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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review
- izacus 11y agoI honestly don't know what is it with these laptop manufacturers that refuse to offer the 16GB RAM upgrade option. Since the RAM is soldered on, it practically forces me to buy a Mac to get enough of it... and the actuall chips don't use more space. What gives?!
- AceJohnny2 11y agoIt's market segmentation [1]. Basically, the problem the vendor has when selling a product with a large appeal is that they want to sell it at the highest price the buyer will bear. If portion A of the buyers budgeted $100, and portion B of the buyers budgeted $150 for your gizmo, how do you price your gizmo to extract maximum value from the buyers from A and B? If you sell it for $150, A won't buy. If you sell for $100, you're missing out on $50 from B. The solution is to make minor modifications to your product to sell the Basic version to A for $100, and the Premium version to B for $150. If you've done your manufacturing right, the cost of one over the other is minimal, and you're getting the maximum value from both portions of buyers-- I mean market segments. :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation And to expand on your your issue with the availability of 16GB models... you represent a small enough niche at this stage that it's not worth Lenovo's effort to design and source parts to accomodate your segment.
- Flenser 11y agoIf the size of a market segment is 0 because no-one sells to it, then no-one knows how big it is.
- tobltobs 11y agoA 2 second google search would show you that the market segment is not 0.
- rsynnott 11y agoApple sells to it with the 13" MBP, which you can get with 16GB RAM as a BTO upgrade. I doubt that many people opt for it, but it's not a non-existent market.
- Flenser 11y agoI didn't explain my point very well. What I was trying to say was how can "laptop manufacturers that refuse to offer the 16GB RAM upgrade option" (as izacus put it) be considered market segmentation (as AceJohnny2 said in his reply to izacus). It's not a segment to those that don't sell anything to them, and because they don't sell to them, they have no (first-hand) data on how big that segment might be if they were to sell to it.
- psykovsky 11y agoI refuse to buy any laptop with less than 16GB of RAM. Spent almost 1 year searching for a laptop to buy. Had to buy a 14" ASUS-RoG G46VW[0] and replace the screen for a 1920x1080 one. [0] http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/G46VW/ http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/G46VW/
- izacus 11y agoBut I can't buy any small laptop / ultrabook from Lenovo (or most other manufacturers) with 16GB at all, no matter the money. Calling it segmentation would make sense if I could actually give a boatload of money to buy something that includes it. Getting a huge W workstation really isn't an alternative.
- walterbell 11y agoLook for a used X230, it supports 16GB and an ExpressCard slot.
- glogla 11y agoThose have 1366*768 displays, and that's just sad. Otherwise it's great laptop.
- justincormack 11y ago1920x1080 IPS is available as an option.
- preid24 11y agoNot true unfortunately. I've looked into it quite a bit.
- phonon 11y agoYou can buy an x250 with a full HD display, and it accepts a 16 GB DIMM. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X250-Ultrabook-Review.136646.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X250-Ultrabook-... https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/16GB-SO-DIMMs-work-in-X250/td-p/2035319/page/5 https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/16GB-... https://squareup.com/market/MemphisElectronicRetail/imm-g-d-lsod-ag-b-e-1 https://squareup.com/market/MemphisElectronicRetail/imm-g-d-...
- justincormack 11y ago
- frozenport 11y agoI feel you, I had to get 32GB which left me with little options: http://www.asus.com/us/site/g-series/G751/ http://www.asus.com/us/site/g-series/G751/
- jotm 11y agoTake a look at HP Zbook and Dell Precision series, too. Business class support and excellent hardware design.
- ggreer 11y agoBroadwell-U supports up to 2 channels with an 8GB DIMM per channel.[1] For configurations up to 8GB, you only need to run traces for one channel. Supporting 16GB requires more design work (need to run twice as many traces) and wastes logic board space on lower-RAM configs. Apparently, Lenovo decided the trade-off wasn't worth it. 1. http://ark.intel.com/products/85212 http://ark.intel.com/products/85212 Edit: If the 2015 X1 Carbon is dual-channel, I'm not sure why Lenovo would lack a 16GB option. I guess mounting twice as many RAM chips could hit space constraints.
- grp 11y agoDon't know if there are good, but I think it's a better options than Macs: http://www.metabox.com.au/ http://www.metabox.com.au/ Just found them because I want a laptop without a webcam...
- waps 11y agoFrom reading the reviews, these things are basically tupperware with computer components in it. Do not buy.
- theintern 11y agoThey use 'barebones' Clevo shells, which are then configured by different vendors. I have a laptop based on W230SD and I'm very happy with it. It contains a proper i7, not the underpowered U model and also has a 3k screen, 2x mSATA slots and is easily upgradable in a 13.3" chassis. Not may people realise just how underpowered the U processors are for any real CPU intensive work. 4xxxU i7 processors are on a par with 2xxxx mobile processors. You sacrafice ultrabook thinness and some battery life, but the return is a very powerful, cheap, upgradable laptop.
- grp 11y agoThanks for the comment, it was what I searched at the time.
- grp 11y agoThank you for your advice!
- stephane-klein 11y agoWith Thinkpad X250 you can select 16GB RAM option.
- oxplot 11y agoAre you sure? All my searches led me to 8GB max. EDIT: aha, seems like a company called Intelligent Memory makes a single 16GB module [1] that works with X250. [1]: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/now-16gb-ddr3-modules-available-for-x250-t450s-etc.772521/ http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/now-16gb-ddr3-module...
- pja 11y agoIf you go here: http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x250/#tab-customize http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x250/... You can select a 16Gb option for the X250. It does say "single SODIMM" though, which presumably means single channel memory => a very expensive SODIMM & sub-par performance compared to a dual channel equivalent.
- masklinn 11y agoThat doesn't seem available in all stores. The 16GB option is not available on the US store.
- masklinn 11y agoNope: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x250/#tab-tech_specs http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x250/... > Memory: Up to 8GB (1 DIMM), DDR3L-1600 PC3-12800 1600 MHz
- jkot 11y agoToshiba and Pixel have 16 GB.
- PopeOfNope 11y agoI bought a Lenovo W530 just so I could get enough ram. 16gb isn't enough for me (I run a lot of VMs and high memory applications), so I wanted a laptop with swappable memory. I now have 23gb of ram. I believe the system supports up to 36gb.
- kristianp 11y agoGood on Anandtech for calling out Lenovo on their use of TN screens in the base model. I'm not sure if the criticism of 4GB RAM is as justified, it may be enough for most office tasks.
- Daishiman 11y agoMy advice: for the money, the X250 is much better bang for the buch. Components are easier to replace, you can get fantastic touchscreens, the body is thicker but smaller and just as portable, and you can get the 6-cell battery pack for a ridiculous 20 hours of battery life.
- gnur 11y agoThe low brightness of the x1 carbon bothers me also, I have it on full brightness all the time and often wonder wether I've turned the brightness up. The machine is really solid, and for a 14 inch screen it is really tiny. It's just a bit bigger then my 13 inch macbook pro but features a larger screen. Using ubuntu 15.04 on it also is really pleasent experience, nearly everything works, except the 3/4 finger gestures on the touchpad and audio. But since my worklaod typically exists of running virtual machines, ssh and chrome the sound doesn't bother me.
- hankmander 11y agoDon't praise the keyboard, please! I have a 2014 Thinkpad and the weak screen, low capacity battery, the fact that it wakes out of sleep only when it feels like (at other times I have to remove and plug the battery back in to get it started), and the crappy wifi is not even close to being as annoying as grouping the arrow keys with PageUp & PageDown. Take a look at the screenshots, they're even tighter than the other screens. This is my story every day: "you wanna go left? No you wanna go PageUp!", "You wanna go right? Here's a PageDown for you!" "AAAAAAAARRRRGH"
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- throwaway7767 11y agoHow long have you had it? I have a slightly older model that also moves the PgUp/PgDown keys to the arrow keys. I never really had the problem of pushing them instead of left/right, but I was annoyed at it at first because I couldn't find PgUp/PgDown. After using it for a few months, I actually prefer that layout. What annoyed me more was the swapping of ctrl/fn from my older model (Fn is at the leftmost now). I got used to that too, though I would still prefer ctrl on the left. As for the keyboard itself, I preferred the pre-chiclet keyboard on the old thinkpads, but of the current-generation laptops I've tried, it's still the best one by miles.
- longwave 11y agoIn some models, you can swap Ctrl and Fn in the BIOS. I find it much easier to hit a Ctrl-Shift combo with Ctrl on the far left.
- brainpool 11y agoGreat that they reverted back from the adaptive function keys of the 2014 model. They don't work that well in practice.
- pisarzp 11y agoTotally agree, they are absolutely terrible and impractical. I always wonder how they tested them that they still went ahead with decision to ship laptop with them.
- gchp 11y agoI used to love the X1, but recently Dell's XPS 13 developer edition as been centre of my attention Relatively similar specs, great screen, and less expensive! http://www.dell.com/ie/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd http://www.dell.com/ie/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
- hippo8 11y agoBought a m3800 recently, one of the best laptops I have owned to date. Currently I am running ubuntu on this beauty and its running without any problems. If only Dell could improve a little bit more on the battery life.
- tacticus 11y agoNow if only they decided to ship them to other countries.
- dpc_pw 11y agoI was thinking about XPS13, but then I've found UX305. Around half the price, with similar specs, works great with Linux, and has mate display (I can work in bright sunlight on my laptop, woohoo!). However this thin bezel sure does look sexy... :)
- jordanthoms 11y agoImmediately discounted due to not having a 16GB model. I'm frustrated with the hardware and software quality from Apple of late, but it seems they are still the only real option.
- logicallee 11y agowhat frustrations do you have with their hardware?
- jordanthoms 11y agoOne of the screws fell out of my Macbook Pro Retina 15" Late 2013, due to it being stripped at the factory, and Apple refused to fix it because it was two weeks out of warranty. The quality seems to be slipping a bit.
- hippo8 11y agoEverytime I hear Lenovo I hear superfish. It's really unfortunate that I do not feel I could trust these guys any more.
- bborud 11y agoWhat I find disturbing is that they have not made much of an effort to clean up their reputation. Which obviously means that it doesn't hurt their sales sufficiently. I think installing malware that goes to these lengths to compromise the user should make reviewers obliged to point out that the manufacturer does have a history of installing dangerous malware and that one should take this into consideration. Not that I believe other manufacturers are innocent, but that's not really important. What is important is that reviewers take some responsibility in informing the public about what demands it should be making.
- hippo8 11y agoThe problem is, when you look at non technical users most of them care about, how shiny their new laptop looks. Or that they can play candy-crush on it or browse facebook. Not many people unfortunately I notice, care about their own privacy in the digital age. And the fun thing at the end of the day is, the end users of these products are majority non-technical users.
- giltleaf 11y agoThat's true; it just depends on where the company is trying to go and which user group they are trying to please. But then again, I see sites like passcode growing, so maybe it's changing. What do you think?
- buu700 11y agoSeriously, and I couldn't trust them not to backdoor the hardware too at this point. It terrifies me that Lenovo is now responsible for pushing out updates to my Moto X (gen 1).
- whatok 11y agoGot one about a month ago. Liking it so far. Really disappointed that there's only 8GB RAM. My previous ThinkPad is probably close to a decade old now so I don't really have a great comparison point as far as keyboard revisions and the like go. Really didn't want to support Lenovo after the whole Superfish thing but it's nearly impossible to find a PC laptop that is light, > 13", and not a complete underpowered pile.
- philjohn 11y agoHaving used the 2014 ThinkPad keyboards, they are indeed one of the worst I've ever experienced, far worse than [generic cheap laptop brand]. I'm waiting for the Quad Core Broadwell Mobile's to come out and then hoping to upgrade to a W550 or T550p. So glad they didn't say "this keyboard is better, get used to it" and instead listened to their customer base. It's still not as good as the keyboards on the T/W/520, although the backlighting is nicer than the thinklight when working in low lighting conditions.