops “mobile supercomputers,” and this month it launched a new one: the Raptor X15.
The Raptor X15 is a 15.6-inch, 5.7lb laptop that packs Intel’s 12th Gen desktop CPUs, up to the Core i9-12900, and maxes out graphics with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti laptop GPU. It’s unusual to see desktop processors in a laptop, but it’s all part of Eurocom’s mobile supercomputer ethos, which also emphasizes serviceability and upgradeability.
With support for three storage drives (two M.2 slots and one 2.5-inch SATA interface), the Raptor X15 can be equipped with up to 24TB of total storage—which may just be enough for all the Jurassic Park sequels. Memory can go as high as 64GB, but unlike some current laptops that support DDR5 RAM (such as the ThinkPad P1 Gen 5), the Raptor X15 only offers the slower DDR4.
The display of the Raptor X15 caters to gamers with two high refresh rate options, 165Hz with 2560×1440 pixels or 265Hz with 1920×1080. The mobile supercomputer has a 65Wh battery and ships with a choice of power adapters ranging from 230W to an absurd 780W.
The Raptor X15 starts at $1799 without a pre-installed operating system and $2028 with Windows 11 Professional.