Who Are You Trying to Impress? - Lenovo X1 Carbon Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,353 words · ~6 min read
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the thinkpad x1 carbon is the suit of laptops with its thin tailored bezels
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and stark black back with a logo pocket square accent
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bringing it out of your bag says you don't have time for someone to be
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late and that the meeting notes you take will be both somehow exceptionally
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thorough and concise but is the x1 just a suit or is there
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more substance behind it
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like the substance bringing you this video zotac's mech one gaming pc it's
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ultra slim and features a sleek robotic style design check it out at the link
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below to learn more that's not really a substance is it's
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more of a product
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the build quality of the thinkpad x1 carbon is exceptional with a very stiff
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chassis especially considering how light it is and it's got plastics that feel
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soft and good on the hands the overall
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feel of it is more like a tool or a piece of equipment which might not
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appeal to folks who gravitate towards prettier devices like the surface laptop
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or dell xps but will to others and
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you know who you are you're the kind of person who wants a thinning light but
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also still wants to plug stuff into it
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and that's what we've got a smattering of type a and type c usbs Thunderbolt 3
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HDMI and Ethernet with pass through to
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their proprietary dock a very important feature for accessing your corporate
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network when you are docked performance wise you've got the pick of the litter
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with 8th gen Intel u-series processors from a core i5 all the way up to the
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core i7 8650u although it should be noted that lenovo
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tuned the CPU in their top config to 15
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watts so dell's xps 13 actually performs
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better with a lower tier processor
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though not by much over a half hour stress test the
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thinkpad x1 carbon reached around 90 degrees which is a little on the hot
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side but wasn't enough for it to thermal throttle putting it ahead in performance
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of basically every other thin and light that we've tested
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and the keyboard that's another strong point with its long 18 millimeter key
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travel and super satisfying tactile bump
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it's a solid contender for best notebook keyboard on the market
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compared to say the macbook pro i don't think i can actually hit the same peak
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speed for short bursty messages but if i
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had to type for hours i would much rather use the x1 which i can easily do
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with its over six hours of battery life and while we're praising the keyboard
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isn't it about time that somebody put snipping tool on the print screen button
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now the trackpad this is also good
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but maybe not as excellent the tracking and feel is solid and satisfying but
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pulling out the macbook pro for comparison reminded me how nice it would
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be if i could click on the whole thing
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and how small it is
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like i realized that the options are
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either a small track pad or
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a mouse nipple so it's not a simple choice but i'm
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personally not a track point guy so nah sorry
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sorry everyone but i would actually like to see that
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vertical space used another way
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now there are two screen options that really stick out with the x1 with the
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most interesting being the new 2560 by 1440 glossy finish with HDR like
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look at them side by side even dang this thing is nice to look at
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at this size you really don't need 4k
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but the extra sharpness at 1440p
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is more than welcome then the colors brightness and black levels all blew me
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away which is all fine and good if you're buying a laptop for watching movies
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but given how um
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how do i put this gently bad yeah yeah
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that's the word i was looking for bad uh the speaker sound
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movies are probably not what you want this for you wanted to use between nine
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and five so actually out of the two displays we
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tried the 1080p with touch is the one
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that got the most use its matte finish is great when you have to work under
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fluorescent lights and i'm never going to turn down the opportunity to navigate
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using my screen unfortunately
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i do really like unlocking my computer with my face and facial recognition sign
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in is only available on the higher res
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model forcing me to use the fingerprint reader to the right of the trackpad
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which by the way is the wrong place
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anywhere but the power button these days is the wrong place
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though to lenovo's credit while their reader isn't as fast as the dell xps or
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the lg gram it uses match on chip
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technology for an additional layer of security so i won't be docking any
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points what i will be docking points for though
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is the webcam i do like the additional security of
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being able to just flip it shut so that no one can be
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spying on me in the event that uh my computer is compromised but
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when it isn't disabled quite frankly it is just not good enough for a webcam in
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2018 especially on a business sku that
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is presumably going to be used for conference calls
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taking apart the thinkpad x1 carbon is pretty easy
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but doesn't give you access to a whole lot of upgrade options the storage is
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upgradeable which is nice but the RAM is
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not so make sure you grab enough when you're buying
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though now that i think about it should you buy
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one of these the pricing makes a clear recommendation
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here actually kind of difficult at regular price
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it is a big fat
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no but lenovo was really cagey about
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whether the promotional prices on their website
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were actually promos or if they were just attempts to make you feel like
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you're getting a special deal every day so
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if the price you pay is closer to what was on the site when we were shooting
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this about 13.50 to start that is still
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more than an xps but for business use the sim slot could
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massively improve productivity in the field and then back in the office the x1
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will make the it department happy as a clam 2. when it's connected to the dock
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Mac Address passthrough pxe boot and wake on lan along with all of the
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additional security features superfish notwithstanding will allow your company
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to be productive during the day and sleep well at night
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