Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 2017 Test

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is one of the well-nigh serious-looking ultra-slim, ultra-light laptops effectually. Years on from this series original launch in 2012 plenty of that ThinkPad business-like Deoxyribonucleic acid remains in-tact.

Don't first thinking this is some deadening business concern machine, though. Information technology may non have acres of aluminium or a rainbow-backlit keyboard but the 2017ThinkPad X1 Carbon does accept a great typing feel, splendid bombardment life and a seriously low-cal and portable frame.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Price

The base of operations version of the X1 costs £ 1379 direct from Lenovo. That gets you an Intel Cadre i5 CPU, 256GB SSD and a 1080p screen.

Lenovo sent u.s. this model, but with a Core i7 CPU upgrade (you can customise the spec on Lenovo's site). This pushes the cost up to £1459.

There'south also an £ 1839 version, which has a Core i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, Windows 10 Pro, a 512GB SSD and a 4G mobile cyberspace module. Lenovo'southward online customisation tool lets you pick and choose nigh of these extras, although other retailers are likely to just sell the baseline models.

Afterward in 2017 Lenovo plans to release a version with a higher-end 1440p screen, although right at present nosotros don't know how much that will toll.

All versions come up with Lenovo's excellent Retrieve warranty as standard, which is a 3-year on-site deal. This ways you don't take to send the X1Carbon in for repair. Other manufacturers often charge hundreds of pounds for such a warranty.

Don't forget to check out our roundup of the best laptops of this yr.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Design

At starting time glance the X1 may appear to be a plastic laptop, which would be disappointing at this price. However, as the name suggests, it is non plastic.

The crush is constructed of several layers of carbon fibre-reinforced polymer on pinnacle of a magnesium cage. This ensures it'southward very strong and very low-cal.

It'due south only ane.14kg, which is extremely light for a laptop with long bombardment life, a 14in screen and a total dual-cadre Intel Core-series processor rather than one of Intel's ultra (ultra) depression-power Y-series fries.

It is besides a refreshing modify from the reams of hybrid computers and ultrabooks obsessed with shiny aluminium. Not everyone will dearest the former-schoolhouse ThinkPad vibe this laptop is drenched in, only nosotros know plenty of people who would.

It's black, serious and doesn't attempt to make its keyboard keys sink into the surroundings like a MacBook. Compared with the ThinkPad Carbon models nosotros reviewed years agone, the 2017 Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 has a much slimmer screen environs. Like other top-end ultra-portable laptops such every bit the Dell XPS 13, in that location's very niggling redundant space around the brandish.

Lenovo says it enables fitting a 14in display into the footprint of a traditional 13in laptop. Once again, the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 cares a lot almost portability.

Unlike a few of the way laptops nosotros've reviewed recently, the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 is also very rigid, demonstrating the role of that multilayered carbon fibre and magnesium build.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Connectivity

The Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 is a comfortable choice for people who don't like that their sometime connectivity standards are rapidly disappearing from many of the about desirable new laptops. Where some at present feature USB-C ports and a headphone jack —and cipher more —the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 includes a broad spread of sockets that aims to please almost everyone.

There are two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C sockets, 2 USB iii.0s, a full-size HDMI and a miniature RJ45 networking port (an adapter cable with standard RJ45 connector is supplied). Information technology's far more versatile than a MacBook, which would need an expensive and clunky dock to get the same connections.

The X1Carbon as well has a pop-out microSD tray hidden on the rear edge. As people who have to utilise proper cameras to have product photography all the fourth dimension, we'd prefer a total-size SD, just even we accept to admit those without DSLR or compact system cameras would find microSD more useful anyway.

There is as well a SIM slot in the tray that holds the microSD. It makes the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 a truthful business traveller machine. It's probably overkill for the average laptop heir-apparent, merely if it appeals 1 of the everyman-toll deals going for a SIM at the moment is 3's £8 a month deal, which gets you 2GB per month.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Keyboard and Trackpad

Await at the top one-half of the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1, the screen, and it looks every bit the typical modernistic laptop. The lesser half, the keyboard, is where the classic ThinkPad blueprint thrives.

First, you'll notice there's a 'nipple' mouse also every bit a standard trackpad. These are incredibly rare these days, and not everyone likes them, but they let you operate the mouse without moving your hands from the typing position. The little ruby bleep by the G and H keys is a pressure level-sensitive non-moving joystick that tin can make the cursor wing from one end of the screen to the other with one small gesture.

This is why there are 3 buttons above the trackpad likewise. They are the nipple mouse's buttons. The left and right ones are standard L/R buttons, the eye one turns the blood-red blip into a scroll wheel.

Yous can ignore the nipple mouse if you like, the only real compromise that the buttons eat into the trackpad's space a little. The pad is on the pocket-sized side, only has one of the smoothest surfaces y'all'll find in any laptop, at whatever price. Its top surface is textured glass and is like silk, fifty-fifty smoother than a MacBook's trackpad.

Its click is well-defined, tranquillity and has a nice soft feel that makes quick double-clicking like shooting fish in a barrel.

The X1's keyboard is also unusual. While shallower than the ThinkPad boards of a decade ago, the keys are much deeper than those of only about whatsoever other slim and calorie-free laptop. The typing feel is great, particularly if you find the trend for ultra-thin keyboards a step in the wrong direction.

Its keys are well-spaced and in that location are a few shortcuts non seen in other laptops. For example, 1 brings upward the settings carte, some other the Bluetooth menu. There are no media command office keys, but the 'Star' sitting on F12 is a User Divers key you can make do all sorts, from launching apps to typing a phrase.

The keyboard too has a white backlight, with ii brightness levels.

Down beneath the keyboard is a finger scanner, a feature rapidly becoming common in higher-end laptops. Funnily enough, these used to be standard in ThinkPad business laptops, but are suddenly mainstream.  These pads are much more than palatable, though, considering yous simply place a finger on them rather than having to pass information technology across the pad, as with old scanners.

You utilize information technology to log in, using Windows 10'due south Hello feature. It'due south among the nigh reliable laptop finger scanners we've used. It works just about every time, outset time, although is non every bit fast as a phone scanner.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Display

The Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1'southward screen is pretty large given the size of the laptop. It's a 14in brandish, using an IPS panel of 1080p resolution. One neat feature is that the hinge folds back to 180 degrees, which can be handy if you want to share what's on-screen.

For the most function, though, this is an ultra-practical productivity display rather than a 'lifestyle' one. In that location's no touchscreen and the terminate is matt rather than sleeky. This kills reflections, handy for outdoors use, but a glossy finish makes colours pop more.

Maximum effulgence is 300cd/m2, which is very proficient rather than superb, just cheers to the matt style we'd be happy to use this laptop  out in the sunday.

Colour operation likewise is proficient rather than fantastic. It covers 82.two percent of the sRGB color standard, 59.vii percentage of Adobe RGB and 63 percentage of DCI P3.

This is low plenty to make the slight undersaturation quite articulate to the well-nigh hawkeye-eyed of yous, but the Carbon's screen still looks skilful because its contrast is bully. A 1162:1 dissimilarity ratio places this amongst the all-time LCD laptops in this respect. Play a moving picture and blacks really do wait black.

Of course, when the colour is just OK and the 1080p resolution doesn't become close to matching some of the more than pixel-packed laptops at the price, it makes us swell to encounter what the 1440p version will look like. In that location are no claims of improved colour operation in Lenovo's literature, though.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Performance

There are several CPU options , ramping up to the Intel Core i7-7600U, which is an almost £300 upgrade over the i7-7500U our model has. The crucial point to note, though, is that all versions use Intel'south U-serial CPUs rather than the lower-power Y-serial kind used in a few ultra low-cal laptops, like the Acer Swift seven.

Windows 10 runs like a dream , every bit you'd hope. Nearly of its internals are high-finish, or at least toward the upper end of mid-range. For example, the 256GB hither uses the latest PCIe-nvme tech, with read speeds of 1950MB/s, and writes of upward to 805MB/s. Faster SSDs be, but nigh uses that would exploit that extra ability would need a quad-core CPU anyhow.

The Intel Core i7-7500U here is a dual-cadre CPU, among the fastest y'all'll find in a slim laptop, simply not a match for a desktop processor. In Geekbench four it scores 8500 points, and 2925 in the PC Mark Home 8 exam. This is actually better than nosotros squeezed out of the Razer Blade Stealth in both cases, despite using exactly the same CPU, although it was also rendering Windows at a higher resolution in the background.

At that place's enough power for just almost any productivity purpose, including Photoshop and, for example, pro-level music production software.

The one area it'due south not quite so hot on is gaming. As with every laptop that relies solely on integrated graphics, in this case an Intel HD 620 chipset, modern games are compromised.

Alien: Isolation runs at an boilerplate 29.6fps, which is playable if you're not too demanding, but that's at 720p with the visuals turned downwardly. This drops to 13fps when running the game at 1080p with visual effects restored.

Thief is deadline unplayable no thing the graphics setting, averaging 21fps at 720p (low settings) and vi.2fps at 1080p, high settings.

This is no surprise: all slim and light laptops with like specs yield similar results. You only accept to remember laptops similar theCarbon aren't bully for gaming. It seems unlikely too many people after a ThinkPad will expect amazing frame rates in games, though.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon:Battery Life

Stamina is a much bigger focus . The X1 has a 57Whr battery, like to the 60Whr capacity of the class-leading Dell XPS 13.

Battery life is excellent. Playing a 720p video on loop at 120cd/yard brightness the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 lasts 12 and a half hours, sailing through a total day'southward work with ease.

This is i of the laptops'south great strengths, proving it's zilch like the chunky laptops that may come up to mind when you think of "business" machines. It too outdoes much of the lifestyle laptop competition, matching the grade leader Dell XPS 13 almost to the minute.

Lenovo says it has actually made the Carbon concluding a mammoth 15.5 hours using a bombardment criterion, just that must have been with the screen nearly completely dark. If you need this kind of endurance, cheque out Microsoft's Surface Laptop which lasted 16 hours in our tests.

Specs

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017): Specs

• 14in screen (1920 x 2160) 1080p 282ppi IPS LCD matt anti-glare
• ii.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U (3.5GHz boost) two cores, 4 threads
• Windows x Pro 64-bit
• Intel Hard disk drive 620 GPU
• 8B 1866MHz DDR3 RAM
• 256GBTB SSD PCIe
• 802.11b/g/north/ac single-band ii×two MIMO
• Bluetooth 4.1
• 2x USB-C Thunderbolt three
• 2x USB 3.0
• HDMI
• Native RJ45
• Kensington Security Slot
• microSD menu slot
• microSIM slot
• Stereo speakers
• Hard disk drive webcam
• Single mic
• 3.5mm headset jack
• United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland tiled keyboard with numberpad
• Two-button trackpad
• 57Wh lithium-ion battery, removable
• 323 x 217 mm 10 16 mm
• 1142g
• three-year on-site warranty

Source: https://www.techadvisor.com/article/718060/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-review-2017.html

Posted by: robinsonlitaltalat.blogspot.com

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