As much as I love Lenovo's ThinkPad lineup, the X280 took me out of my comfort zone a little bit with its 12.5-inch display and compact form factor. It's incredibly light though at around two and a half pounds, so the portability kind of makes up for it.

This generation, announced ahead of CES in December, includes Intel's eighth-generation U-series processors, which are quad-core, so they offer a significant boost in performance over last year's model. It also ditches the old proprietary charger, replacing it with USB Type-C, which can also be used for mechanical docking. Another feature that Lenovo boasted this year is the ThinkShutter privacy guard. No longer do users have to put a piece of tape over the webcam. You can just flip a switch.