Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Laptop Review

Lenovo’s thin-and-light business-targeted laptop has an impressively long battery life and a sturdy design, but it’s expensive compared to much of the ultrabook competition. If you can live with that and a few quirks, it’s still one of the best portable computers you can buy.

The X1 Carbon is the latest version of the popular ThinkPad laptop series, now with an even more compact form factor and lighter weight than previous versions. At only 2.5 pounds, this laptop is easy to hold and carry, especially considering it has passed a number of rigorous MIL-SPEC tests to prove it can handle the rigors of business travel.

Inside, you’ll find a standard Intel Core i7 CPU, plenty of memory and a generous 1TB solid-state drive. The 14-inch display has a 1,920×1,200-pixel resolution, a tall 16:10 aspect ratio and a comfortable 400 nits of brightness. A new, single-bar hinge runs nearly the length of the display to provide smooth operation and keep the display securely locked into place.

A pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports are located on the left side of the laptop, along with a USB 3.2 Type-A port and an HDMI 1.4 connector. The right side has a Kensington lock slot, another USB 3.2 port and a headphone/mic jack. Interestingly, there is no SD card reader on this model, which is a major drawback for photo- and video-creators.

The keyboard is as comfortable and responsive as ever, with a well-spaced row of keys and a backlight that helps you find your way in the dark. The revamped track pad feels good, too, although it doesn’t quite match up to the excellent Dell XPS 13’s. The wrist rest is shallow, though, and some users may find the keyboard’s row spacing a bit cramped.

On the productivity front, this X1 Carbon easily lasted through an 8-hour workday during our testing and charged quickly over USB-C. Its battery life isn’t as impressive as some of the competitors we’ve tested lately, but it should still get you through a full day of light work. Video playback drains it faster, though.

Gaming isn’t a strong suit for this laptop, with its integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, but it should still be able to run most current games at lower settings. More demanding, high-resolution 3D titles will struggle to hit a smooth 30 frames per second, though.

Like most business-focused laptops, this X1 Carbon comes with a suite of Lenovo-branded security and support apps. It also includes the company’s industry-leading fingerprint reader embedded into the power button, and a set of IT-department-friendly features such as Intel’s vPro technology. All of these features are nice to have, but the extras don’t quite make up for a weak battery and anemic performance in our benchmarks. A less expensive Core i5 model offers better value. Our review unit costs $2135, but you can save a few hundred dollars by picking up a refurbished one from Lenovo’s website. Those models typically come with a 1-year warranty.