Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

W.A.Khan,                                                                                                                                              27/4/2013,                                                                                                                                                                        The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a boardroom winner that offers great all-round performance and comfort in a lightweight package.Incredibly light for a 14-inch laptop, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is ruggedly built, and has a better keyboard than any ultrabook-style laptop, even Apple's MacBook Air.
But, For such an expensive laptop, battery life is just so-so. Consumer-friendly options such as HDMI are missing.              Performance:
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon test model we tested includes an Intel Core i7-3667U CPU, with a default clock frequency of 2.0GHz and a maximum Turbo frequency of 3.2GHz. Like most Ultrabooks, this one uses Intel's HD 4000 integrated GPU and ships with 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory. A 256GB SanDisk solid-state drive handles storage chores.
In our performance testing overall, the X1 Carbon essentially tied with Vizio's C14-A2, despite having a faster CPU than the Vizio's Core i7 3517u. The Vizio outpaced the X1 Carbon in PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark test suite, earning a mark of 158 as against the ThinkPad's score of 144.
On the power side, the X1 Carbon uses Lenovo's RapidCharge system, which allows the system to charge to 80 percent in just over 35 minutes. The system's measured battery life was a solid 6 hours, 11 minutes, almost an hour longer than the Vizio C14-A2's 5 hours, 17 minutes.
Not surprisingly, in view of the laptop's Intel HD 4000 GPU, the X1 Carbon's game performance was fairly weak. Even with detail settings at low, the Lenovo struggled to an unplayable 11.4 frames per second in Crysis 2, although its frame rate on the Dirt3 test was a more playable 36 fps.
Overall, Lenovo seems to have emphasized battery life over raw performance, a perfectly reasonable preference in designing an ultramobile PC.                                                                                                                                                                          Screen;
Considering Lenovo was one of the pioneers of high-quality IPS screens in laptops like its ThinkPad X220 long before other manufacturers were offering them on anything but high-end workstations, it’s disappointing to find that the X1 still uses a TN-panel display. Mind you, as these go the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is top of its class, if not quite as good as last year’s Samsung Series 9 900X3A.
First off, it’s worth pointing out that the 14-inch X1 Carbon comes with two different display resolutions, depending on which model you go for. The cheaper Carbons offer a standard 1,366 x 768 resolution, while the high-end variants – like our review sample – come with a much nicer 1,600 x 900 pixel count (you can upgrade from the regular resolution to Premium HD Plus for £62 when buying direct from Lenovo). Either way you get a great matt finish, avoiding the annoying reflections of glossy screens – though it does also make pixel structure a little more visible, but that’s a small price to pay.
Viewing angles are also very good by TN standards. Horizontally they’re almost flawless, with only a slight bit of contrast shift betraying that we’re not dealing with IPS here. Vertically there’s less leeway, but you can still tilt the display with a little more freedom than most. And as with every premium ThinkPad, you can fold the screen back to 180 degrees.
Combined with good maximum brightness, excellent dark detailing, decent contrast, punchy colours, and no signs of backlight bleed or other undesirable artefacts, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon offers a pleasant visual experience - not just for work but entertainment too.                                                                                                                                                                  Usability:
Lenovo includes both a TrackPoint stick-based pointing device and a large glass multitouch-enabled touchpad. The latter was a little too sensitive out of the box, but it does have good palm rejection, making for generally good cursor control.
The keyboard layout is good. The keys themselves are slightly indented and offer good tactile feedback, though keystroke travel is short. Lenovo also includes discrete page down and page up keys, a welcome addition to the usual Fn-key options.               Battery Life;
Battery life is the bane of many a slim Ultrabook, but again the X1 Carbon acquits itself well. It managed just over seven and a half hours in our standard mixed productivity test – a marked improvement over the original Lenovo ThinkPad X1’s three and a bit, and in line with the best of the rest.
Mind you, if you use wireless radios (especially 3G) this figure is likely to go down steeply and, unlike for its predecessor, there’s no optional slice battery. Still, with careful use it should last you through a working day, and thanks to Lenovo’s RadipCharge tech, plugging it in for just half an hour will get you up to five hours’ use.
Price;$1,424.05 to $1,684.00                                                                                                                                                            Finally, The business-oriented Lenovo ThinkPad X1 has a few quirks, but is otherwise a very impressive business-oriented ultrabook with strong crossover potential.