I can't remember who it was and I'm actually not sure where this particular
viewer got the idea from but someone got
it in his or her head that I'm somehow professional enough to review a business
laptop and suggested that I take a look at the Lenovo X1 Carbon gen 3 a premium
lightweight business Ultra Book by the way if you enjoyed our cherry and
Sennheiser factory tours stay tuned because assuming this video gets posted
on schedule I just got back from touring the Omron Factory in Japan and that's
coming very
soon The Cooler Master Nova touch tkl is
powered by toer hybrid capacitive switches for the ultimate typing
experience and is now available for a reduced price click my face to learn
more now the specs of Ultrabooks aren't really that variable so when I went on
lenovo's site and saw that my CPU choices ranged from a coree I5 dual core
with hyperthreading to a slightly faster Core i5 to a slightly faster than that
core i7 dual core with some extra cash to go along with its hyperthreading with
the only performance differences being slightly different clock speeds I wasn't
surprised what did surprise me was the completely unnecessary limitation on the
5200 U equipped model where it can only
be configured with 4 gigs of RAM with a $100 5300 U option being required to
upgrade it I mean first of all 4 gigs is pathetic for any modern computer and
second of all those CPUs literally cost
the same with the 5200 U having no place
in a business grade laptop anyway since aside from being the same as the 5300 U
or Worse across the board it lacks business grade features like vpro and
trusted execution technology so the entry level starting at $199 model is a
total laugh anyway way this is what Apple does right instead of offering
their customers stupid options that make no sense just to have a lower advertised
starting price point they build computers that will please their
customers and slap a price tag to match on them but that's not to say that Apple
does everything right either and Lenovo didn't send me one of the asinine
configurations of the X1 anyway so let's take a look at what we do have in front
of us today it's got a core i5 5300u 8
gigs of RAM HD graphics 5500 clocked at 900 MHz a 256 gig solid state drive
Intel 7265 AC Wireless with Bluetooth
4.0 a 50 W battery that managed about 4
and 1/2 hours in my standard PC Mark test although it should be noted that
when you're not pushing it really hard it can run a lot longer than that but of
course people don't buy think pads for their specs um since there's lots of
portable Computing devices that offer great battery life and specs they buy
them for the legendary quality something that Lenovo hasn't seemed to mix up
since buying IBM's computer Division and the back to business Basics style
something that the last generation X1 Carbon actually did kind of mess up with
those bizarre adaptive capacitive buttons along the top but the Gen 3x1
carbon features none of that nonsense the screen lid which is surprisingly
strong for being so thin by the way is plain scratch resistant black with a
single red LED dotting the eye and the think pad logo and the underside is
pretty much the same with only the intake for the single cooling fan which
is satisfactorily quiet even under heavy load and kept my CPU under 65° C by the
way and the shockingly bad bottom mounted speakers they actually get
reasonably loud but I had to double check if there was an audio control
panel with like an auditorium preset enabled or something since music had
this distance sound as if it was being played on a super loud Bluetooth speaker
from the other end of a football field I/O is fairly run-of-the-mill with the
right side consisting of a vent a proprietary mini Ethernet port and a USB
3.0 port with the left side having power
and Dot connectors side by side HDMI and
mini DisplayPort another USB 3.0 and a
four-pole audio jack but things get more
interesting once we flip the screen up on this puppy because it's 2560 by 1440
matte IPS touchscreen display is unlike
any that I've ever used before I've seen some reviews online say it's not the
brightest display on the market and this is true but it's brighter than I needed
in any situation where I used it and I really liked both the resolution Choice
1440p looks great at the size and requires less dramatic text scaling
which makes the issues associated with it less noticeable than some of the 3K
displays on the market and the matte finish that feels nice on my fingertips
and helps reject fingerprint smudges from using the touchscreen as much as it
helps produce glare from nearby light sources so Kudos on the display Lenovo
and while we're singing this notebook's Praises holy crap this keyboard rocks
the key caps are a little bit slipperier than I prefer but considering how thin
this thing is like 1.8 cm they have an
astonishingly long travel and typing on the rounded chicklet keys on the X1
Carbon is the second best typing experience I've had on a notebook with
the one notable exception being the MSI gt80 Titan with its full-size mechanical
keyboard and the layout is with the exception of the why on Earth did you do
that swapping of the functioning control keys very good too with full size up and
down arrow keys dedicated page up and down and print screen keys and some
useful Windows 8 shortcuts from f8 to F12 so they're a fingerprint reader
along the right hand side which is super handy and fast to use by the way I've
never had a PC with one before and the function control swap that I mentioned
before are pretty much the only on un usual thing oh sorry did I say only
unusual things I guess I forgot to mention the big red swollen nipple in
the middle of the keyboard the young kids might not remember the days when
trackpads were unusual partly because they totally sucked and the mouse nubbin
rained supreme but this laptop and I guess this leads pretty well into the
conclusion for this product was made for people who want high-end performance in
a super light carbon fiber design but do
remember the days of nubbin with dedicated buttons for them positioned
right below the keyboard and unfortunately no one else the touchpad
on the X1 Carbon is so close to being awesome but has one deal breaking flaw
for me the glass surface feels great and it tracks very accurately but right and
left click rely on having a finger pressed down on the top surface of the
trackpad so my casual leaning against the bottom of the touchpad use would
cause frequent misclicks it's the kind of thing I could get used to but I feel
like I shouldn't have to dedicated right and left switches under the pad next
time please Lenovo and while we're at it where the actual heck is the 16 gig
configuration option it's like you and Dell got together in a back room
somewhere with cigars and decided the best way to sell the 2016 models of the
X1 Carbon and XPS 13 was to this
year's with 8 gigs of RAM Max so I guess
that's pretty much it for the X1 Carbon thanks for watching guys like the video
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