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If you haven’t heard of IFA, it’s a huge tech event that happens in Berlin during the first week of September. And while the big American brands generally prefer to launch products at home-grown events, particularly CES, it has been the launchpad for many great products over the years.
This year’s show was no different, as I revealed in my Best Business Products of IFA 2025 feature. In this article I focus on two business laptops and one not-so-businessy tablet that caught my eye.
Acer summarises the TravelMate X4 14 AI (TMX414-51) as a “business-focused Copilot+ PC with enterprise-grade security”. Intel’s familiar Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200V chips take centre stage, topping out with the Core Ultra 7 258V and its 115 TOPS of overall performance. You can also specify up to 32 GB LPDDR5X memory and a 1 TB PCIe SSD.
It weighs 1.27kg (2.8lbs) and is 15.9mm (0.63 inches) thin, while its 14in 16:10 screen – available in IPS and OLED versions – means it’s tuned to the needs of mobile execs. It won’t necessarily turn heads, finished as it is in gunmetal grey, but it’s well built and packs all the ports you need. Including two Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A, HDMI 2.1 and even a 1GbE port. Plus Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, of course.
The Acer TravelMate X4 14 AI (TMX414-51) will be available in North America in August, starting at $1,400; in EMEA in September, starting at €899; and in Australia in Q4 2025, starting at AUD $2,499.
Along with updating its ThinkPad P series workstations with pro-level Nvidia RTX Pro graphics, Lenovo also announced its first ever white ThinkPad. This is a direct update to the ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition that I covered from CES 2025, and I must admit that it looks far nicer than I expected.
The best thing is that it appears incredibly resistant to smudges. There was no sign of them after I handled the device for several minutes, and this was after half an hour on the showfloor and several other tech journalists had held it in their grubby mutts. I asked the Lenovo staff if they’d wiped it, and they assured me they hadn’t.
Lenovo says it is putting out a limited run of the Glacier White version of the X9 Aura Edition, in both 14in and 15.3in incarnations, so place your order early if you’re keen.
Acer probably has students in its sights for its new Iconia X12 tablet, but there’s much for businesses to like here too. Much of that stems from the accessories, with a stylus pen, detachable keyboard and magnetic kickstand all adding to its productivity skills. From our brief time with it at IFA, it also looks the business: the 12.6in AMOLED panel is super-sharp thanks to its 2,560 x 1,600 resolution, with only a 60Hz refresh rate counting against it.
But we can’t complain at this price. When it goes on sale in November, the Acer Iconia X12 (identified by model number X12-21M) will start at $320 in North America, €280 in EMEA, AUD $500 in Australia and £249 in the UK. Not bad when you’re also getting a perfectly capable MediaTek Helio G99 processor with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. To which you can 1TB via the microSD slot. And it offers up to 16 hours of battery life despite its slimline 500g chassis.
