Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review | Hacker News Reader

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review

thinkscopes.com

66 pointsw1ntermute83 comments

I really wanted to consider the X1 Carbon this last spring but two things stopped me. The function row and the 8GB RAM.

I ended up with a w540 - it has 2880x1620px 15.4" screen and the battery life has been great under Ubuntu (5-6hrs) if a bit less than it gets under Windows (6-7hrs). But I got 16GB of RAM and it can go up to 32GB.

I got my Gen1 Carbon X1 -laptop two years ago, and remember wondering how on earth they could release such a great piece of hardware with such a crappy 8GB RAM limit.

And exactly one year ago also tweeted (https://twitter.com/pyrylahti/status/420565944776155136) about the crappiness of the 2nd generation 8GB-limit.

Aaaand.. third time's no charm either. I'd upgrade in a heart beat if it had more memory (otherwise it's the best laptop I've used). Probably have to start googling for an alternative hardware (for running Xubuntu). sigh...

I'm also disappointed at the 8GB ram.

As someone that programs in R it is also a no go for me.

I have been using w540 with 2880x1620px for about year and I really like it. Everything works well with Ubuntu 14.04. My only complaint is mouse buttons are merged with trackpad buttons, but I don't use trackpad because it gets in a way when typing. So if I disable the trackpad, I cannot use point-mouse in the keyboard.

> My only complaint is mouse buttons are merged with trackpad buttons

TrackPoint buttons are back in the W550.

My MBP Retina is similarly powerful, 16G, and gets 10 hours of browsing or document editing.

Also heats up like crazy and battery life goes to about 1.5-2hrs if all cores are used. I don't get the powerful part if you aren't using the power.

I haven't had this experience at least. I get about 7 hours if I'm doing light web browsing, and about 3.5 if I'm working (Xcode + Parallels running Win7 which is running CodeComposer). First gen MBPr.

10 hours with OSX or with Linux? Linux is known to have a poorer power performance than win or osx.

How long does it take to replace the drive?

The SSD? 15 minutes not including how long it takes for you to order a replacement SSD on eBay and a pentalibe screwdriver.

Ugh...

Pretty decent review. Glad to see Lenovo have back-peddled on the idiotic changes in their last generation (namely the keyboard/trackpad issues).

The ethernet thing seems lame however. Why must you buy a special card? They should have just left it off and instead given you another USB port in my view.

I can explain this one!

1) It's a proprietary adapter because the laptop's too slim for an RJ45.

2) It's onboard because you can't PXE boot it from Wi-Fi

3) External USB docks/NICs could also fix #2, but since each dock/NIC has a distinct MAC, you can't have a nice 1:1 MAC:Workstation relationship for provisioning via PXE anyways

#2 and #3 are what prevented our company from bulk-ordering the first generation as our go-to office laptop, since its lack of on-board ethernet wouldn't work cleanly with MS SCCM, which was a shame, since it hit every other need pretty perfectly.

> It's onboard because you can't PXE boot it from Wi-Fi

That isn't a technical limitation of Wi-Fi or PXE. For it to work the Wi-Fi has to be setup as part of the pre-boot environment (BIOS/UEFI). For example as far as I can tell my Mac mini can do this.

Given that Lenovo like to pull authorization stunts with internal wifi cards (refusing to work with models that aren't blessed) they could make this work.

Yup! Lenovo could have done it, but didn't implement it.

Admittedly, there's not a standardized way to do it either:

Macs actually save Wi-Fi AP details into SMC or NVRAM (can't recall which) which is why wireless connectivity is accessible without setup when in the BIOS and recovery modes, but there's no analogous part in standard IBM-compatible PCs.

Speculating, but this avenue could hypothetically be a security issue too if it's not secured well: attackers could extract confidential AP details without having to bypass full-disk encryption, or attack live RAM.

"... but there's no analogous part in standard IBM-compatible PCs."

EFI variables are persistent and accessible from the pre-boot environment.

The reason for the ethernet adapter is height. Fancy laptops like this one are thinner than RJ-45 sockets are tall.

Why they give you a special plug rather than USB, I don't know. I could speculate- for example, USB 2.0 is 480Mbps, which means you cannot have 1Gbps ethernet without a special USB 3.0 adapter.

...and I sincerely hope that 8GB is not the maximum memory.

Sorry friend, this is the case. There must only be one slot.

Interesting note re: RAM choices ... if you select the i5-5200U CPU on the Lenovo US website then you are allocated 4GB of RAM and have no option to select 8GB. The mid-range CPU (i5-5300U) allows you to select either 4GB or 8GB. Finally, if you select the i7-5600U then you are allocated 8GB and can't select 4GB.

There's no slots. Memory is soldered.

I wonder if it's technically useful or if it's a commercial move. I have an Ideapad Y470 (a model from 3 years ago), and I got the impression they tried to limit the RAM below what the hardware could run, maybe because they want to segment the market in a certain way.

The customization page on their website only allowed 8GB of memory and the user manual explicitly stated that the maximum RAM was 8GB. I bought 16GB after reading users reporting that it worked fine, and I can confirm: it works fine. I push it to the limit all the time.

Then again, it might just be that new RAM chips came out after the laptop did, and I might just be conspiracy-theorizing.

This is the logic board on the 2014 15" rMBP: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/PmBmFGBkmnHDvEpo.h.... It's wedged between the fans and the batteries, and there's memory on both sides. If you make the board larger to put in SO-DIMM slots, you lose either battery or cooling capacity. The rMBP manages to fit a 15.4" screen and a 95Whr battery in 4.5 pounds. I've never seen an upgradable laptop that fits that much battery into that weight class.

The RAM is soldered on, per the article.

Which begs the question, could they have offered a 16GB option?

I'm pretty sure Broadwell supports 16GB, but it may take extra board space and thus not physically fit in the X1.

or the x16 chips are still too expensive.

you have to upgrade the processor to even get the option of 8gb I found when ordering this just now.

IIUC, the X1 is the "business-lite" line - the T4XXs are the ultrabooks with ethernet, docking ports, and (at least on my T431s) a VGA port. They've just decided there's a market segment that prefers a thinner laptop without an ethernet port.

I'm guessing that most consumers don't care about ethernet. Those who do can often be using a docking station when they want it.

>The ethernet thing seems lame however.

Because an ethernet port is bigger than that computer.

Anyone have experience running Linux on this 2015 model? In the market for a new laptop and love that trackpoint.

I think it goes to show how slowly culture changes in hardware manufacturing that this isn't a checkbox feature that is in the press kit for new model releases.

From looking at the parts list, it seems like it ought to be reasonably easy to install and run linux ( even the WWAN card looks like it should work with the right drivers ) and yet it's not mentioned. It seems like they are missing out on a core market segment by not slapping a Linux Foundation badge on their website or box saying known to work with Kernel Version x.x and up. Or failing that I think both Canonical and Redhat would be glad to have their logo on there and all three orgs would only need a couple of days to validate on a pre-release model.

I assume it's just reflecting the harsh reality of desktop linux marketshare, which is somewhere below Windows Vista.

Looks like Canonical at least is doing that: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201411-16196/

"awarded the status of Certified Pre-Install for Ubuntu"

"Certification notes: Hibernate is not working on this system"

Be wary of Ubuntu's certification. I have a Lenovo X140e. It's certified to work with no issues[1], but I spent months fixing basic things like graphics acceleration and screen brightness. Though it has an 802.11n card, wifi transfers at G speeds. I still can't get Bluetooth to work. The X1's all-Intel hardware should fare better, but I'd still recommend waiting for a Linux-centric review before ordering.

1. http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201309-14195/

@ggreer, I have pretty much the same latop (e145) and I still have issue with video (free driver), for example the video quality in HD is very bad. Most of the power is handled by the processor and not by the video card... Did you find any solution ?

Did you get a preinstalled system? They make quite clear that standard images might not work with certain hardware which sounds exactly like what you are experiencing?

I tried, but I'm not sure Lenovo ever actually offered the X140e with Ubuntu preinstalled. The option isn't available on Lenovo's website. When customizing the order, OS choices are all Windows. I ended up buying over the phone, but couldn't get a Linux preinstall that way either. The person on the other end was just filling out a form similar to the one on the website.

Since I couldn't get Ubuntu preinstalled, I made sure to order the exact hardware specified on Ubuntu's certification page: A4-5000 APU, BCM43142 Wifi/Bluetooth, etc. I also updated the BIOS to the latest version, which had fixes for Linux.

I realize I was rather unlucky. The X140e is not a popular piece of hardware. Next time, I'll be sure to pick something widely used.

As part of Ubuntu certification if an altered image is used then we supply that to the OEM. So Lenovo was given an image for the X140e - that's why the Cert page specifies a vendor image.

You have to request that image from the manufacturer. Probably through their support process. I don't know how it works for Lenovo.

The reason this happens is because hardware revisions and Linux kernel, and OS releases (e.g Ubuntu) are not in sync with each other. Eventually the changes for each hardware certification flows into the Ubuntu LTS release for that time. So, they probably went into 12.04.2 in this case. But, in some rare cases it's not possible for all changes to be taken - so generally it's best to get the preinstall image.

Yes, modern Linux kernel might have pretty much everything to run this laptop's hardware, however it is likely a very different story when it comes to graphical desktop compatibility.. considering it'll need upscaling to quad HD resolution, many Linux GUI's might struggle with that..

I'm using Debian on a Retina MacBook Pro 13" with very similar specs for some months now with Xfce and my own HiDPI theme and it works very well. Here's some documentation on it: http://mntmn.com/Hipster%20Linux

There was a specific mention of Linux support in one of the spec tables toward the top of the article.

I'm also interested - return of function keys and three discrete mouse buttons.

If linux is not working out of the box, I imagine it'll be working in short order, given it's a thinkpad.

It isn't even being manufactured yet (that is a pre-release unit). So, no. It is safe to say nobody has that experience.

> It isn't even being manufactured yet (that is a pre-release unit). So, no. It is safe to say nobody has that experience.

The lenovo website says this exact model ships in 5-7 days [1].

[1] http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-ca...

Glad they smartened up, I ordered a top of the line one last year, opened the box... spent 15 minutes swearing as I packed it back up to send it back.

I have been a Mac guy since 2008, I wanted to get off the apple train and get a Lenovo as I loved Lenovo... only to find myself sitting here with another mac.

Replacing F1 keys with a touch bar? Really? Losing the Caps lock? No clue what they were thinking.

You actually use your caps lock key? I can't remember the last time I used mine and since I was never a Sun guy, I don't even bind it to Ctrl.

Not being snarky, just curious.

I find Caps Lock quite useful - about half the time when I have login problems, a simple tap on Caps Lock key fixes the issue...

If you are used to binding caps lock to ctrl, the lack of that key is critical. I find it hard to do anything serious on machines without it now...

That's fair. I was assuming the parent commenter implied he or she used their caps lock key for its designed purpose, which in hindsight was perhaps an erroneous assumption.

I swap my left alt and ctrl keys to get anything done, mainly because I ctrl a lot and its useful to do that with my thumb. I can't imagine using caps for it, it is in such a bad position for frequent use.

i use the caps lock key all the time (though you wouldn't know it reading my HN comments...)

any time i need to type more than 3 capital letters in a row, i hit caps lock. i type at 140+ wpm so holding down shift while typing reduces my speed by a significant amount. it's easier to hit caps lock and then hit it again when i'm done. it doesn't take any time.

examples of needing caps lock:

$LONG_VARIABLE_OR_CONST_NAMES

LABELS IN DIAGRAMS AND CODE:

3. CERTAIN FORMS LIKE PURCHASE ORDERS AND INVOICES ARE TRADITIONALLY IN ALL CAPS (QTY 2)

IMPORTANT NOTES IN MEMOS!!! to myself and others

i use it at least a half dozen times a day.

Seriously. I have one of these at work.. the keyboard even after almost a year is unusable.

I bought my T430 (N1T56PB) on August 2013. 10 months later "Tab" key fell off. 2 months later "A" key fell off and few months ago another one - "S". Currently "E" is the one that behaves a bit differently and surely will be the next one to fall off.

At the beginning I thought that these islandish keyboards aren't that bad, but after a year I'm sure they are total crap, which shouldn't be put in stuff that costs $1500+.

Previously I owned R61 (NF55WPB), which was surely lower-end laptop and I didn't have any problems with keyboard for 3 years that I spent using it (until NVS140m exhibited its factory problem and I have no longer seen anything on the screen).

I think the keyboard on my T430s is the best keyboard I have ever used. It feels perfect to use. I love it and I get annoyed with anyone else's laptop. I haven't had any of your problems.

Happy to see someone other than Apple adopting PCIe SSDs. Hearing that "read speeds reached 1350+ MB/s" is pretty freaking awesome! Crazy to see the difference between PCIe SSD and SATA SSD.

  Crystal Mark - Disk Mark

                    X1 Carbon Gen 3         X1 Carbon Gen 2
  Sequential Read   1362 MB/s (+161.11%)    521.6 MB/s
  Sequential Write  1227 MB/s (+394.16%)    248.3 MB/s
  512k Read         992.7 MB/s (+118.42%)   454.5 MB/s
  512k Write        1230 MB/s (+5224.67%)   23.1 MB/s
  4k Read           43.51 MB/s (+41.27%)    30.8 MB/s
  4k Write          96.15 MB/s (+2.83%)     93.5 MB/s

Apple has an (evil?) custom interface, so you can't just buy and plug-in an off-the-shelf PCIe SSD, like the new Samsung SM951.

It has started to become more common. My current laptop has one PCIe-style and one SATA style (for a SSD and HDD respectively). It is a year old and an Asus.

Old touchpad is back? Wonderful news. Damn i feel bad about upgrading to t440s now.

I'm searching around seeing if I can somehow replace the awful t440s touchpad. It's just so awful. I'm glad I rarely use it (emacs + tiling wm) but I'd love to use touchpoint more easily.

I would have killed if this was the Haswell x1, then I wouldn't have had to buy this t440s last year.

This machine with 16GB of RAM would probably be a good replacement for my current laptop. I only wish it didn't have the proprietary 'onelink' and 'ethernet' connectors, I know that those will go away and later this laptop will not be nearly as useful to me with just the single USB 3 port for stuff like RPI's, Bus Pirates, etc.

what you want is a t450s

Yes indeed, that is the machine for me.

T450s comes with 4GB RAM soldered: you can either have total of 8GB RAM dual-channel or 12 GB single-channel (don't do it).

X1 Carbon Gen 2 was Lenovo's Vista.

Currently I have a 2013 Macbook Air, which I'm happy with everything about except for a) the keyboard, which I find too shallow and harsh for extended typing, and b) Office for Mac, which is a terrible substitute for the real thing. I'd be interested in getting this or the new Thinkpad Yoga, does anyone know how the keyboards compare? Obviously with the new models the keyboards may be improved compared to last gen but how good can a keyboard on an ultra-thin like the X1 be?

How is the Broadwell CPU in it compared to Haswell chips in performance? It might say Core i7 but I thought Broadwell was basically a warmed over Atom processor. Performance from Broadwell on inexpensive tablets and laptops has not been great from what I read (battery life is of course quite good).

Broadwell is the 14nm shrink of Haswell. The inexpensive Broadwell parts haven't had steller performance, but that's because they're TDP limited to 4.5W, or Atom territory.

You're probably thinking of the M series Broadwell chips. The Core i series isn't really out yet, but I think it should be comparable (and more efficient) than the Haswell i7 chips...

I think you are talking about Bay Trail, which powers the low end Chromebooks and is a replacement for the Haswell Celeron, not Broadwell in general. The new Bay Trail chips are indeed horribly slow compared to last gen Haswell Celerons (i.e. the one in Acer C720).

Ahh, that's probably it. Thanks!

There is an even better review at Notebook Check:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X...

FYI -- this is for the 2014 model, not the just released 2015 model.

That gaming performance chart is "special." Considering how old some of those games are, and considering other laptops do much MUCH better with only their integrated graphics, it could be a little better.

But of course nobody buys a Carbon for gaming. Even a T series is better for that (particularly with the GPU upgrade).

I want a linux notebook. I have been waiting this for a while. but none of the review mentions linux comparability. The thing I mostly care about is the trackpad. Macbook's trackpad is just too great.

The Thinkpad X1 Carbon is, hands down, the best Linux laptop (IMO). But it was completely ruined in by the keyboard/mouse in Gen 2. Now that Gen 3 has fixed that, the X1C is king of the hill again.

    Macbook's trackpad

I'm a trackpoint guy, so avoid trackpads...

I have a gen2, no trackpad problem under arch. (I'm guessing ubuntu would work out of the box). I see no reason why gen3 would be different.

More generally, it's intel based so the linux experience is pretty solid.

There's a spec table toward the top of the article that specifically mentions Linux support (though that's a bit vague).

Can anyone here confirm if the X1 can run a Vagrant box without issue on Windows? I've had problems before on some ultrabooks that I cant get a proper VM running.

Wish they had a removable battery.

Check out the X250 - it has both a built-in and removable battery, which enables hotswapping.

But its screen is <13". Not really an apt comparison. I'd think the T450s would be a more suitable alternative.

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