Lenovo’s ThinkPads are beloved amongst enterprise customers who worth clicky keyboards, pink rubber nubs, and sturdy chassis, however at CES 2022, the sequence is taking a flip with the launch of the corporate’s ThinkPad Z-series laptops.

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad Z13 and Z16 are all about modernizing the enterprise laptop computer by utilizing distinctive supplies and colours with a concentrate on sustainability. It’s why these are fabricated from recycled aluminum and recycled vegan leather-based and packaged in 100% compostable bamboo and sugarcane.

Lenovo additionally talks about bringing recent new colours to its ThinkPads, however to me, the Bronze and Arctic Gray obtainable on the ThinkPad Z13 and ThinkPad Z16 don’t stand out a lot. I’d personally go along with the extra attention-grabbing black vegan leather-based choice on the off likelihood that any individual may truly wish to strike up a dialog with me.

I haven’t seen the Z13 and Z16 in particular person, however what’s clear from press supplies is that the duo shares genes with Lenovo’s Yoga sequence, significantly the Yoga 9i, which additionally has a webcam notch, brushed edges, and might be outfitted with a vegan leather-based lid. Yes, there’s a notch, and on these enterprise fashions, Lenovo calls it the Communications Bar as a result of it homes a 1080p webcam with a 1.4μm sensor and dual-array microphones. I don’t wish to get too hopeful, however it sounds such as you won’t appear like a grainy blob when taking Zoom calls on this laptop computer.

On the deck is a bigger 4.7-inch haptic touchpad centered on all-glass palm relaxation as an alternative of the soft-touch you may affiliate with a ThinkPad. Don’t fear, although, the invincible pink rubber TrackPoint nub remains to be round and may now be double-tapped to rapidly entry mute and digital camera on/off settings.

Also making the Z-series really feel extra like a shopper line are these laptops’ lack of ports. On the Z16 are three USB Type-C ports, an SD card reader, and a headphone jack. The 13-inch mannequin ditches the cardboard reader and drops one of many Type-C ports. And that’s it: no USB Type-A or HDMI. Clearly, the precedence was maintaining these notebooks skinny and light-weight; the Z16 is available in at 13.95 x 9.3 x 0.62 inches and 4.3 kilos whereas the Z13 is simply 0.55 inches thick and weighs 2.76 kilos.

On to the show. The Z13 flaunts a 13-inch, 1920 x 1200 (16:10) IPS touchscreen maxing out at 400 nits of brightness, although the very best image high quality comes from the two.8K OLED show choice. The Z16 upgrades you to a 16-inch, 4K OLED panel.

Both laptops are powered by “next-gen” Ryzen Pro 6000 chips, with the 13-inch mannequin sporting low-power U-series processors and the 16-inch model extra highly effective H-series processors. Lenovo didn’t specify which SKUs however we’ll replace this text with specifics as soon as the mud settles on CES 2022. Interestingly, Lenovo says there will likely be an elective “exclusive” Ryzen 7 Pro chip choice for the Z13. Paired with these chips is Microsoft’s Pluton Security Processor, the substitute to TPM 2.0.

Not solely will the Z16 profit from a higher-powered CPU, however there will likely be discrete graphics choices as nicely—however once more, we don’t have specifics. As for the opposite elements, the Z-series computer systems might be geared up with as much as 32GB of DDR5 RAM and as much as 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD on the ThinkPad Z16 or 1TB on the Z13.

Lenovo didn’t present battery estimates, solely telling us the ThinkPad Z13 has a 50Whr cell whereas the Z16 depends on a 70Whr battery. We’ll discover out quickly sufficient, although; the ThinkPad Z13 and Z16 will launch in May beginning at $1,549 and $2,099, respectively.