The author who uses Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1
To call it by its full name, this is “Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Intel Aura Edition” – a name for as long as it will not enter a Forbes title. The last and largest generation of X1 Carbon has the latest Lunar Lake processor of Intel. My testing system came specified with Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, which is somewhere in the middle of the Intel line. He also came with 32 GB of RAM; Lenovo offers this model only in 16 GB or 32 GB configurations, because with Lake Lake Memory is on the chip, so there is no way to improve beyond that. I would not necessarily recommend a 16 GB configuration, especially as this is the minimum for a copy Copilot+ – and hungry memory applications are growing daily.
The configuration sent to me is not available on Lenovo’s website because mine has 512 GB of storage space, while the site sells this model with minimum 1 tb, so I would assume that this specification tested would come out somewhere around $ 2,300. To get rid of the very long name, I renamed my computer to the “carbon aura”. (No, I can’t resist a delicious food word game.)
Design and Thinkpad X1 carbon materials
To begin with the knockout feature of this car, this is undoubtedly the most absurd light laptop I have ever used. This aspect is so pronounced that he has spoiled me; Now, whenever I get another computer (even other Lenovo laptops), everyone feels thus heavy. To say otherwise, there have been times when I forgot that this laptop was in my backpack.
The 14 -inch mollusk is made clear with premium materials and laptop has a very professional appearance with the traditional Thinkpad brand, including the red lighting point on the outside, the Trackpoint keyboard and a glass touch keyboard. Talking about the touch keyboard, I think it’s the perfect size for a 14 -inch notebook and I like the physical right and left click buttons for accuracy. So, I would like the touch keyboard to have the best step to match the quality of the keyboard, which I found fantastic to write. The keyboard also has one of the fingerprint sensors most located in the industry; This synaptics sensor lies only to the right of the Copilot button. Chassis is wrapped in a soft touch material that I personally like, though some people dislike it because it can be a magnet for visible fingerprints.
The screen is a gorgeous 14 -inch OLED with a 120 Hertz refresh rate, though this laptop is predetermined with a 60 Herz screen – is likely to reduce battery consumption. (OLED generally tends to have a greater impact on battery life than IPS LCD.) The resolution is 2.8k, which is great for almost any laptop size, but especially for a 14 -inch laptop. The screen also has a respectable glow of 400 nits and 100% dci-p3 color palette, plus I like its anti-glitter dress. That is how, it would be good if it could shine for better use in nature.
Part of the screen is a camera with Lenovo firm, which includes a 1080p video camera and a set of Windows Helo cameras. While their performance is on the same level as the rest of the industry, I think it’s time for Lenovo to improve the quality of the Internet camera in 5 MP or more, as this is an executive laptop and competitors, including HP, have made 5 MP as default in many of their high -level notebooks. The webkamera also comes standard with a privacy lattice, which deactivates both the webkamera and the Windows Helo.
Connecting and storage
Storage space of 512 GB – there are also configurations 1 tb and 2 tb – supplied by a SSD SK Hynix Gen 5, which means you can benefit from faster interface technology and drives, which should be a must on such a laptop premium. I have tested the sequential reading speed to 14 GB/S, which is respectful for an SSD OEM Gen 5, but it has made me a little less impressed by the 7 GB/S writing speed, which is more similar to Gen 3. This is especially important for anyone who transfers large files from a USB disk, an external disk or even a camera.
Speaking of file transfers, this laptop has four generous USB ports, including two USB-C thunderbolt 4 and two full-size 5GBPS USB connectors. USB-C connectors are both on the left side, which I believe is a mistake, but it probably makes the thunderbolt signal easier on the PCB. I strongly believe that each laptop should have a USB-C port on each side for charging. I can’t describe you how many times on many laptops I had to run the charging cable strangely because I had no USB-C Slota available on both sides.
The laptop also has an HDMI 2.1 port, which supports the resolution of up to 4k60, along with a combined headphone/microphone nest. I don’t know how long the HDMI output ports will have, but I hope they eventually pass in favor of another USB-C connector. All this said, I noticed that when using compatible cables with 40 gbps and thunderbolt 5, memory card transfers were not as fast as with my desktop, which reaches the northern speed of 800 Mb/s in a card reader 10 GBPS. This laptop was between 600 and 700, just like the rest of the laptops I tested.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in this car are powered by an Intel EU201 2×2 chip, which combines Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 7. This chip is usually joined by Intel with its CPUs and OEMs generally use it Because it is a good solution that is also a performer in most configurations.
This laptop contains a very effective 65 watt charging solution that Lenovo claims to offer an 80% charging per hour. I discovered that this was an extremely valuable feature because I was very bad in regular laptop charging due to their long battery life, and an 80% charging is more than a full day of work. The nice thing is that the 65 watt default charger is extremely small and light, weighing only 9 ounce, half of which comes from the cables. So put it, you need to get enough battery life from this system that you may not need to carry the charger with you every day. The power of readiness on this laptop is also very good, so you do not need to fill it every night, or you can charge it and return to it within a few days (or even weeks) without worrying that it is dead. . Traditionally, this was one of my biggest concerns for most PCs with Windows, but has finally been addressed by most chip and OEMs of PCs. The lunar lake is especially good for this; I believe that its quality in this field has probably been driven by the desire to match the crazy battery life of Apple and Qualcomm.
Thinkpad X1 Carbon performance
The Core Ultra 7 258V processor is a balanced choice for good battery life and good performance. This CPU has a strong one -core performance in Geekbench 6 tests, at the same level with many of the Snapdragon systems I have tested, and beat the ASUS Zenbook S 16 using the 370Hx AMD processor. (For more context, see my review for that Zenbook.) However, in multi -core performance at the same standard, this Intel processor lasted behind the package by 10% to 20%, which means it can face some multi -thread applications compared to competition. As a business laptop, X1 Carbon Aura Edition should be fast and compatible, so CPU performance is essentially the most important thing, more than GPU or AI performance. Because this is a Lunar Lake platform, the Windows Copilot+ skills are still in the survey, but they are likely to reach a wider audience soon.
In a rare obstacle to this laptop, I found that Wi-Fi 7 performance on an MLO network was inconsistent and slower than with comparable laptops. Leaving MLO and going directly to Wi-Fi 6 Gigighertz exclusively, the performance was much more in line with competition. Personally, I would recommend Wi-Fi 6 gigahertz if your router is quite good because there is much less intervention and much more spectrum, but if your device is capable of MLO, it offers the best of both worlds As you can be at the same time in both 5-Gigighertz and 6-Gigighertz, plus improves the lap and range in 6-Gigighertz as well. After making comparisons with another unit from Lenovo to CES, I believe that some of the problems with Wi-Fi with which I could have been specific to my test device.
Battery life and durability
The battery life of this device is quite good – I would say one of the best I have seen from the Intel Lunar Lake platforms, even when using an OLED screen. That is to say, this is also part of a more mature wave of Lunar Lake equipment; I look forward that battery life will continue to improve while Intel improves the optimization of its platform. The laptop has a 57 Whr battery, which is also replaceable by clients. I believe this is great to keep the device in service for a long time, which is essentially the best way to be green. I’m not completely surprised that this laptop has only one 57 whr battery, though this puts it in the same class as Microsoft Surface 7 and HP Ultras Elitebook, which are cars based on Snapdragon that have similar performance but battery even better. life. (I have written a comparative summary of some laptops of this kind, including the Surface Laptop 7 and the Ultra Elitebook, a few months ago.)
In addition to the user’s replaceable battery, the laptop came to the extremely “green” packaging, with almost everything in the package made of recyclable or durable materials, even to the laptop box handle and twisted ties to wrap the cables. No details were missing and it was evident that Lenovo made extra effort here – and deserves recognition for it.
An excellent comprehensive professional laptop
Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 Gen 13 Intel Aura Edition lives with the X1 Carbon series reputation offering one of the most stable laptops (Mil-SPEC 810G), lightweight and premium in the market. With Lunar Lake, an OLED screen and absurd light chassis and cooling solution, this was one of my favorite 2024 favorite laptops and a very easy recommendation for anyone looking for a well -balanced business notebook with very good specifications .