
Ask HN: Is Thinkpad X1 Carbon an Alternative to MacBook Pro? - febin
I have been using Macbook for a long time. However, now I am thinking of shifting out of it. Thinkpad X1 Carbon seems interesting, has anyone made this shift? How&#x27;s the experience?
======
methehack
I've had several MBP 15 inchers and just bought an X1 Carbon, Gen 7. I knew I
was going to run linux on it.

The X1 is probably less hardware, but it's also less goop. Touchbar? The whole
experience is quieter, more minimalist, and in some important ways more
refined. I would say the main reason to get a mac is the OS, if that's what
you want. For me, though, Mac OS is same story w/r/t to goop. Much worse,
actually. With Mac OS I increasingly felt like Apple had forgotten that it was
my computer. That I owned it and they didn't get to say what I did with it and
when I did it. I was an interloper lucky enough to be a user of _their_
system.

The carbon is also suuuper light and has great battery life if you get the
dumbed-down screen (which I have and which is great, imo). So far, I'm very
happy with it.

------
sofaofthedamned
Had a 6th gen for nearly 2 years running Fedora. Typing on it now, love it. A
couple of points.

1\. There's a couple of things to make it Linux friendly - TLP, plus the
throttling fix. Even though I use Fedora the Arch Linux wiki is superb for
this.

2\. BIOS updates are done via software update which is superb.

3\. The FN/action keys are the wrong way round, just change it in the BIOS.

4\. Same goes for Fn/Ctrl keys - they can be swapped too in the BIOS.

5\. Screen is beautiful. I've got the HDR one and it's brighter than any
Macbook i've been sat next to on the train.

6\. Never got the fingerprint reader or NFC to work, but i've not tried for a
year tbf - this may be fixed.

7\. Speakers are complete shite.

8\. Keyboard is the best you'll get on a laptop this size, it's wonderful.

9\. 2x USB-C/Thunderbolt is awesome. Only thing about the XPS 13 I use for
work is that the USB-C is on both sides unlike the Lenovo, makes it easier to
get a charge cable round.

I honestly love this laptop, even after 2 years I don't see the need for a
upgrade.

AMA btw.

~~~
growse
What sort of battery life do you get on Linux, and how fast are you expecting
the battery (batteries?) to degrade?

I tend to always try and find laptops with easily replaceable batteries (I've
a t440s right now that I'm looking to upgrade), but the ultraslim things like
the X1 look like it's a bit of a challenge, which puts me off somewhat.

~~~
sofaofthedamned
I think around 8 hours from 100% to turn off. Bear in mind the battery is 2
years old.

I don't tend to have the screen too bright (live in the UK), Bluetooth
disabled etc. Also I spend most of my life in Firefox / SSH / VSCode in that
order.

~~~
growse
Interesting, thanks. I've apparently got "1:47 (53%)" remaining right now, and
that's with a 6-cell slice and 3-cell built-in battery. That's just with
Firefox and Citrix open.

I seem to suffer pretty badly from battery anxiety, so 8 hours is a bit of a
dream :)

------
Const-me
Both are equally bad. Search for a laptop with user upgradeable RAM and SSD.
There’re many thin and light models on the market.

For RAM, laptops manufacturers overcharge a lot. E.g. HP asks $660 for 32GB
RAM option. The market price for that amount of RAM is $120 for the equivalent
of what HP offers (DDR4 2400), or $230 for much faster one (DDR4 3200).

For SSD, laptops manufacturers overcharge a lot as well (HP asks $762 for 1TB
SSD option, Intel asks $100 for their 1TB 660P M.2 2280 NVMe), but it’s worse
than just the cost. You’re unable to recover your data from a broken laptop.
Also, unlike RAM, SSD technology advances very fast, they release new models
which are both faster, larger and cheaper. I’m upgrading SSDs in my computers
once in a year, even more frequently than GPUs.

------
frei
I have been using a 5th gen X1 carbon 1080p with Linux for work for over a
year. I would say it's slightly inferior to the mbp except in the weight
category.

The screen is dimmer (maybe the 4k is better), the webcam/mic/speakers are
worse, the battery is slightly worse, and the trackpad is much worse. The
trackpoint is nice, and the proper keyboard is nice (though karabiner on Mac
os enabled me to get productive with fewer keys). The USB-A ports are nice,
and the HDMI is nice. The build quality is great.

Software is great. I just miss the trackpad gestures.

It's a different form factor. Slightly lighter, smaller screen.

------
chainwax
I've been using an X1 Carbon running Ubuntu (18.04 until 19.04 came out, then
upgraded) with Gnome 3 for about a year and some change as my primary
development machine.

Hardware-wise I have no complaints. It's incredibly light, excellent battery
life (no specifics, but I made it though an 8hr work day in a coffee shop),
the keyboard is fantastic, and the multiple USB type-C ports are super handy.
I did grab a sleeve for it as it isn't aluminum like the macbooks.

My only gripes are linux related and relatively small. I never got the
fingerprint reader working, and with the company being attached to
Outlook/Teams/Excel, I sometimes find myself wishing I had desktop apps as
opposed to web-based ones.

Regardless, it's the best work machine I've ever had. I've used plenty, and
this edges out the XPS 13 just slightly, as the keyboard is superior and the
screen is about an inch larger.

edit: I do only have the 1920x1080 screen, which I'm sure contributes to the
excellent battery life.

------
saltcured
I cannot comment on the Mac replacement angle as I've been die-hard on Linux
since the 1990s.

I recently got a Thinkpad T495 with AMD Ryzen and it is fantastic with Fedora.
I am very impressed, comparing to my older quad-core Thinkpad T440p and its
anemic NVIDIA GPU. I suspect the T495s will be almost the same software/driver
experience, with a lighter package. I believe mine came with an LTE modem that
does not appear in Linux. (I didn't even want it, but it was forced along with
the low-power 400 nit display that I demanded.)

It is fantastically cool and quiet out of the box, unlike my prior hit-and-
miss experiences with power management on recent Intel chipsets. Idle power
usage is the lowest I have ever seen on an x86 computer (<3 watts screen off,
3-5 watts screen on and lightly using Firefox).

I haven't yet done anything that really pushes its limits.

------
nicolaslem
Probably not the answer you are looking for but I don't understand why these
two machines get so much love from developers.

In my opinion Asus is underrated if it comes to great Linux laptops. Some
models have stellar Linux support, are lightweight while still having battery,
disk and memory upgradable.

~~~
rtkwe
You should actually suggest some of them then not just the whole brand. As to
why these are so popular there's a lot of theorizing out there about just why
Macbooks are so popular (eg: good design [1], brand cachet and clean looking
software) and why they're secretly terrible (eg: overpriced from a spec
perspective and thermal throttling issues)

[1] ignoring recurring internal design issues the outside build is still some
of the best out there, though a lot of brands are catching up.

~~~
kjeetgill
My 2cents: My absolutely favorite thing about the MacBooks are the aluminium
unibody. I can drop it, abuse it, put my suitcase on it and at worse the metal
may bend or scratch a bit. No cracks, no wearing smooth, no discoloration.

I don't care much for osx, but jeez it's a robust laptop.

------
lupinglade
No, I have both, the problem on the Thinkpad is the OS. Simply nothing will
come close to the productivity of macOS. I’ve tried Windows 10, FreeBSD,
OpenBSD, multiple Linux distros (Gentoo, Fedora, OpenSuSE, KDE Neon, etc - I
am not new to Linux) and even Haiku on the Thinkpad and I think its going on
eBay next.

macOS has steadily been going down hill in innovation and its feature loss and
constant addition of useless features (Sidecar? SwiftUI? Catalyst?). Apple’s
obsession with control and Apple’s lack of focus are real problems too.
However, other operating systems are so far behind in usability it is hard to
even consider them instead.

The keyboard on the Thinkpad is far better though.

~~~
new_realist
Owning both a Thinkpad P1 and the latest XPS 15, I agree. Productivity on a
Mac is in a different league than Linux. OSS partisans, high schoolers, and
bearded gnomes, feel free to downvote my experience.

~~~
sosodev
I guess I just don't get it. On my Linux desktop at home I'm ludicrously more
productive than with my MBP. It just seems like every little thing gets in the
way. Docker is significantly slower, package distribution is terrible (in
speed, availability, and consistency), and finder has to be one of the worst
ways to browse a filesystem. I could go on but it doesn't even matter because
I can't be productive with that awful keyboard anyway.

------
karmakaze
My issue with most non-Macs including the X1 is that they mostly choose 16x9
screens.

I'm carrying the weight, give me the real estate. I'm not one to run many full
screens and swipe between them.

------
phaus
I have an answer for you but I also had a question for anyone that might be
knowledgable. Why are Mac mouse drivers so bad? I've used the magic mouse,
logitech and Microsoft mice and they are all terrible. I did this on multiple
MBPs. I even did a bunch of research and tried multiple methods of disabling
acceleration and it is still choppy and unpredictable in comparison to any
other pointing device I've ever used. The best I can manage is to make it
tolerable, but if there's a way to make it as smooth and dependable as Windows
please let me know. The touchpads are truly amazing compared to their pc
counterparts, but sometimes a mouse is the right tool for the job.

A few years ago I'd say get a MBP. Now, having used a 2017 for a while, I
wouldn't even consider it unless you are completely in love with Mac OS, or
you don't intend to ever use the build-in keyboard. Or, you could try out one
of the new keyboards because some people actually like them.

Most of the the X, T, and P series, business class laptops from Lenovo are
going to be pretty nice. Depending on which model you choose, it will have
options for making it more powerful than a MBP.

~~~
arh68
I wish I had a solution for you. My Tracking speed is set on Fast, all the way
to the right (unlike Windows, where you generally want it centered).

I use a Razer DeathAdder w/ a Mac Pro, no issues. There's a bit of
acceleration (no 360 noscopes?) but nothing choppy. I also use a SteelSeries
Rival that works well.

Logitech mice, I've actually not had great results. I remember installing the
OS X preference pane, and it still sucked. It might've just been the mouse. I
have not owned a MS mouse in years.

Try a DeathAdder, next time you have a chance to experiment.

------
duiker101
I am planning on making the shift soon (as soon as my MBP 2014 gives up) and
the choice for me will most likely be between the X1 Carbon or the XPS 15. My
wife bought a last generation MBP and it crashes every time she uses the
webcam and is already experiencing issues with the butterfly keyboard.

~~~
febin
I am concerned with the butterfly keyboard.

~~~
draugadrotten
In the office we have had to replace about 25% of all MBP butterfly keyboards.
They wear down easily. The trackpads though... nothing better out there.

------
dhruvkar
I just bought Lenovo Thinkpad p52s. Bigger battery and all physical ports
(HDMI, ethernet) including USB-C charging.

I'm running Pop_OS (built on Ubuntu), and it's been my daily driver for 6
months.

I was using macOS for 5 years (mbp 2012) and then Lubuntu for a bit. This
setup has been as smooth as a macbook.

Installation was smoooooooth. Pop_Os distro has built-in Nvidia drivers, so
wifi, bluetooth, nvidia card worked out of the box. The p52s also has a SIM
card slot, which is the only thing I need to mess with.

Usability is comparable to macOS. It has the cmd+space shortcut built in. It
has multiple workspaces with keyboard shortcuts for moving between them as
well as moving windows to different spaces.

Carbon X1 would run the same, but has less physical ports -- depends on your
use case. Can vouch for this setup though.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
HDMI 2.0+?

------
mnm1
I'm looking to switch to either a P1 or X1 Extreme. I think those would be
better equivalents with even better hardware: more max RAM (64gb), 2 SSD up to
2tb each, OLED screens on the 2nd gen versions (on X1E currently and soon on
the P1 I understand), better keyboards etc. My company will be buying me one
soon. As far as software, for me, after almost a dozen years on OS X, using
Linux is superior in almost every single way mainly because of jumpapp [1] and
customization (I prefer KDE). Some rough times when first installing with
crashes / having to reinstall but it's been stable more or less for months.

[1] [https://github.com/mkropat/jumpapp](https://github.com/mkropat/jumpapp)

~~~
pythonaut_16
I'm running Manjaro on a 1st gen X1E and it generally works really well.
Installing took a bit of trial and error.

The Nvidia graphics card is still a bit of a pain; I usually open another TTL
session and start up a new desktop with the Nvidia graphics card running when
I need it, but I think it's possible to configure it better than that.

------
hughes
I've gone through a couple X1 Carbons. The first one (2012) had a fan failure,
but I got a replacement cooler on ebay for $20 and it was easy enough to
replace. Eventually it died when a drink spilled on it.

The second one (2014) had _awful_ soft-touch function keys. They were so bad
that the softkey to change the F-number to brightness/volume sometimes didn't
work, so I'd get stuck in one mode or the other. Eventually, the down-arrow
and Delete keys stopped working. It also had the mouse buttons integrated into
the trackpad, which was terrible.

I love the form factor otherwise. Thankfully they've moved away from the
softkeys and integrated mouse buttons, so I'm comfortable recommending it
again.

------
dmorilha
As an engineer who needs to deal with multiple platforms, I use an hybrid
approach, connecting my personal X1 carbon to one of these latest macbook pro
with the special keyboard. I definitely dislike the keyboards on these modern
Apple laptops, I do a lot of terminal typing and not having the press feedback
on the escape key kills the experience of typing fast. I fell the macbooks
were made for home users and lost contact with the IBM PC. Besides the pros
get really hot when under heavy load. On the TP I have a very customized
version of Arch installed and it works fairly well.

------
busterarm
IMO the most perfect laptop made for road-warriors like myself was the Lenovo
X270. I bought the 6-cell spare. Nothing is touching it on battery life and it
had great specs.

The two-battery system is something I long for in other laptops.

------
enoch_r
I switched from a Macbook Pro around 2015 or so. Since then I've used a few
Thinkpads (T470, X1C, P50). Currently I'm on a X1C7. They're great machines,
work perfectly with Linux, high build quality, etc.

------
justanothersys
I had an X1 Carbon (6th gen) from Costco (which is a great deal) between
MacBooks a few months back. I returned it within the 90 days because the
speakers, trackpad, and display all felt several generations behind MacBooks
in terms of usability. I’m not happy with lots of the MBP changes like most HN
users but I can’t believe the rest of the industry hasn’t caught up. The
Microsoft Surface trackpads are only slightly better than the X1. I’m not even
a big trackpad user, but it’s just so annoying to have one that I dread using.

~~~
mceachen
OP: do this. If you love it, great, and if you're on the fence, you've got 90
days to decide.

~~~
justanothersys
Also, I made it sound like it’s a bad machine, but the keyboard is fantastic
and so was the cooling, battery life etc. Probably your best bet for linux.

------
Havoc
We've got like 200+ of them in the office (current and last gen mix). Mine's a
6th gen & spec'd pretty heavy judging by feel but haven't checked tbh.

They seem very good on failure rates compared to previous fleet of laptops
(Dell latitudes - jikes).

Need for a eth dongle is a little meh. And Ctrl and FN is switched which is
stupid (think BIOS can swap it). Otherwise seems solid.

No idea about nix compatibility.

Works well for a Excel road warrior - can't comment as to creative types.

------
AtlasBarfed
my list of MBP 15" pre-touchbar features I most like was durability: it
survived multiple bicycle wipeouts and drops like a champ.

That + battery life + width + an 4k barely-usable HDMI 1.4b was just a great
combo.

Why the industry could not replicate that after 4-5 years (HDMI still stuck at
1.2, cheap cases, iffy battery life, etc) is beyond me.

I'd also like a bezel-less 15" OLED display, a 16-17" option, SSD storage and
large RAM that is only 2x time going rate on newegg rather than 10x, and a
combo of USB-C and USB-3.x (aka no dongles). So tons of room for improvement
on the basic model.

But Apple regressed their hardware, and the rest of industry just sat around.
Chromebooks regressed into sub-200 categories and are so annoyingly google.
Windows continues to suck in dumbfounding ways.

And this is compounded by the fact that processors are basically at a
standstill efficiency wise, so the only way to get people to upgrade is...
decent design/hardware?

Mystifying.

------
janetacarr
I have a Carbon X1 6th ed. running Xubuntu. Even though I came from a Macbook
Pro, I've been pretty happy with it. I opted to upgrade the CPU to the i7
8650u. It's fast and very portable. It did feel a bit frail coming from the
MBP's aluminum body, so I just bought a sleeve for it.

------
kevinherron
I have both a 2018 15" MBP and an X1C6 running Arch.

The X1C6 is a fine Linux laptop but it's significantly slower than the 15"
MBP. The keyboard is better though.

I still prefer the MBP, and if/when Apple fixes the keyboards on them it will
be even more tilted in favor of the MBP.

------
asveikau
I'm using a 6th gen with FreeBSD. Only tweaks needed that I recall were
installing Intel X drivers from pkg, and loading acpi_video and acpi_ibm
drivers. After that, good X performance and working suspend/resume.

------
chrisbennet
I went from a MBP (2015?) -> Dell XPS 15 -> X1 Extreme (not carbon), all
windows.

For Linux I went to an X1 Carbon with Ubuntu. I am not a Linux power user but
it does everything for me fine.

------
gtirloni
I'm running Fedora on a maxed out X1 5th and it's the best Linux laptop I've
ever had. The T series would work fine too (sometimes I miss one extra USB
port).

------
whalesalad
Does anyone know a physical brick and mortar retailer that sells high end
Thinkpad devices? I would like to try a more modern one in person.

~~~
pythonaut_16
MicroCenter if you have on near you.

I think I've maybe seen them in a Costco before too.

~~~
whalesalad
I think I saw them at Costco too... but for whatever reason there weren’t demo
machines? I saw the inventory but couldn’t play with them. And/or they were
fully neutered or couldn’t get logged-in to.

I have a Fry’s and a MicroCenter not too far away. Will give it a shot.

I don’t think I could ever abandon OS X because so many of my tooling depends
on it... but I’ve always wanted to try daily driving a Linux machine. Haven’t
done it since high school.

------
IdontRememberIt
I love this laptop (I own one). But the screen quality and its size (16/9) are
not very optimal for work productivity.

------
scalatronn
install macOS on thinkpad ;)

------
bnt
Windows or Linux?

~~~
febin
I am thinking of Linux

~~~
duiker101
as far as I know thinkpads have the smoothest linux experience

~~~
tga
That blanket statement is either _not_ true or incredibly sad: certain
ThinkPads might have a great Linux experience (I still don't know which
exactly, I am guessing the ones certified by Ubuntu should be alright), but
random ThinkPads (even trusty T-series, nevermind random hipster tablets and
cheap models branded with the same name) still have major issues like
suspend/hibernate and dealing with external displays and docking stations.
Then that "smooth" Linux experience includes the common issues, like dealing
with Bluetooth, that are common to all manufacturers and distributions.

Do your research before deciding on an _exact_ model.

~~~
namirez
The only Thinkpads that I would ever consider are the T, X, and P (used to be
W) models. Other so called Thinkpads are not worth the trouble.

With regards to hardware issues, most of those are due to propriety drivers.
Ubuntu has an edge here but unfortunately, there is no way to know it for
sure. You have to wait for a while and follow the Thinkpad message boards.

------
m3h
I haven't made the shift from a Mac to a Windows laptop. I've been a
Windows/Linux user since forever but most of my workplace uses the newer
MacBook with the touch bar, so I had the time to make a fair comparison.
Here's my take:

\- If you haven't used Windows before, that's going to be the biggest hit.
Bigger than the hardware itself. But if you're okay with it, then you're good
to go. Windows 10 in its current version is the best I have used; I haven't
seen any security issues and the updates are a breeze and do not take a
noticeable time to install. If you want a bash or a full Linux env, you can
just run a VM or use WSL which is close (but not exactly Linux). WSL2 should
close that loophole too and you'll get a decent integration with Windows user-
space as well.

\- The MacBook looks better than most laptops out there. But I wouldn't
dismiss X1 Carbon so soon. I've got a Silver X1 Carbon Gen 6. This was a happy
accident; I didn't realize there are other colors available beside Black while
I was ordering. But the metallic look and color are fantastic along with the
small red dot light on the back of the screen. The ThinkPad logo on the back
of the screen looks dated though, probably due to the font.

\- One thing you’ll note instantly is that the laptop is much lighter than the
MacBook. However, it still feels durable. You can easily hold it up with one
hand while giving an in-person demo/presentation to someone. This is the
lightest laptop I have used, and it has increased my portability in the
office.

\- X1 Carbon uses the ThinkPad’s legendary keyboard; it has the perfect key
travel distance and key spacing. The overall experience is just perfect and
makes you feel that you're using a product that's been perfected over a long
period of time. Plus, it has got real physical keys for the function keys with
all the cool shortcuts to sound and settings that you need. All of this is a
stark contract to MacBook’s keyboard which so many have already written about
to be the worst keyboard MacBook has ever had. Overall, you'll get used to the
keyboard and will never look back after that.

\- One point I should note is that MacBook’s keyboard has better backlighting
compared to X1 Carbon's which leaks around the keys a lot. I rarely ever need
backlighting so it's not a concern for me. There's also the unique TrackPoint
in the middle of the keyboard but it never gets in the way of using the
keyboard.

\- One of the very few downsides to the X1 Carbon is its smaller trackpad
compared to the MacBook. It is accurate and sensitive. You can tap (not press)
to register a click. There are three physical buttons on the top for the left,
right and the middle click. And the bottom of the trackpad can be pressed for
the left and the right clicks as well. Overall, a larger trackpad would have
been nicer and the physical keys on top of the trackpad just feels like legacy
and is the only ugly part of the laptop when it's open.

\- There's a fingerprint scanner right beside the trackpad. I've gotten used
to playing nice with it. Otherwise, it misses recognition frequently, perhaps
due to its small size.

\- MacBook have arguably the best screens out there. X1 Carbon's screen is
close though; I can't tell the difference between mine and my colleague's
screen. X1 Carbon supports HDR mode so that's a big plus if you stream HDR
content from Netflix. I avoided the more expensive 4k Dolby screen option and
went for a full-HD one to save battery during work. The verdict is a pretty
close one on this and I couldn't decide.

\- Ports on this laptop are much better than the new MacBook: two USB Type-A
(3.1), two USB-C Lightening and a full-sized HDMI port. I've never needed an
additional USB hub or connector but if you have that, you'll be able to
connect two external screens to your X1 Carbon. One USB-C port is used for
charging as well. There's a propriety port as well for connecting a ThinkPad
dock as well (yes, they're cool but pricey). You can use this to add an
ethernet port through an addon. The ports are again a sharp contract to the
MacBook; every dev at my company has a USB hub attached to the side of their
MacBook when they’re working which is a shame.

\- Dual-array mic are pretty good and noise cancellation is stellar. But the
speakers on the other side are quite bad. They're placed below the laptop,
just underneath the trackpad. These have been moved to the sides of the laptop
in Gen 7 but I am not familiar with the sound quality of Gen 7. Dolby Atmos
comes preinstalled; if you attach a headphone to the headphone jack (yup,
there's one), Atmos kicks in and improves the sound quality of whatever you're
playing. There's an Atmos app that comes preinstalled and it allows some level
of control over the enhancement.

\- Battery life is stellar; a 100% charge lasts throughout a day of
development work (about 7-10 hours). There's a feature you can use to limit
max charging level to 70-80% if you frequently work with the charger plugged
in. This improves your battery life. Also, charging is fast for the first 50%
so that's a bonus if you like your portability and like to avoid carrying a
charger.

\- There's no audible noise from the CPU fan during normal usage. It's pretty
tough to write about the heat dissipation of the laptop; I'm from a hot
country so laptop heat dissipation for most laptops is fairly lacking for me.
The metal body and the fan on the side are supposed to keep the laptop cool
and it should work okay if you don't live in Pakistan :)

Overall, I'd say the X1 Carbon Gen 6 is one of the best laptops out there.
They beat MacBook at making you feel productive (precondition being that
you're comfortable with Windows or Linux). With the X1 Carbon Gen 7 already
available with the latest Intel processors, I would recommend a buy.

~~~
pintxo
> There are three physical buttons on the top for the left, right and the
> middle click. And the bottom of the trackpad can be pressed for the left and
> the right clicks as well. Overall, a larger trackpad would have been nicer
> and the physical keys on top of the trackpad just feels like legacy and is
> the only ugly part of the laptop when it's open.

Regarding the physical keys on top of the trackpad, these are actually for use
together with the Trackpoint. I recommend giving it a chance for a couple
days, you might like it.

------
ghostbust555
Are all laptops not alternatives to MacBook pro? If you mean is it comparable
spec wise then more or less.

------
therealbilly
I got a suggestion. Pick up a late model MacBook Pro, then go down to your
local used PC shop and pick up two PC laptops (300 bux each), and install
Linux and Windows. At that point, you have all 3 platforms covered and don't
have to choose sides.

