Comment by 12ian34 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 12ian34 | Hacker News Reader

I have an X1 Carbon (6th or 7th gen, I forget) and I love it. I've handled dozens of other laptops and tried out loads at shops and nothing else feels as good to me. It ticks so many boxes for me:

- Dual boots Arch and Windows perfectly, never had issues.

- Several years old but still faster than I need with the i7, NVMe SSD and 16 GB memory.

- Soft plastic non metallic feel, doesn't get too hot or cold, fan only rarely comes on and it's way quieter than pre M1 MacBooks

- Feels like the lightest performance laptop I've ever used.

- The PERFECT laptop keyboard. Love the travel, love the dim click, love the positioning of every key, love the dedicated home, end, page up, page down, delete keys. Love the physical left, middle and right click buttons and of course the nipple for comedy factor (however the trackpad obviously sucks relative to MacBooks).

- Lid opens and closes easily.

- Perfect connectivity options, two USB C (PD, Thunderbolt, ethernet), 2/3 USB A, HDMI, microSD, SD.

- Matte screen.

- Physical camera slider.

I understand the latest X1 Carbons have most if not all of these features.

> Perfect connectivity options, two USB C (PD, Thunderbolt, ethernet), 2/3 USB A, HDMI, microSD, SD.

I miss USB-A ports on MacBooks. Every indication is I'll still miss them in 2025. Perhaps by 2030 it will seem like an OK choice.

I don't miss dedicated Thunderbolt ports, whatever those were called. Like they had on 2015 and earlier MacBooks. Replacing those with thunderbolt-capable USB-C ports is absolutely an improvement, and the right call for Thinkpads, too.

Short USB-C to USB-A converter cables aren't that hard to find.

I'd rather see laptops get rid of HDMI ports and put in more USB-C ports instead.

I'll just second everything said here. I have the same setup, mine is 2 years old, I think it's gen 7 maybe 8. I can't add anything else said here. It's solid.

I also have a 7th gen X1 Carbon, and love it. The keyboard is excellent and the 14" 1440p screen is my ideal setup.

I have a 7th generation as well. I had an issue with screen flicker, but I sent it back and the fixed it promptly (for free) and its been fine since.

Otherwise, its been very good. I used this guide to set up the dual boot with https://www.mikekasberg.com/blog/2020/04/08/dual-boot-ubuntu..., with some small changes because that is a dell machine.

I have the UHD display and the type is a bit small, but the scaling works well.

The only thing that is a little flaky is the fingerprint reader. The battery, with Ubuntu, is not great, but fine for my uses.

> I understand the latest X1 Carbons have most if not all of these features.

Definitely not all of them. They key travel and (I think) keyboard size have been reduced recently, Ethernet adapter is no longer included, matte option is only available for cheaper low-resolution screen options.

Since all laptop manufacturers are heavily influenced by trends set by Apple, I really hope that recent changes to MacBook Pro (bigger dimensions, more weight, return of old keyboard design) will make Lenovo reconsider in their mindless pursuit of kneecapping their designs to shave off some additional 30 grams of weight.

I am still using my X1 Carbon 2nd generation. Q4OS for the operating system (https://q4os.org/) and DWM for window manager (https://dwm.suckless.org/). Works great!

I’ve got a 6th gen and also absolutely love it. Also dual booting Linux/windows (95% use Linux) and it’s never let me down. Everything “just works” and I treat it like crap yet it keeps trudging along.

It’s the only non-Apple laptop I’ve ever loved.

Same here. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my 7th generation X1C. Perhaps more than any laptop I've previously owned. I've had no problems with it whatsoever. I've been running Ubuntu on it since the day it arrived.

+1

I have a X1 Carbon 5th gen and it's awesome. No issues at all running Fedora and Windows. I'll likely buy the newest version next year to replace it.

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