Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a beauty with brains

Power and elegance comes at a price, as this ultrabook shows

by Peter Yeo

04:46 AM Aug 31, 2012

Lenovo's ThinkPad x1 Carbon ultrabook's screen folds flat. Photo LENOVO

SINGAPORE - Ultra-thin laptops are not just for casual users. Lenovo yesterday unveiled the business-ready ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook at Comex 2012.

I had a chance to play around with it and there are some things that I really like about the light-weight laptop.

For one, its weight - or lack of. At 1.36kg (said to be lighter than a 1.5-litre bottle of water), the X1 Carbon did not slow me down when I had to walk my regular 1.2km route to the bus stop. In fact, on a couple of occasions, I had almost forgotten that I was carrying a laptop with me. By comparison, Apple's MacBook Air tipped the scales at a very comparable 1.35kg (for a similar model).

The screen was the next thing on my checklist that I liked. Lenovo was able to squeeze a 14-inch screen into the 13-inch footprint (331mm x 226mm); the MacBook Air measures 325mm x 227mm.

With a 1600 x 900 wide viewing screen resolution, movies were engrossing without tiring the eyes. However, its built-in speakers sounded hollow and did no favours for a cinematic experience. I also like that the screen was able to fold flat completely. I have yet to discover why this is important - as the balance is skewed when the lid is open - but there it is.

The X1 Carbon also made typing a joy with its island-style backlit keyboard. The keys are designed with a curved bottom, leading some people to dub it the "smile" design, and it is equally spaced for comfort and usability.

The X1 Carbon's glass touchpad feels great to the touch and is very responsive. Gestures such as scrolling and pinching work well but there have been rare times where the clickpad lagged, and I had to revert to using the left and right click buttons. But whenever I had to, the location of the buttons above the trackpad was just a thumb click away.

The X1 Carbon offers multiple ports for connectivity: A mini display port with audio, 3.5mm combo mic/headphone jack, a USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0 ports as well as a 4-in-1 SD card reader. But the laptop's 18.85mm depth meant Ethernet cables had to be connected via a USB dongle.

Powered by Intel 3rd generation Ivy Bridge processors, running on 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid state drive, the laptop hardly lagged when I watched a movie, downloaded files in the background and worked on a Adobe Photoshop project.

However, the X1 Carbon's battery life does not last very long. At full charge, it lasted four hours, even though its specification sheet claimed "up to 8.2 hours". I did, of course, put it under considerable pressure (full display brightness, looping video, etc). The saving grace of the battery is that it takes about 40 minutes for a full charge.

The matt-finish of the carbon laptop was the first thing that attracted me to it and after using it, I have to say it feels great to the touch and is easy on the eyes.

However, at a S$2,349 starting price, it is a little steep. Perhaps, you can try to convince your company's IT department to get it for you.

 Source: www.todayonline.com