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I’m getting a used x1 carbon 5th gen for 185 USD.
It’s an i7 6600u, with 8GB of ram, and a 256GB ssd.
I will mostly use it for light video editing at 1080p. I’m also bringing it with me when I travel overseas so its light weight seems appealing. Is this a good choice?
Hey all, currently eyeing an X1 Carbon i5 5th Gen used for about a hundred dollars. is it still worth in 2025? I'm a IT student and mostly just looking for something light I can carry around to code and browse on. I have a desktop setup as well so I'm also planning on using it as a Parsec machine if I need to do some heavier tasks. Thoughts?
A little exposition: This review is for anyone looking for an honest user's perspective of the X1C5, or anyone who's ever attempted to submit honest feedback [multiple times] on Lenovo.com and opened their mailbox to the sight of:
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Profession: Software Engineer
Reqs in a laptop: Great keyboard, powerful processing for compiling, fast, able to support multiple VMs
X1 Config: i5 7330U (i7 speed diff. seems negligible in laptops/not worth the price or heat), 16GB RAM, orig. 125GB SATA (replaced with Samsung 960 EVO 500GB)
I've had the X1C5 for two months now and am pretty pleased. I really wanted the 470s, but Lenovo kept delaying its release and I needed a computer.
Pros:
Keyboard: The keyboard is, surprisingly, phenomenal!!! I tested the keyboard of a Gen 4 last year and said I'd never buy one of these because of the lack of travel (I enjoy Cherry MX Green switches, btw). However, this keyboard feels better, IMO, than the 460s I tested. I'm not sure if the travel is deeper than a 460s, but there's a solid feel (and beautifully rich, "muffled thud") with each keypress and I'm not bottoming-out like I did with the Gen 4.
Mouse: The trackpad works great after disabling the Edge Filtering and palm guards. I've never been a trackpoint person, but after making it more sensitive, I enjoy using it more than the trackpad.
Weight: Unbelievably light. All of the propaganda about "forgetting it's in my bag" is true.
Tactility: It feels great! From the press and deep, solid sound of the keys and trackpad clicks, to the material it's made of, it just feels good to use and hold.
Battery: Decent/Good lifespan: I can get 6-7 hours of an active VM (Ubuntu Gnome, 4 CPUs, 5GB RAM with 20-30 tabs between its Firefox and Chrome instances, 10-15 tabs in the host FF) before hitting the 30-25% mark, where it often claims it can go another 2 or 3 hours though the remaining time diminishes rather quickly (30-45 mins). At 100% brightness, with an external backlit keyboard, mouse and HDMI monitor running Spotify, SublimeText and Chrome Dev Tools debugging/multiple page refreshes, I saw about 8-9 hours before hitting 10%.
Battery: FULL Recharge time is roughly 1.5 - 2 hours. (The indicator will look full and the USB-C light will turn green around 1 hour, but hovering over the battery taskbar icon in Windows will enlighten you that you still have "X min to full charge" before it's actually 100%.)
Screen: The screen brightness at 100% is okay in Windows, but brighter in Linux (Lubuntu on a persistent USB). Either way, I'm pleased.
Fan: The fan normally stays off/runs quiet, save for a quick huff of air when some apps start. If it seems to come on a lot, it's generally due to Windows needing a restart. Win 10 likes to perform updates in the background and not restarting can impact performance.
Fan: I can use 2 VMs (Ubuntu Gnome and Win7, 4 CPUS and 5GB RAM each) simultaneously without the fan turning on -- depending on what I run inside them, of course, as not to trigger ~20% CPU utilization (see below).
Cons:
Ethernet: The Ethernet dongle isn't included, although I see unboxing videos on YouTube where it is included for some (seemingly non-U.S. countries). The graphical insert that came in my box distinctly indicated that the dongle wasn't included. What a rip!
WWAN: No WWAN capability option for the earlier/March models.
Mouse: The trackpoint doesn't hold its speed setting after I use the trackpad. Any time I use the trackpad, the trackpoint resets to the middle speed/sensitivity (sometimes the setting's tick mark relocates, sometimes it doesn't) and becomes hard to move until I update it again. Most recently, the same happens where the trackpoint middle-scroll button stops working until I reopen the mouse properties window. This still happens even after the 5/9/17 Synaptics update. VERY annoying!
Airflow: It needs more vents/better venting: the only vent is 2" from the right edge and gets covered by your thigh. People actually place LAP-tops on their laps... go figure.
Fan: The fan stays on consistently whenever CPU load hits ~17-20%. I see this often when using Chrome's Dev tools and with Windows' "background" updates (TiWorker process).
Audio: The speakers are in a poor position (beneath the front lip) and are easily muffled when the computer is on your lap.
Audio: The speakers also intermittently distort, even at lower levels (<50%, which is surprisingly loud for this laptop). Often it's with a live stream, sometimes it's the Windows asterisk sound, other times it's at random when audio starts, but increasingly often I get that scratchy, distorted rasp. It even causes my TV's speakers to distort when using Miracast with a Roku stick. If I have a VM up when the computer sleeps, it always emits a loud, 3-second buzz when I wake it up, and any VM audio is distorted until I close the VM window.
Backlight: The keyboard backlighting is disappointing. The first setting is so dim that it's only useful in mostly/absolute dark areas, although the second is better in dim-lit areas. There should've been a third, brighter setting. The light appears very bright to anyone who can see underneath the keys from an angle (and in the X1 ads), but dull from the user's POV. It also warms up the bottom of the computer but I don't know if that's normal, this being my first backlit laptop.
Aesthetics: Keep a clean cloth handy, this thing is an OIL MAGNET!! Nothing makes a ~$2000 machine look cheap like superfluous fingerprints and oil smears on the keyboard, palm rests, and especially, trackpad (which requires Rubbing Alcohol to get rid of its "shine"). The nice material Lenovo uses ironically comes at the cost of its appearance.
Bezel: Also keep a cloth to clean the screen of key markings. With the thin bezel, anytime your laptop rubs/presses against something else while the lid is closed the screen will collect markings from the keyboard and trackpoint. I keep my X1 in a neoprene sleeve, even when inside that Lenovo Professional bag, and it gets markings every time I carry the sleeve in-hand or in the bag with a second laptop.
Power Cord: The extension cord is just over 9 ft., which is 2 ft. shorter than the cord for my job's HP Elitebook. 9 ft. sounds long, but it leads to a levitating cord/swinging power block if the laptop is "too far" from the outlet (e.g. Middle of a table/couch vs. the edge). However, the shorter part of the cable is the detachable end so this may be easily remedied.
Personal Taste: The disproportionate width of the machine detracts from the impressiveness of its thin size. Looking at it from the side, it's short and sexy. Then you get in front of it and it's nearly as large as every other 14"-er on the market. Give me a 13.3" X1 Carbon anywhere close to the footprint of an XPS 13, THEN I'll be impressed. I would've settled on the Thinkpad 13 but its bezel is just as wide as the 14" Thinkpads (what's the point, might as well be 14"). And of course the 470s is more proportionate to its screen, but the release date kept slipping, so here I am.