if you've watched basically any video featuring me in the last couple years you're probably aware that i absolutely
love the surface laptop and think it's nearly the perfect then in light
but this right here the thinkpad x390 is
stirring some unfaithful thoughts in me
but is it good enough to sway me away from microsoft and is this segway good enough
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the build quality of the thinkpad x390 is some of the best that i've seen in a
thin and light laptop chassis is made entirely of magnesium which means it's
not only stiff but also light with just 2.8 pounds of heft the overall look is
simple and to the point which might leave some of you craving a bit more
flare in which case the xps 13 or surface laptop will greet you with open
arms but at the end of the day it just comes down to your preference
the i o here is considerably more well-rounded than the competition sporting a couple usb-a ports type c
full-size HDMI and Thunderbolt the pulse double duty has a thinkpad connect board
to help please your it guy also according to the spec sheet there
is an sd card reader but i don't see it
here or here
because it's actually behind the screen right
there now one thing i will complain about is lenovo still offers a 768p
display as an option guys it's 2019 300 laptops come with 1080p
ips displays now this should not be an option on a laptop with a starting price
of over a grand especially since the lower price will tempt a lot of
corporate buyers to the detriment of their employees
anyway you should shell out the extra 180 for the 1080p touch display although
it isn't the brightest or most shockingly colorful display i've ever
used it has a nice matte finish that effectively removes overhead lights is
color accurate enough to do some light photo editing and generally just got out
of my way when i needed to do work and speaking of accomplishing work this
keyboard gets it done it's really got it all loads of key travel good tactility
and solid key stabilization i personally don't like laptop keyboards
that require quite this much force to actuate but even then it still gets a
solid a and for those of you that like hammering keys it's probably more an a
plus except for one problem when trying to hit g h or b i sometimes hit this
annoying red skin tag that hasn't been useful for years
i know there are people out there that swear by the track point who are
furiously typing no alex with the track point i can keep
all my fingers on the keyboard while using the mouse well dear mouse nipple
warriors i have a trick that's about to blow your frigging mind
put your fingers on the home row and while keeping your left thumb on the
spacebar move your right thumb down to the trackpad
now this is a bit more difficult on the thinkpad because the top of the trackpad
is taken up with the stupid trackpoint buttons but using this method i can effectively
mouse around a word document without my fingers ever leaving the keyboard lenovo
i know you guys are too stuck in your ways to remove the trackpoint people
will complain but they're probably just a vocal minority and you should have the
balls to just put on a larger proper
trackpad and i say proper trackpad because this one is just okay
the feel is pretty good although the plastic top doesn't feel quite as nice
as the glass ones found on most other ultrabooks the x360 does use Windows
precision drivers but no matter what i tried there was still
some funky mouse acceleration leading to the cursor just cruising right past the
destination and leaving me confused this was bad enough that i first assumed the
display had some serious response time issues but
after testing the x390 is within two milliseconds of the surface laptop 2 and
xps 13 well within the era of our test so i guess it's just down to bad driver
support or something where the x390 can claw back some points
though is an upgradeability just five screws gives you access to the insides
where the storage can be upgraded and that's about it the RAM is soldered
but at least you can replace the 48 watt hour battery if it starts giving you
less than the eight or so hours of battery life we got in our testing also
the whole keyboard assembly is replaceable which is
cool and if you want to be cool be like me and replace your shirt
with this one from lttstore.com anyway
our machine here is equipped with an i7 85 65 view four core processor that's
rapid and lighter tasks and capable and more demanding ones like
video editing or like cad although not so much that i'd recommend
it if someone solely plans on doing that if i was expecting this for myself i
might save the 185 dollars and get the i5 model there's absolutely no way i
shell out the 224 dollars for the i7 86
65u all you get is an extra 200 megahertz
turbo now as for pricing this is where lenovo's shenanigans become very
annoying once again the base price of this machine as configured
is a bit over twenty three hundred dollars and for that just don't buy it
the thing is laptops on lenovo website are almost constantly on sale meaning
our x390 can currently be had for fourteen hundred dollars making it a
compelling option compared to the surface laptop two and dell xps 13 which
brings us nicely back to the original question is the thinkpad x390 good
enough to take place of my daily driver laptop
if given the choice between the xps 13 and x390 i'd take the x390 the better i
o is part of the decision but there's just something about the xps 13 that
doesn't light a fire in me when i use it so then the surface laptop too this is
where things get a bit trickier the thinkpad is a bit faster has way
more i o better serviceability and might
even have an edge in build quality but it loses in two key areas
screen and touchpad the 4x3 1504p display on the surface
laptop 2 offers a lot more screen real estate while not significantly
increasing the overall size of the device the glasstop trackpad doesn't
make it feel like i'm drunk while trying to click on icons this leads to what i
consider an overall much more enjoyable laptop experience on the surface laptop
too which is why i'll remain my daily driver
at least until the new dell xps 13 two
in one arrives in our studio it also has a taller screen and looks mighty
tempting so get subscribed to make sure you don't miss that review
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