
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review - w1ntermute
http://www.thinkscopes.com/blog/2015/01/06/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-gen-3-review-2
======
singlow
I 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
My MBP Retina is similarly powerful, 16G, and gets 10 hours of browsing or
document editing.

~~~
lqdc13
Also 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
I 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.

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Someone1234
Pretty 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
...and I sincerely hope that 8GB is not the maximum memory.

~~~
ayejay
Sorry 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
There's no slots. Memory is soldered.

~~~
pierrec
I 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
This is the logic board on the 2014 15" rMBP:
[https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/PmBmFGBkmnHDvEpo.h...](https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/PmBmFGBkmnHDvEpo.huge).
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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samstokes
Anyone have experience running Linux on this 2015 model? In the market for a
new laptop and love that trackpoint.

~~~
olefoo
I 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
Looks 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
Be 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/)

~~~
richardwhiuk
Did you get a preinstalled system? They make quite clear that standard images
might not work with certain hardware which sounds exactly like what you are
experiencing?

~~~
ggreer
I tried, but I'm not sure Lenovo ever actually offered the X140e with Ubuntu
preinstalled. The option isn't available on Lenovo's website. When customizing
the order, OS choices are all Windows. I ended up buying over the phone, but
couldn't get a Linux preinstall that way either. The person on the other end
was just filling out a form similar to the one on the website.

Since I couldn't get Ubuntu preinstalled, I made sure to order the _exact_
hardware specified on Ubuntu's certification page: A4-5000 APU, BCM43142
Wifi/Bluetooth, etc. I also updated the BIOS to the latest version, which had
fixes for Linux.

I realize I was rather unlucky. The X140e is not a popular piece of hardware.
Next time, I'll be sure to pick something widely used.

~~~
slgeorge
As part of Ubuntu certification if an altered image is used then we supply
that to the OEM. So Lenovo was given an image for the X140e - that's why the
Cert page specifies a vendor image.

You have to request that image from the manufacturer. Probably through their
support process. I don't know how it works for Lenovo.

The reason this happens is because hardware revisions and Linux kernel, and OS
releases (e.g Ubuntu) are not in sync with each other. Eventually the changes
for each hardware certification flows into the Ubuntu LTS release for that
time. So, they probably went into 12.04.2 in this case. But, in some rare
cases it's not possible for all changes to be taken - so generally it's best
to get the preinstall image.

------
captaincrunch
Glad 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
You 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.

~~~
rinon
If 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
That'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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WestCoastJustin
Happy 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

~~~
notsony
Apple 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.

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andrey-g
Old touchpad is back? Wonderful news. Damn i feel bad about upgrading to t440s
now.

~~~
codemac
I'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.

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ChuckMcM
This 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.

~~~
basch
what you want is a t450s

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yes indeed, that is the machine for me.

~~~
sfilipov
T450s comes with 4GB RAM soldered: you can either have total of 8GB RAM dual-
channel or 12 GB single-channel (don't do it).

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justanotheratom
X1 Carbon Gen 2 was Lenovo's Vista.

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jasonisalive
Currently 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?

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tdicola
How 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).

~~~
mehrdada
I 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
Ahh, that's probably it. Thanks!

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RachelF
There is an even better review at Notebook Check:

[http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Lenovo-
ThinkPad-X...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Lenovo-
ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Touch-20A7-002DGE-Ultrabook.113926.0.html)

~~~
WestCoastJustin
FYI -- this is for the 2014 model, not the just released 2015 model.

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billconan
I 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.

~~~
CoffeeDregs
The 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...

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laurencei
Can 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.

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mcantelon
Wish they had a removable battery.

~~~
w1ntermute
Check out the X250 - it has both a built-in and removable battery, which
enables hotswapping.

~~~
ecaron
But its screen is <13". Not really an apt comparison. I'd think the T450s
would be a more suitable alternative.

