The old saying is that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." That certainly seems to be Lenovo's approach to this year's version of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the eighth generation of the firm's executive notebook.
The X1 Carbon has been nearly identical for several years now—here are my reviews of the 2019 and 2018 versions—and the only significant change this year is the move to Intel 10th Generation processors in the Comet Lake family.
As always, the X1 Carbon remains suitably compact, measuring 0.63 by 12.74 by 8.55 inches (HWD) and weighing just under 2.5 pounds. It's light weight—3 pounds, 1.3 ounces including the charger—which makes it easy to carry.
It continues to have a 14-inch display, with relatively small bezels around it, though not as small as the bezels on the recent Dell machines. The unit I tested had a UHD (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) display with HDR support and 500 nits of brightness. It looked very good, and the price differential for the UHD display has come down, though I still think most people will be quite happy with a full high-definition (FHD) (1,920-by-1,080) version. Lenovo also offers regular FHD displays, FHD displays with a built-in touchscreen, and displays with both a touchscreen and a built-in privacy screen, but not a UHD version with touch support.
The company has a very similar 2-in-1 called the X1 Yoga, that does have a UHD touch option. Here's my review of last year's version of the X1 Yoga, which like the X1 Carbon hasn't changed much since.
The X1 Carbon model I tested had an Intel Core i7-10610U (Comet Lake) processor with four cores and eight threads, with a base speed of 1.8GHz and a turbo of 4.9GHz, along with vPro support and 16GB of memory. In general, benchmark results weren't a whole lot different than last year's model; it was slightly faster on some tests, slightly slower on others—you probably wouldn't notice the difference. In more real-world tests, a Matlab portfolio simulation ran slightly slower than it did on last year's version, while a very large Excel model with a data table and Monte Carlo simulations was about 10 percent faster. Again, I'm not sure that Comet Lake offers much of a boost over last year's Whiskey Lake processors.
It has a 51 watt-hour battery, which is enough to get you through a normal day's work, but in my tests, not as good as competing laptops.
The X1 Carbon continues to have two USB-A ports, one USB-C/Thunderbolt for charging and peripherals, HDMI out, and a UBS-C/proprietary Ethernet docking connector on the side. The front-facing webcam worked well and includes a physical privacy shield. The unit I tested had an IR camera as well, which worked great with Windows Hello, and a "carbon fiber with Woven cover design"—meaning a slight pattern on the top of the machine as opposed to the standard ThinkPad matte black.
The backlit keyboard hasn't changed. ThinkPads continue to have the familiar ThinkPad keyboard, which remains top-notch, along with the distinctive red TrackPoint cursor control and a relatively small but adequate touchpad. The touchpad continues to have physical buttons, something that many of the competitive executive laptops have eschewed in favor of a larger size, but that you probably need if you use the TrackPoint.
All in all, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon continues to be an excellent, very portable 14-inch executive notebook. It's not the sexiest, newest design, but it is traditional, easy to carry, and a proven workhorse.
Here's PCMag video review of last year's model.
Further Reading
The Link LonkAugust 22, 2020 at 02:18AM
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Living with a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2020) - PCMag
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