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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review
- mcantelon 12y agoWish they had a removable battery.
- w1ntermute 12y agoCheck out the X250 - it has both a built-in and removable battery, which enables hotswapping.
- ecaron 12y agoBut its screen is <13". Not really an apt comparison. I'd think the T450s would be a more suitable alternative.
- Someone1234 12y agoPretty decent review. Glad to see Lenovo have back-peddled on the idiotic changes in their last generation (namely the keyboard/trackpad issues). The ethernet thing seems lame however. Why must you buy a special card? They should have just left it off and instead given you another USB port in my view.
- ebiester 12y ago...and I sincerely hope that 8GB is not the maximum memory.
- ayejay 12y agoSorry friend, this is the case. There must only be one slot. Interesting note re: RAM choices ... if you select the i5-5200U CPU on the Lenovo US website then you are allocated 4GB of RAM and have no option to select 8GB. The mid-range CPU (i5-5300U) allows you to select either 4GB or 8GB. Finally, if you select the i7-5600U then you are allocated 8GB and can't select 4GB.
- rayiner 12y agoThere's no slots. Memory is soldered.
- pierrec 12y agoI wonder if it's technically useful or if it's a commercial move. I have an Ideapad Y470 (a model from 3 years ago), and I got the impression they tried to limit the RAM below what the hardware could run, maybe because they want to segment the market in a certain way. The customization page on their website only allowed 8GB of memory and the user manual explicitly stated that the maximum RAM was 8GB. I bought 16GB after reading users reporting that it worked fine, and I can confirm: it works fine. I push it to the limit all the time. Then again, it might just be that new RAM chips came out after the laptop did, and I might just be conspiracy-theorizing.
- rayiner 12y agoThis is the logic board on the 2014 15" rMBP: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/PmBmFGBkmnHDvEpo.huge https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/PmBmFGBkmnHDvEpo.h.... It's wedged between the fans and the batteries, and there's memory on both sides. If you make the board larger to put in SO-DIMM slots, you lose either battery or cooling capacity. The rMBP manages to fit a 15.4" screen and a 95Whr battery in 4.5 pounds. I've never seen an upgradable laptop that fits that much battery into that weight class.
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- sliverstorm 12y agoThe RAM is soldered on, per the article. Which begs the question, could they have offered a 16GB option?
- wmf 12y agoI'm pretty sure Broadwell supports 16GB, but it may take extra board space and thus not physically fit in the X1.
- hnriot 12y agoyou have to upgrade the processor to even get the option of 8gb I found when ordering this just now.
- rinon 12y agoI'm guessing that most consumers don't care about ethernet. Those who do can often be using a docking station when they want it.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- azernik 12y agoIIUC, the X1 is the "business-lite" line - the T4XXs are the ultrabooks with ethernet, docking ports, and (at least on my T431s) a VGA port. They've just decided there's a market segment that prefers a thinner laptop without an ethernet port.
- alex_duf 12y ago>The ethernet thing seems lame however. Because an ethernet port is bigger than that computer.
- scott_karana 12y agoI can explain this one! 1) It's a proprietary adapter because the laptop's too slim for an RJ45. 2) It's onboard because you can't PXE boot it from Wi-Fi 3) External USB docks/NICs could also fix #2, but since each dock/NIC has a distinct MAC, you can't have a nice 1:1 MAC:Workstation relationship for provisioning via PXE anyways #2 and #3 are what prevented our company from bulk-ordering the first generation as our go-to office laptop, since its lack of on-board ethernet wouldn't work cleanly with MS SCCM, which was a shame, since it hit every other need pretty perfectly.
- rogerbinns 12y ago> It's onboard because you can't PXE boot it from Wi-Fi That isn't a technical limitation of Wi-Fi or PXE. For it to work the Wi-Fi has to be setup as part of the pre-boot environment (BIOS/UEFI). For example as far as I can tell my Mac mini can do this. Given that Lenovo like to pull authorization stunts with internal wifi cards (refusing to work with models that aren't blessed) they could make this work.
- scott_karana 12y agoYup! Lenovo could have done it, but didn't implement it. Admittedly, there's not a standardized way to do it either: Macs actually save Wi-Fi AP details into SMC or NVRAM (can't recall which) which is why wireless connectivity is accessible without setup when in the BIOS and recovery modes, but there's no analogous part in standard IBM-compatible PCs. Speculating, but this avenue could hypothetically be a security issue too if it's not secured well: attackers could extract confidential AP details without having to bypass full-disk encryption, or attack live RAM.
- wereHamster 12y ago"... but there's no analogous part in standard IBM-compatible PCs." EFI variables are persistent and accessible from the pre-boot environment.
- sliverstorm 12y agoThe reason for the ethernet adapter is height. Fancy laptops like this one are thinner than RJ-45 sockets are tall. Why they give you a special plug rather than USB, I don't know. I could speculate- for example, USB 2.0 is 480Mbps, which means you cannot have 1Gbps ethernet without a special USB 3.0 adapter.
- captaincrunch 12y agoGlad they smartened up, I ordered a top of the line one last year, opened the box... spent 15 minutes swearing as I packed it back up to send it back. I have been a Mac guy since 2008, I wanted to get off the apple train and get a Lenovo as I loved Lenovo... only to find myself sitting here with another mac. Replacing F1 keys with a touch bar? Really? Losing the Caps lock? No clue what they were thinking.
- coherentpony 12y agoYou actually use your caps lock key? I can't remember the last time I used mine and since I was never a Sun guy, I don't even bind it to Ctrl. Not being snarky, just curious.
- beachstartup 12y agoi use the caps lock key all the time (though you wouldn't know it reading my HN comments...) any time i need to type more than 3 capital letters in a row, i hit caps lock. i type at 140+ wpm so holding down shift while typing reduces my speed by a significant amount. it's easier to hit caps lock and then hit it again when i'm done. it doesn't take any time. examples of needing caps lock: $LONG_VARIABLE_OR_CONST_NAMES LABELS IN DIAGRAMS AND CODE: 3. CERTAIN FORMS LIKE PURCHASE ORDERS AND INVOICES ARE TRADITIONALLY IN ALL CAPS (QTY 2) IMPORTANT NOTES IN MEMOS!!! to myself and others i use it at least a half dozen times a day.
- rinon 12y agoIf you are used to binding caps lock to ctrl, the lack of that key is critical. I find it hard to do anything serious on machines without it now...
- coherentpony 12y agoThat's fair. I was assuming the parent commenter implied he or she used their caps lock key for its designed purpose, which in hindsight was perhaps an erroneous assumption.
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- samstokes 12y agoAnyone have experience running Linux on this 2015 model? In the market for a new laptop and love that trackpoint.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- olefoo 12y agoI think it goes to show how slowly culture changes in hardware manufacturing that this isn't a checkbox feature that is in the press kit for new model releases. From looking at the parts list, it seems like it ought to be reasonably easy to install and run linux ( even the WWAN card looks like it should work with the right drivers ) and yet it's not mentioned. It seems like they are missing out on a core market segment by not slapping a Linux Foundation badge on their website or box saying known to work with Kernel Version x.x and up. Or failing that I think both Canonical and Redhat would be glad to have their logo on there and all three orgs would only need a couple of days to validate on a pre-release model.
- samstokes 12y agoLooks like Canonical at least is doing that: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201411-16196/ http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201411-16196/ "awarded the status of Certified Pre-Install for Ubuntu" "Certification notes: Hibernate is not working on this system"
- ggreer 12y agoBe wary of Ubuntu's certification. I have a Lenovo X140e. It's certified to work with no issues[1], but I spent months fixing basic things like graphics acceleration and screen brightness. Though it has an 802.11n card, wifi transfers at G speeds. I still can't get Bluetooth to work. The X1's all-Intel hardware should fare better, but I'd still recommend waiting for a Linux-centric review before ordering. 1. http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201309-14195/ http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201309-14195/
- tdicola 12y agoHow is the Broadwell CPU in it compared to Haswell chips in performance? It might say Core i7 but I thought Broadwell was basically a warmed over Atom processor. Performance from Broadwell on inexpensive tablets and laptops has not been great from what I read (battery life is of course quite good).
- rayiner 12y agoBroadwell is the 14nm shrink of Haswell. The inexpensive Broadwell parts haven't had steller performance, but that's because they're TDP limited to 4.5W, or Atom territory.
- rinon 12y agoYou're probably thinking of the M series Broadwell chips. The Core i series isn't really out yet, but I think it should be comparable (and more efficient) than the Haswell i7 chips...
- mehrdada 12y agoI think you are talking about Bay Trail, which powers the low end Chromebooks and is a replacement for the Haswell Celeron, not Broadwell in general. The new Bay Trail chips are indeed horribly slow compared to last gen Haswell Celerons (i.e. the one in Acer C720).
- tdicola 12y agoAhh, that's probably it. Thanks!
- WestCoastJustin 12y agoHappy to see someone other than Apple adopting PCIe SSDs. Hearing that "read speeds reached 1350+ MB/s" is pretty freaking awesome! Crazy to see the difference between PCIe SSD and SATA SSD. Crystal Mark - Disk Mark X1 Carbon Gen 3 X1 Carbon Gen 2 Sequential Read 1362 MB/s (+161.11%) 521.6 MB/s Sequential Write 1227 MB/s (+394.16%) 248.3 MB/s 512k Read 992.7 MB/s (+118.42%) 454.5 MB/s 512k Write 1230 MB/s (+5224.67%) 23.1 MB/s 4k Read 43.51 MB/s (+41.27%) 30.8 MB/s 4k Write 96.15 MB/s (+2.83%) 93.5 MB/s
- Someone1234 12y agoIt has started to become more common. My current laptop has one PCIe-style and one SATA style (for a SSD and HDD respectively). It is a year old and an Asus.
- notsony 12y agoApple has an (evil?) custom interface, so you can't just buy and plug-in an off-the-shelf PCIe SSD, like the new Samsung SM951.
- RachelF 12y agoThere is an even better review at Notebook Check: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Touch-20A7-002DGE-Ultrabook.113926.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X...
- Someone1234 12y agoThat gaming performance chart is "special." Considering how old some of those games are, and considering other laptops do much MUCH better with only their integrated graphics, it could be a little better. But of course nobody buys a Carbon for gaming. Even a T series is better for that (particularly with the GPU upgrade).
- WestCoastJustin 12y agoFYI -- this is for the 2014 model, not the just released 2015 model.
- andrey-g 12y agoOld touchpad is back? Wonderful news. Damn i feel bad about upgrading to t440s now.
- codemac 12y agoI'm searching around seeing if I can somehow replace the awful t440s touchpad. It's just so awful. I'm glad I rarely use it (emacs + tiling wm) but I'd love to use touchpoint more easily. I would have killed if this was the Haswell x1, then I wouldn't have had to buy this t440s last year.
- justanotheratom 12y agoX1 Carbon Gen 2 was Lenovo's Vista.
- ChuckMcM 12y agoThis machine with 16GB of RAM would probably be a good replacement for my current laptop. I only wish it didn't have the proprietary 'onelink' and 'ethernet' connectors, I know that those will go away and later this laptop will not be nearly as useful to me with just the single USB 3 port for stuff like RPI's, Bus Pirates, etc.
- singlow 12y agoI really wanted to consider the X1 Carbon this last spring but two things stopped me. The function row and the 8GB RAM. I ended up with a w540 - it has 2880x1620px 15.4" screen and the battery life has been great under Ubuntu (5-6hrs) if a bit less than it gets under Windows (6-7hrs). But I got 16GB of RAM and it can go up to 32GB.
- rayiner 12y agoMy MBP Retina is similarly powerful, 16G, and gets 10 hours of browsing or document editing.
- jonathantm 12y agoUgh...
- vacri 12y ago10 hours with OSX or with Linux? Linux is known to have a poorer power performance than win or osx.
- subsection1h 12y agoHow long does it take to replace the drive?
- rayiner 12y agoThe SSD? 15 minutes not including how long it takes for you to order a replacement SSD on eBay and a pentalibe screwdriver.
- lqdc13 12y agoAlso heats up like crazy and battery life goes to about 1.5-2hrs if all cores are used. I don't get the powerful part if you aren't using the power.
- Raptor22 12y agoI haven't had this experience at least. I get about 7 hours if I'm doing light web browsing, and about 3.5 if I'm working (Xcode + Parallels running Win7 which is running CodeComposer). First gen MBPr.
- billconan 12y agoI want a linux notebook. I have been waiting this for a while. but none of the review mentions linux comparability. The thing I mostly care about is the trackpad. Macbook's trackpad is just too great.
- alex_duf 12y agoI have a gen2, no trackpad problem under arch. (I'm guessing ubuntu would work out of the box). I see no reason why gen3 would be different. More generally, it's intel based so the linux experience is pretty solid.
- CoffeeDregs 12y agoThe Thinkpad X1 Carbon is, hands down, the best Linux laptop (IMO). But it was completely ruined in by the keyboard/mouse in Gen 2. Now that Gen 3 has fixed that, the X1C is king of the hill again. Macbook's trackpad I'm a trackpoint guy, so avoid trackpads...
- Encosia 12y agoThere's a spec table toward the top of the article that specifically mentions Linux support (though that's a bit vague).
- jasonisalive 12y agoCurrently I have a 2013 Macbook Air, which I'm happy with everything about except for a) the keyboard, which I find too shallow and harsh for extended typing, and b) Office for Mac, which is a terrible substitute for the real thing. I'd be interested in getting this or the new Thinkpad Yoga, does anyone know how the keyboards compare? Obviously with the new models the keyboards may be improved compared to last gen but how good can a keyboard on an ultra-thin like the X1 be?
- laurencei 12y agoCan anyone here confirm if the X1 can run a Vagrant box without issue on Windows? I've had problems before on some ultrabooks that I cant get a proper VM running.