Ask HN: Is Thinkpad X1 Carbon an Alternative to MacBook Pro?
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's the experience?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I seem to suffer pretty badly from battery anxiety, so 8 hours is a bit of a dream :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
I don't care much for osx, but jeez it's a robust laptop.
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.
I'm carrying the weight, give me the real estate. I'm not one to run many full screens and swipe between them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The two-battery system is something I long for in other laptops.
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.
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.
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.
For Linux I went to an X1 Carbon with Ubuntu. I am not a Linux power user but it does everything for me fine.
I think I've maybe seen them in a Costco before too.
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.
Do your research before deciding on an exact model.
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.
I had to tweak one or two bios options for my X1 6th gen, the XPS 13 worked flawlessly out of the box.
To answer your question, it really depends whether you prefer using Linux or MacOS. I use MacOS at work and Linux at home and personally, I prefer using Linux.
A few important points: 1) Thinkpad displays are not great. They're usually kind of dim especially next to a Macbook Pro. 2) The keyboard on Thinkpad is much better. 3) The touchpad on Macbooks is superior but Thinkpads have 3 mouse buttons which are very handy for some graphics applications. 4) The speakers on my Thinkpad are bad. I have no idea if they've fixed them in the latest generation. 5) Thinkpad keyboards are spill-proof. 6) I love the matte screens of Thinkpad; the glossy screen of my Macbook annoys me.
- 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.
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.