Comment by rcarmo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rcarmo | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The X1s have been very much hit and miss over the years. I used several iterations and flavours, and can summarise things like so (apologies for not knowing the right numbers for some anymore, I had to return them):

- 2014 X1 Carbon: Amazing screen, so-so keyboard, great battery life. Heavy. Don't remember the fan noise.

- 2015 X1 Carbon: Horrible dim screen (yes, I know you can BTO an upgrade, but we got the defaults), good keyboard, too heavy, horrid battery life that was especially painful as I spent 2015/16 mostly on the road. Fan noise was a frequent nuisance when I was in my home office.

- 2022 X1 Yoga Gen 6 (https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/12/03/1600): Amazing display, good keyboard, nice weight, battery life seems OK for Windows but pretty short compared to my MacBook (as usual these days). Had to gimp it to have a quieter fan, and I've had days when my IdeaPad Flex 5 (which runs Fedora) lasts longer, which is just... odd.

As to the Carbon carrying an Intel Ultra... I really like Lenovo, but I bought an IdeaPad Flex 5 with my own money because it used an AMD CPU. Still haven't regretted the multi-core performance, or the iGPU (which was pretty great for that time).

X1 Nano Gen 1: Near perfect form factor, super light and thin without compromising on keyboard too much. Great screen and Linux compatibility. Disappointing CPU (Tiger Lake), thermals, and battery life.

I can use it without CPU and battery. This way I can have all the benefits and none of the disappointment.

I wish I could just give mine a low-power Ryzen or ARM brain transplant, which might reduce power usage enough to squeeze more life out of its battery.

Frustrating that Lenovo do not offer Linux as a default OS choice. I'd think Lenovo want to get out from under the Windows boot themselves but they seem not to be advancing that possibility.

They don't? Ubuntu works outod the box so, qnd I thought you have / had the option to order some Lenovos with Ubuntu installed?

It's a bit of a mess, as it's not clear what and how they're doing it.

For example, the ThinkPad T14s AMD Gen 4 is officially Ubuntu certified, however:

- they've officially promised to ship Linux as an option, last year, but they didn't fulfill the promise

- if one tries to run the current LTS (Ubuntu 22.04), it hangs, presumably because such version still requires an OEM version

It's interesting how "officially supported" doesn't imply "runs out of the box with a stock OS image".

Ubuntu LTS has point releases that come with additional hardware enablement. Is it still an issue with 22.04.4, or was it issue with the original, now two years old 22.04 release?

When I've tested (December), it was the latest point release. By that time, it was already certified, so the certification must have been performed with an OEM release.

I can't exclude that it's fully supported by the latest dot release, but they should also release it in parallel as preconfigured option, so I'm not optimistic (and regardless, it's messy).

Lenovo have been offering preinstalled Ubuntu and fedora for years. Still so just checked.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bun...

Unfortunately not on any AMD model

The ThinkPad Z13 comes with Fedora---at least in Europe.

On some yoga models the IPU6 webcam doesn't work even on the pre-installed Ubuntu.

I have the 2022 X1 Yoga Gen 6 as well. I am not impressed by battery life. Watching a 4K movie can easily drain the battery form full charge.

The major issue is over heating. Unless I place some small item underneath it (think a lighter size) to make a 1 inch gab between the surface and the laptop it overheats to the point where it stops functions (e.g. movies starts to freeze up). With a bit a airflow underneath it this problem goes away. The casing can get really hot. Almost to the point where you burn yourself. Almost.

>Watching a 4K movie can easily drain the battery form full charge.

Something is terribly wrong with your 2022 laptop if a ~2h 4K movie can drain the whole battery. You should get the battery RMAd ASAP if it's still in warranty or check whatever energy vampires you might have running or maybe a bad driver setup.

I have a cheap-ass Lenovo Yoga and watching a 4k movie drops the battery only by about 10% per hour, so something is definitely wrong with yours.

ok that is interesting and far away from my experience. Yes, it still under warranty. I will create a ticket with lenovo

I just tested yesterday. Playing blue-ray from disk using VLC. It too 72 minutes for the battery to go from 100 to zero.

> Watching a 4K movie can easily drain the battery form full charge.

Are you streaming or playing a Blu-ray? Either way, can you provide software used for comparison to other platforms? If streaming, are you on WiFi or wired connection?

I download the blue-ray movies to disk and play from there using VLC

That’s helpful to know. I am surprised that the battery life isn’t higher in that case, but I can’t think of anything I would do differently to improve it, to be honest.

That is part of the reason why I gimped it. The details are in my post someplace (linked above), but essentially I throttled it.

X1 Carbon Gen 7 (bought in 2019): I mildly dislike the thinner keys compared to Gen 6 (tried a friend's copy). On the plus side, I got the nice middle-ground 2560×1440 LCD screen option, which was discontinued a year or two after I bought the computer, which I think forces people to get either 1920×1080 or 3840×2160.

>Had to gimp it to have a quieter fan

Had to do the same with my IdeaPad Flex 5, which always felt super infuriating.

I ended up so frustrated with it that i've ultimatly caved and bought a macbook. I guess i'll have to stay on desktop machines for x86 until someone finally figures out how to make laptop that runs linux and stays silent under heavy load.

Funny, I have a Flex 5 as well, and never had to do anything to it. Then again that machine only runs Linux...

I have been using the 2016 X1 Carbon for 8 years now, shame the 2015 was a dud and you missed it by a year.

Only weighs 2.5 pounds, still gets 7+ hours on battery despite its age. The 1080p matte IPS display still looks good and fits the 14'' formfactor without being power hungry.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com