Been rocking Thinkpads since my T600 in the late 90s. At some point I switched to Carbon X1 models, getting the very first model, then a Gen 3, a Gen 6, and now typing on a Gen 10.

Perhaps this is old news, but I just wanted to provide my personal opinion on this disappointing machine:

I actually wasn't dissatisfied with my Carbon X1 Gen 6. For the work I do which is mostly web browsing and having a couple Office apps open, it kept up pretty well. That said, I would have to keep a very close eye on how many tabs my browser had open.

Going for the new gadget high and hoping I could pay more attention to my computing work and leisure and less attention to RAM usage, I got a top of the line Carbon X1 Gen 10 about 6 months ago.

First off, contrary to what I assumed would be true, the Carbon X1 is thicker and heavier than my Gen 6 - noticeably so. I mistakenly thought newer = lighter and thinner. Not so.

The performance is not that much better then my Gen 6 - especially considering it has 32GB of RAM instead of 16GB. I maybe pay a little less attention to the number of tabs I have open but I still have to restart Chome every so often.

The trackpoint drift is HORRIBLE. I wonder how many hours I've wasted waiting for the trackpoint to settle down so I could start using it again. It's particularly aggravating when you are doing detailed pointer work - say, entering things in a spreadsheet or checking off items in a QuickBooks reconciliation screen. The trackpoint will not stay still for any length of time. And, yes, I've tried all the "solves" listed on the internet.

The laptop has a serious cooling challenge. It's 74F in my house right now and it just shut down due to thermal overload an hour ago. I assure you, the laptop is either on a table or on a book when I'm using it so the fan intake is able to operate without obstruction.

I will say, the laptop takes a lot of abuse. If I am angry, I can type with as much force as I can muster and the keyboard doesn't give an millimeter. The thing has been knocked off my side table a couple times and has come up unscathed. The touchscreen comes in handy when I want to magnify something (getting old and my vision is getting worse).

All that said, I sorta want my $2K back. I expected more.

Warning: English is not my native language, so I asked an AI to rephrase my text a bit while keeping the original as much as possible. Sorry if this annoys anyone

Background: I bought a new Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen10 model on March 10, 2023, for ~2700 USD. Before this model, I owned a MacBook Pro 2019 and an ASUS Rog Strix G513 gaming laptop. This was my first and likely last model from Lenovo. Initially, I was very happy with this product.

My use cases for the laptop: Mostly software development, Browse the internet. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a workhorse that should handle things like:

• Support for modern code editors like vscode and Jetbrains (Goland, Rider, Android Studio), often multiple instances along with testing programs.

• Containers, emulators, and virtual machines (WSL/Hyper-V, Docker, Android emulators).

• Browsers, messengers, and related productivity tools.

Pros:

• The best keyboard on the market, IMHO. Even external mechanical keyboards like Keychron can't compare to the comfort and pleasant feel of working with the native one.

• Ergonomic body. 14 inches, pleasant to the touch, light, and thin. The dream and ideal of what a laptop should be.

• Many smart features like fingerprint reader and Face ID.

• Security features thanks to integration with Lenovo enterprise services.

• Compliance with protection standards (at least on paper, like water and dust resistance, etc.).

Cons:

• TERRIBLE, SILLY processor. It's literally incapable of doing anything. Under minimal load, it operates within 75-95 degrees Celsius, causing constant throttling.

• TERRIBLE battery life. Don't even dream of working for more than 2.5-3 hours on battery under MEDIUM load.

• AWFUL cooling performance. The fans practically don't cope even with medium load.

• Ultimately, the build quality didn't meet the expectations of reliability and quality that everyone praised so much. When opening the display, it creaks. The physical buttons above the touchpad can also sometimes make creaking sounds. After 2 years of use, the fan started making sounds similar to a duck quacking, and then completely failed.

• Awful speaker sound.

• Display brightness is insufficient, especially after the Retina screen on the MacBook Pro.

In the end, I am completely disappointed with this product. The CPU overheating issues are killing me... it has become a huge blocker for me and stopping my work, effectively turning the laptop from a "workhorse" into an "anchor" that, instead of performing its tasks and making my life productive, only poisons it.

The maximum it's good for is doing various tasks in a browser and watching videos. only then it can compete with other laptops from the cheap segment.

Analyzing the cost I paid for it, I get tilted and feel like I was scammed. For the same price now, I could have bought Apple products with ARM chips and gotten a performance increase of several hundred times, be able to work using battery at least 6h and it wouldn't burn my hands/legs. I would have excellent sound quality and could even run LLMs locally or play modern games on maximum settings (spoiler: the Thinkpad can't even launch simple indie games like Raft or Liar's Bar).

Who is to blame for this? I don't know. Maybe other Lenovo models are far better, and the main problem is the HORRIFIC Intel processors that have pissed me off so much that I will never buy their products again, no matter what they are. I've seen reviews that older Thinkpad X1 models with AMD processors work much better and more stably.

so finally conclusion: I've had enough suffering, and likely in the very near future, I will try to buy a new MacBook Pro with an M4 processor and forget all this like a bad dream. But for now, I am deeply disappointed.

P.S.: Yes, guys, I changed the thermal paste, perform regular cleanings, the laptop does not operate on unstable surfaces like in the bed.

I also tested all possible OS, including Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Chrome OS Flex. The last two performed particularly well, these problems weren't as obvious with them. But due to work, I am temporarily forced to use Windows.

Thanks to those who read this far. Share your experiences with the X1 line, it's very interesting to hear about

I recieved the machine about a week ago with i5-1240P, 16gb RAM, 512GB SSD and a FHD display. After testing and some normal usage, I returned it earlier today and decide to write what I experienced and my thoughts on this machine.

1. Design

The design of this machine is mostly the same with the previous gen 9 despite the reverse notch. The notch is well hidden when lid closed, but is clearly noticable when you open it. It looks pretty strange, and I hope that Lenovo could redesign it in the next generation.

The top cover has three different logos: a traditional black thinkpad logo, a printed X1 logo and a Lenovo logo. In my personal opinion, I think it is too messy and unnecessarily over-complicated. I would rather prefer the clean design on the P1 gen 2/3 with only the ThinkPad on it.

The palmrest area is also a problem for me. The ThinkPad and X1 logo on the bottom-right corner are taking too much space on such a thin machine, and when I move my right hand across during typing, the concaved X1 logo creates a strange feeling on my hand.

I do not have anything else to complain on this machine. It is mostly still a traditionally designed thinkpad, as it is used to be.

2. Build

The build quality is pretty decent. The machine is extremely lightweight but does not feel cheap. The build is sturdy. I tried to bend the keyboard area and the screen with some force, but the machine is rigid without any noticable twisting. I do not find any crack or dent on the machine. It feels different than the aluminium laptops I have owned previously - the unibody razerbook and macbook, but I would not be hesitated to call it one of the best ultrabooks regarding to build quality.

3. Ports & inputs

The machine has 2 USB type-c and 2 type-a as well as a HDMI output and a headphone jack. It is a ton more than what you can find on the other thin & light ultrabooks. I personally do not like the layout of the ports, as I would be more comfortable to have the headphone jack on my left and HDMI & type-a on my right. But I can clearly see the reason of the layout design as they are reserving space for the sim card slot on the right with the LTE modules.

The keyboard is clearly worse than my current P1 gen 2, but mostly comparable with my previous P1 gen 4. The travel is still pretty deep and firm, but the key caps are slightly unstable on the corners compared with the new macbook pro.

The trackpoint is nice. I do not have any issue with it, and I do not find the cursor floating around as in some older machines. The trackpad is something you find in all modern high-end thinkpads with nice glass surface. It feels pretty good, but not as good as the one on macbooks or the x1 titanium.

4. Performance

The performance of this machine is bad and incapable, both based on the sole experience and comparasions with other ultrabooks.

The machine runs at a maximum of ~19W under full load when I recieved it, and it was not capable of holding even such a small power consumption as the curves bounced back and forth between 17-19W. I suspected that it would be due to the bad thermal paste Lenovo used on the thinkpads, so I repasted it with my own. It was able to maintain ~20W after my repaste with a CPU temp at around 83C. I was also able to get it running at a sustained 25W under prime95 with quite some manual tweakings, but the CPU would stay at more than 95C.

On the other hand, the machine gets pretty hot when used, even under just a small load while I was viewing youtube videos. The top side is extremely hot and feels like burning when touched. The top-left of keyboard area is also ridiculously hot and my hands feels uncomfortable. The corner to the top-left of the escape key can get to something around 60C which I simply cannot understand.

I had a bios update later in the week, and found that Lenovo did something to change the performance and overheating issue by simply locking the peak consumption to 15-18W. It helped a bit on the heating issue, but the keyboard still feels hot and not comfortable to use. And the fan curve is still not managed properly. It is also getting loud even under small load. Fortunately there is not coil whine in my machine, but the loudness still gets annoying.

At this time, I would conclude that the thermal of this machine is one of the worst I have ever used. It is hot, loud, and still not able to even maintain a consistant 20W. Lenovo has completely failed on the performance and thermal side of this machine. It is fine if I only do some web browersing or word editing, but once I want something even a little bit more than this like video viewing, I feel uncomfortable with this machine.

For reference, I can get ~28W on the new XPS 13 Plus with ~87C, while a consistant 35W on the razer book 13 of last years model. Framework has also been doing something 30W, but there is also problem with their fan curve which gets pretty loud. None of these machines get hot as the new X1 carbon gen 10.

5. Battery

The battery life of this machine is not very bad, but nor can it be called any good. I have performed some tests under Fedora 36 with kernel 5.18. With 20% brightness, power saving profile and no WIFI/Bluetooth, I got a ~4.2W under idle, which is considered way too high on such a model. I was getting ~9W with WIFI only and light usage like web browsing and document editing, for which I would only get about 6 hours on such a FHD model. Users may expect even worse battery life with higher resolution displays.

6. Others

There is an annoying issue with this machine which did not get resolved even before I returned it. The boot time is ridiculously long as booting into Windows will stuck at Lenovo's logo for 40-60 secs. Other users have also got the same issue as I was aware of. I have some suspections, but am not interested to further analyze it on a machine that I am not going to keep.

Edit：I forgot to write about the speakers and camera. The camera is good and clear. However I could only get it at 30 fps while expecting 60. On the other hand, the speakers are incredibly high quality. It is not as that good as the macbook pro, but is reasonably clear and been configured well for both high pitch and bass. It is even much noticeably louder than the mbp14. I like the sound quality of it, although I would still go for my headsets if I was really trying to enjoy music.

Conclusions

Lenovo has failed to keep up with even its flagship ultrabook. The X1 Carbon gen 10 in my opinion is a bad machine, with messy design, poor performance, overheating, loud fan and bugs here and there. I would look forward to the gen 11 as there is going to be a model refresh, but would rather consider something like framework if I am in urgent need of a 12th gen intel ultrabook this year.

Here is my One Month Review of the X1 Carbon Gen 10 - On Linux

Spec/Options Chosen:

• i7-1270P (12th Gen Intel Alder Lake)

• 32 GB LPDDR5-6400MHz

• 2 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4

• Windows 11 Pro (Later dual-booted with Arch Linux)

• 14" WUXGA (1920 x 1200), IPS, Anti-Glare, Touch, 400 nits

I ordered the laptop on Lenovo's UK website on May 13th, it arrived May 28th (despite that configuration saying it would deliver in around 6 weeks on the site) which was a nice surprise.

Typical Usage

95% of my usage has been in Arch Linux (not Windows), although I have configured the laptop as dual-boot. I'm a software engineer working in Linux, often compiling large codebases which is both CPU intensive and SSD intensive. Aside from writing code, I use the laptop for browsing the web, watching videos and playing a lot of audio (via Bluetooth headphones) while I work. I occasionally boot to windows to use Adobe products, but Windows usage has been limited thus far, aside from a few tests.

I have been using the laptop at home, connected to 2x 4K displays with the laptop screen also serving as a display (so three simultaneous displays total). The displays are connected via a thunderbolt 4 dock.

The laptop has also been used on a short train journeys to and from work on most days.

Performance

I was pretty impressed with the performance of this laptop out the box. Absolutely no problem driving the two 4k displays. It compiles code faster than my 9th gen i9 also with an SSD.

However, as others have pointed out it does throttle based on power. So being a software engineer, and with some the pre-existing linux utils not working 100% for this Alder Lake CPU, I wrote a script to control the power limits, fans and throttling temperature.

Out of the box the X1 was configured to throttle at 15W (it would allow bursts above this) both on AC and on battery. A firmware update later increased this to 20W on AC. I know this because I was interrogating these CPU values with my scripts, and these values changed right after a firmware update. The X1 is also configured to throttle at 97C out of the box, which is a bit high, but given the low per-configured power limits there isn't much danger of getting to that temperature.

The two fans are actually capable of going all the way up to 8K RPM, however the controller only supports up to 6K RPM. But it is possible to provide a max_rpm signal to bring the fan up to 8k rpm. Between 0 and 6K RPM fine adjustment of the exact fan speed is possible. However the firmware never takes the fan speed above 5K RPM, even when the CPU is at 97C.

I got the CPU to 97C by raising the max power limits to 35W and running Crusader Kings III in Linux, all on max settings (internal display res). Great frame rates all-round, no crashes - left it like this for 2 hours, nothing melted or felt wrong, although the top left of the laptop was too hot to touch. Henceforth I have lowered the max CPU temp to 85C, and the game performance pretty much just as good.

Firefox on Linux needed some special configuration to use hardware decoding on this CPU, but once done, 4K was very smooth. I can also verify that 4K HDR on windows is smooth (Linux doesn't really support HDR yet). I confirmed hardware video decoding is working using intel-gpu-top. This is all configured and working well natively in Wayland.

The current Stable Arch Kernel (v5.18) has support for the Alder Lake Big.LITTLE cores. I can verify that the scheduler + thread director does do a very good job of utilising the Big Cores at the correct time (e.g. when compiling code). Under heavy multi-threaded loads, all the cores are used together. Under light loads the system seems to use a combination.

Reliability

Despite the fairly heavy workload and increased CPU limits, the device has never had a hard crash in one month of usage. It's been extremely reliable. I have had to make a few tweaks to ensure audio comes back after hibernating (resuming from suspend works fine out the box).

Screen

The '400 nits' screen has got to be the worst part of this laptop. To claim 400 nits seems an absolute stretch IMO. It is difficult to see the screen in daylight on the train, even out of direct sunlight. Perhaps the brightness isn't the issue, its more the contrast, I don't know. But the screen is not great outdoors or even near a window. Perhaps the OLED option is a better choice, although that would drain more battery.

Battery Life

This laptop isn't going to win any awards for battery life, far from it. The CPU is powerful, very powerful for this form factor. As a result it gets pretty hot and that drains your battery. You can lower the power limits of the CPU in Linux (Intel XTU on windows doesn't seem to yet support this CPU), and this does increase the battery life considerably. My commute is only 1 hour, so battery has not been an issue for me. What's important for me is that it's light, because half my commute is walking, and this is an incredibly light laptop. That said, it seems to get about 3-3.5 hours battery life with a moderate workload or 2 hours of video playback.

I personally have a charge limit of 85% set in Linux, to elongate the battery health, and I manually raise this to 100% when I know I'm going to need the extra charge.

Linux Hardware Support

I have all of the hardware working (lmk if I forgot something) in Arch Linux:

• TPM for automatic boot drive encryption unlock

• Fingerprint reader

• Trackpad, including multi-touch and the Thinkpad TrackPoint

• Webcam

• Thunderbolt 4, including TB4 dock and 2x USB 4k Monitors

• Special function keys (audio controls, brightness, keyboard backlight, etc etc)

• Audio

• Bluetooth

• Wifi

• Hardware video decode

• Touch screen, including pinch zoom and other gestures

• The current Stable Arch Kernel has support for the Alder Lake Big.LITTLE cores.

Lenovo has published several batches of firmware updates via fwupd despite not yet officially supporting Linux on this model. In fact when an update was available I booted to Windows and forced an update check in Lenovo's Windows client and it didn't detect one. So it's possible that they are making these updates available on Linux first.

One of the updates updated the TPM (it did give a warning to ensure I had recovery keys for disk encryption). I did have to use those keys and it was a bit annoying, but at the same time, glad Lenovo are keeping on top of security

Outstanding problems

One issue is the boot time. Even with nothing plugged in, it's pretty random how long the Lenovo logo will stay up until it proceeds to the bootloader. It can be as much as 60 seconds and I can confirm that even with all the latest firmware updates, this is still not resolved.

Secondly, the device bootloops (perhaps I should say bios-loops as it doesn't make it to the bootloader) when I have my thunderbolt 4 dock plugged in when cold-booting. Yet the X1 has no problem resuming or waking with the thunderbolt dock plugged in, but a cold boot is not possible. This can be really annoying if you are using you laptop remotely and have to reboot it.

Final Thoughts

The sheer power to weight ratio of this laptop is incredible, my mind is blown as to how powerful it is - expectations are far exceeded here.

The screen is sub-standard by a long way, the battery life isn't great, but tweaks can improve this. Bios issues remain unresolved.

Verdict

• Because I value raw power in a small light form-factor I'm giving this a 9.0/10

• However, if you are looking for an all-rounder your verdict would likely be (considerably?) lower.

Notes:

I could maybe do another post on how to get all the various things working in Linux, but there was no real special magic needed outside of what is already on the web.

I may also get around to posting my util for Power/Temp/Fan optimisations on GitHub if there is enough demand expressed. Although, I'd imagine existing Linux utils will catchup soon and properly support this CPU (throttled for example does not work right now).

Update: July 1st 2022 - More on Battery Drain

I've done some power-draw testing with battery-charging disabled and manually choosing on-battery power profile settings. I used an external device to measure the total power draw of the whole laptop. Screen brightness 100% in all tests. Lowering to 50% saves about 1W on average.

Here are the results:

*Calculated using 57Wh battery less 10% (51.3Wh)

** I can't currently get VAAPI working on Chrome Linux, it seems to oscillate between broken and working depending on the release. Hence no hardware decoding support for Chrome on Linux in this test.

Please take a look at the above and let us know your conclusions as battery life has been of great interest to many on this new laptop!

-Monibius

Feel free to AMA and I'll do my best to answer.

The sales were too tempting. I5-1235U, 16/512, OLED. Weave top is a nice touch. Very subtle. Premium build. Light and small. Keyboard has slightly less travel than X1 Yoga gen3 but still very good. What do you want to know?

I’ve had my X1 Carbon Gen 10 for about a week now and wanted to share my thoughts.

TL, DR: for my basic workflow, I’m happy with the X1 Carbon. The heat/fan is good. The battery is a little disappointing, but I can live with it. Performance is great relative to prior system.

My config is a i7-1260p, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD (replaced the 256GB), WUXGA (1920 x 1200) 400 nits, Windows 11 Pro.

My basic workflow - internet browsing including YT videos & Gmail, Word/Excel, and lightweight gaming (Civ 6). It’s on power/plugged in when in home office, and battery/unplugged when I take it to living room to watch TV. Ambient temperature is around 73-74F degrees.

I’m up to date on all Windows and Vantage updates. Bios is 1.27, Windows 11 build is 10.0.22000. I’ve also installed HWInfo64 and have the CPU, Memory & Temperature widgets on the task bar so I can monitor easily. I also use a laptop stand in the office which helps with ventilation and is about 1.5 feet from me.

There’s plenty of standard benchmarks out so didn’t focus on that. Instead, I want to share my observations on (1) heat/fan (2) Civ 6 benchmark and (3) battery life.

The X1 Carbon has 3 power modes – Best Power Efficiency, Balanced and Performance. With power/plugged in, I use Performance and when on battery/unplugged, I use Best Power Efficiency.

(1) Heat/Fan.

I’m going to describe Fan as Level 0 (no fan), Level 1 (can barely hear) and Level 2 (louder but steady).

On Best Power Efficiency, doing my basic workflow, fan noise is a Level 0 and 1. Typical CPU is 10-20, Memory 45-50% and Temperature is 50-60F. I don't find the fan noise excessive at all.

On Performance, see below on Civ 6 benchmarks.

(2) Civ 6 benchmark. This is the game I play the most. I play with power/plugged in and Civ 6 Game Speed = Marathon, and Map Size – Huge. I compared my old 6 year old desktop to the X1. The below X1 Carbon nos. are approx. CPU, Memory and Temperature that I’ve observed.

Desktop – from “Start Game” to “Begin Game” – 2 min, 10 sec

X1 Carbon (Best Power Efficiency w/power) – 1 min, 30 sec. CPU – 15-20; Memory – 65-85; Temp – 59-60F. Level 0 and Level 1 fan noise.

X1 Carbon (Performance w/power) – 41 sec. CPU – 30+, saw several spikes much higher; Memory – 65-85; Temp – up to 80F+, HWInfo64 tells me there was some throttling. Fan noise is noticeable at Level 2. As I play more turns, temperature returns back to 50-60F and the fan noise gets back to to Level 1.

(3) Battery. When on Best Power Efficiency (battery), my display is at 60%.

Windows battery gauge goes all over the place when reporting battery life. So my real life example is watching TV while doing my basic workflow. Battery went from 100% to 58% in about 3.5 hours with my basic workflow. So I’m thinking battery life is approx. 6-7 hours for normal use. I can probably get an additional hour or so by lowering the display more but 60% is comfortable for me.

In summary, solid system and happy with the purchase. If you don't need peak performance all the time in your laptop, consider the Gen 10. With my workflow, the heat/fan IMO are good, the battery life will last the day.

EDIT: as someone pointed out below, I've indicated temperature readings incorrectly as F instead of C. Please assume any temp I'm reporting is in Celsius instead.

I've owned my new X1 Carbon Gen 10 (i7-1260p, 32GB RAM, 400 nits touch, LTR/4G) for just over 10 days. Below I share some of my experience.

The overall build quality is as good and solid as expected. This is the main reason I chose X1 Carbon over other ThinkPads. I replaced the 256GB SSD with a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro, which has excellent performance.

I installed Windows 11, Ubuntu 22.04 (X11) and Manjaro KDE (Wayland). All run well on the laptop. The LTR/4G card doesn't work on Linux yet, but works on Windows 11 automatically and flawlessly. All other hardware parts work out-of-box on Linux.

My daily drive is Manjaro KDE. I have to say this laptop gives me the best experience I've ever had with Linux. It is certainly faster than the Gen 9. I use PhpStorm heavily. Previously the on-page code analyzing took 2-3 seconds after I saved my changes. Now it's done instantly. Everything feels smooth.

Temperature control is OK on all the 3 OSes. Manjaro KDE performs the best. CPU temperature is below 50℃ most of time, about 5℃ lower than Ubuntu 22.04. Maybe it's due to the kernel 6. Windows 11 ran very hot when doing initial driver and system updates. But after that the CPU temperature was below 60℃ most of time.

I read many posts regarding redoing the thermal paste. I was curious so I decided to try it. My order of Noctua NT-H2 arrived 3 days ago. The changing process was not difficult. But after I removed the fans, I noticed the original thermal pasting was very nicely done. I was hesitate at the time but still decided to go. The 1st time (my 1st time of this kind of thing) result was quite bad, so I tried the 2nd time the next day. This time I got better result. The benchmark points were at least comparable to the results before re-pasting. And the temperature on Manjaro KDE is 2℃ lower most of time. I don't really think the difference worth the cost and effort. So my suggesting is don't re-paste if your unit is recently built. I think Lenovo has improved the process after the bad thermal reports of early units.

Battery life is average. I can get about 6 hours for browsing and coding (50-70% brightness), about 2 hours less than the Gen 9.

Generally I'm quite happy with the unit. This is still a top ultrabook.

Thinking about the reasons of buying an ultrabook, the below two definitely come to mind:

1. So portable that it can be put on one's legs and start working straightly

2. Good battery life (you cannot accept an ultrabook having its portability WHILE having an awful battery life)

After I spent almost 4 months of savings on this expensive machine, I initially thought I could finally enjoy my work with convenience never before seen. Obviously I underestimated Lenovo's fecklessness too much. The upper left corner of the machine is so hot that I don't even dare thinking about holding it with my HANDS, let alone letting it contact my legs. And it is not actually the worst thing. The battery life is SO darn bad that I have to almost recharge it every 3 hours! Yes, after 3 hours of Youtube replay and it NEEDS TO BE CHARGED!!

I contacted Lenovo and they told me that given the machine is customized, they are not accepting a refund. I just want to let you know: buying X1 Carbon gen10 is perhaps a decision you are going to regret about for years.

P.S. I should have mentioned that I got a lot of other browser tabs being opened in the background.

Also, I know it sounds silly, but I want to know if X13 AMD Gen3 also has these problems (i.e. overheat and being power hungry). I admit I love the keyboard layout of ThinkPads

Update 8/6: I tested the battery out. In 20 min of YouTube replay, the battery dropped from 78% to 70%. I have my mouse and keyboard attached.

Update 8/8: Just to clarify, my CPU is as follows: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1250P 1.70 GHz

Hey, fellow ThinkPad fans! The time has come for an upgrade and I'm considering the X1C. I have an option to buy the new X1C gen 10 with i7-1260P for about 1780€ or go with the X1C gen 9 with i5-1135g7 for about 250€ cheaper.

At first, I was all for the new Alder Lake experience, especially concerning battery life, but now I'm reading that battery life on the new gen 10 is crap. Any advice on this?

I will use it mostly for light tasks, about 80% of the time, but might throw in an occasional video edit or some more demanding tasks. Mainly, I'm looking for a machine that will be still usable in about 5-6 years.

Thanks!

Thought I'd make a thread for this as I think there are a few people interested in the Carbon with the U-series CPU and a few people that have recently gotten their hands on them and the information is sort of scattered around the place.

I currently have the X1 with 1240P and while the heat issue has improved (not completely gone) via updates the battery life is still pretty terrible. I am getting about 4 hours from 90% to 20% with office use (Outlook, Chrome, Word, etc) even on battery saving mode.

The U-series CPUs just got listed on Lenovo's website in Australia so I'm keen to know if the battery life is better or not. I'm currently tossing up whether I go with the Gen 9 as the battery life appears to be way better or to go with the Gen 10 with the U-series CPU.

I have read two reviews on notebookcheck where they reviewed a Gateway and a VAIO running a 12th Gen U-series CPU but the battery life didn't seem that great. But then they also reviewed the Gen 10 with a 12th Gen P-series CPU and somehow got like double the battery life of me on their wifi browsing test.

I've seen the video review on Gen 10 and also read a couple posters here on Gen 10 and the bad battery life. So I am leaning towards the T14s AMD Gen 3 but am still considering the Gen 10.

(BTW - anyone know when the T14s AMD Gen 3 is coming out?)

Other than for battery life, can you share your thoughts on the Gen 10? Appreciate if you can provide the CPU & monitor type.

-- Heat on keyboard, fan noise, noticeably faster than prior laptop (should be with Alder Lake but unsure of throttling impact), keyboard feel, video cam, is the 16:10 significantly better than the older 16:9 etc.

I recently discovered this on the Lenovo forum using the Intel Core i7-1280P processor.

forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X-Series-Laptops/X1-Carbon-Gen-10-First-look-review

The 2.8k OLED and 4K touch display alternatives that he mentioned will be available in May.

Location of reviewer : US

He did an outstanding job of sharing his product knowledge and experience.

What are your thoughts?

With the Father's Day sale coming up, I need to decide if I'm going for the X1C Gen 10. The lack of reviews is surprising considering how popular the Gen 9 was. u/TechAdventure is the only review I've seen and he returned it due to poor battery life (which I'm hoping is a Win 11 optimization issue). Biggest other criticism I've seen is people generally unimpressed with Intel's Alder Lake chip.

Anyone who bought it care to comment?

If not the X1C Gen 10, what's the newest and most comparable, best bang for buck laptop that Lenovo offers right now that I should look into? I'll consider other brands, but want a PC and not a MAC. Prefer Lenovo mainly due to the great keyboard. Also the high quality construction and port selection.

I have been living and working with my X1 Carbon gen 10 for six months now. Here are my thoughts.

# Specs & Use Case

i5-1235U, 16Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD, Windows 11 Home.

Mainly used for academic research. Word processing in Word, manipulating markdown files in Obsidian and Python, Filemaker Pro databases, diagrams using Draw.io, web surfing, reading PDFs, emails, YouTube, Netflix, and some first-person games.

Approximately 8,000 markdown files, 1,000 PDF files, and databases have about 3,000 records. The SSD is about 25% used.

The unit is out with me most days of the week. It is transported in a hard shell case.

# Size and Weight

Every time I pick up this Thinkpad, I am still amazed by the physicality of it. It is surprisingly light while maintaining a premium heft and solidity. The weight is good. I would not care that much for a lighter machine.

I got the Slim 65W charger. The original died within a few weeks. So far, the replacement has endured. It is light and small. It can be smaller and lighter still.

# Durability

The hinges remain perfectly balanced. The laptop is openable with one hand and does not move when in use. If I hold the unit by the keyboard deck and make a quick up-down motion, I can get the lid to move. This is much harder to do with other Thinkpads with stiffer hinges. And yes, the unit can be picked up by the screen, though I try to avoid doing this.

The rubberised finish is about as durable as on other Thinkpads. There are a few scratches now on the bottom. The coating on the keyboard deck can get smudgy. Wiping down with a damp cloth gets rid of those.

The USB-C and A connectors remain tight. I mostly use the USB-C connectors for charging and connecting a backup drive.

The top cover has the weave pattern. That has withstood wear very well and looks as-new. It is also more resistant to smudging than the traditional rubberised coating. I quite like this weave pattern. The pattern is not super loud (unlike that on carbon weave vinyl covers). Most of the time, the unit reads as black.

Overall, this Thinkpad consistently feels like a premium machine.

# Battery

The battery lasts me between 4.5 and 6.5 hours. I have the Maximum Processor State set to 85% on battery. The Windows 11 Power Mode is set to Best Power Efficiency. When working and viewing video content, I cannot tell the difference between this and the Balance and Best Performance modes.

4.5 hours if I am on the internet heavily and with lots of OneDrive syncing happening in the background. 6.5 hours if I am only typing and not connected to the internet.

# Heat & Fan

On the settings described above, the fans do not come on at all when running on battery. At least, I don't notice them coming on as I am usually at a cafe when on battery. When plugged in and watching videos, the fans do come on occasionally in short episodes. They are neither loud nor intrusive.

When plugged in and doing work, including watching videos, temperatures hover around 55C to 60C.

# Screen

I went for the 2.8K OLED screen. I played around with the HDR settings but ended up leaving it off as it was doing weird things with non-HDR video streams. As it is, I love the solid blacks and rich colours. I did dial down the saturation a little with the included Intel tool. Everything just looks great on this screen, especially videos and graphics with dark backgrounds. Most of my apps are set to Dark Mode. I did not get eye strain or headaches even when I dropped the brightness in a darkened room. I have used OLED phones for 10+ years without issue, so this was not unexpected.

I have the OLED display scaled to 200%. Video output via USB-C works flawlessly. I have two Dell 2560x1440 displays.

My only regret with the screen is the lack of touch.

# Sound

This Thinkpad is the best-sounding laptop I have ever had and used. Strong bass and clear highs. A perfect combination with the OLED screen for movies.

# Keyboard

The keyboard is great for such a slim device. Despite my heavy-handed use, the keys are still crisp and clicky. The keycaps are starting to wear a little now. Less so than older Thinkpads without backlit keys. With those, I would have worn off the more commonly used letters by now.

The one annoyance with the keyboard deck is the bright power-on indicator above the Home key. This is very distracting when watching movies in a darkened room.

# Trackpoint

The Trackpoint is better tuned in this model than all previous Thinkpads I have used. Triggering the scroll functionality with the middle button is smooth and responsive. In comparison, the Trackpoint on my X1 Yoga gen 3 feels awkward and clunky.

The Trackpad is also very usable.

# Overall

I am glad I sprung for a premium machine. The last premium machine I bought was a T61p. Most of my workhorses have been T-series machines. This Carbon is the next level of finish/experience for not much more money.

I bought this laptop for my PhD, I do a lot of math modelling and my previous laptop (low-end lenovo) would always crash, I wanted to invest in a premium laptop so when I work from home or travel I can run my models without having to wait days or have my laptop crash, or just be able to do multiple things while running large scripts.

So after a fair amount of research I decided on the x1 Carbon Gen9, then literally when I was in the store holding it I asked about the Gen 10 and they said I could order online and it'd arrive in 4 weeks, one slightly unfortunate impulse decision later and just went for then gen10 instead...

..Flash forward 3 months later when I finally receive it, and loads of negative reviews later, im starting to think I may not have made the best call there.

The model I got is a:
- 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1260P 2.10 GHz

- 32 GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive

- Windows 11 Home

- 14 2.2K AG 300N sRGB

Im not a huge computer guy so dont really know how to assess this laptop appropriately.

The handle of it, material, weight, screen and keyboards are all really nice. Has felt a little buggy at times, the screen went black in the middle of a call and the display was not lining up once. My biggest concern is that given I need to run it through a fair amount of processing work on a daily basis Im mostly concerned about how its not going to hold up in the long run in terms of processing power, battery and heating, given what I've paid for it.

I get the vibe from lenovo (HK) that i may have issues returning it and its not so straight forward, any advice on tests to run, whether I should return it and if so how to return it given it sounds like it can only de done if there is a defect.

I appreciate any thoughts, or advice. Cheers

Anyone using a Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 10 able to leave an open and honest review? Watched plenty of YouTube videos but concerned they are paid or affiliated reviews.

Considering buying this device for work but doing my research pre-purchase...

Plan to use it for personal creative multitasking with Adobe and office apps, procreate, Canva, podbean, Spotify etc.

Sales associate told me to go with Gen 10 and the p processor bc the u processor in the Gen 11 won’t be able to handle that. But all I have heard about the p processor is bad news/overheating/battery drain. Should I really go with Gen 10?

Any fellow owners here? Does lenovo fixed that awful overheating/battery drain problem with last updates?