Overview
Build and Design
The X1 Carbon’s exterior design has the all-black business look we’ve come to expect over the years from ThinkPads except this one is much sleeker; it’s just eight-tenths of an inch thin at the highest point and a shade less than three pounds. The chassis is exceptionally strong despite this thanks to its carbon fiber construction. The lid’s strength is impressive; it’s the most rigid I’ve seen on an Ultrabook. I was unable to get ripples to appear in the display even applying an excessive amount of pressure on the back. Lid strength is an often overlooked attribute of build quality for notebooks that see frequent handling and travel; the display panel can distort and fail over time if pressures like that affect it.
The display hinge is stiff enough to prevent any excessive wobbling when touching the display however stiff enough two hands are required to open it. The X1 Carbon’s fit and finish is very good; all of its pieces fit together tightly and with even spacing.
Seven screws hold the X1 Carbon’s bottom cover to the rest of the chassis; these are fortunately Phillips screws unlike other Ultrabooks which use Torx or another proprietary design. The X1 Carbon’s options for user upgrades are very limited; the RAM is non-upgradeable since it’s soldered to the motherboard and there are no open slots. It accepts only the new M.2 specification SSDs which are new and have limited selection at the time of this writing. Besides the SSD, the only user-changeable component is the wireless card and the X1 Carbon already comes with the best currently available, the Intel Dual-Band Wireless AC-7260.
Input and Output Ports
The X1 Carbon has a limited selection of input/output ports as expected from an Ultrabook but covers the basics with two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and mini-DisplayPort. Ethernet connectivity is provided via dongle (the chassis is too thin to accommodate the port, apparently). Unfortunately there is no built-in media card reader, so you’ll need an external card reader if you want to transfer images from your digital camera. All picture descriptions are left to right.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The X1 Carbon has a full-size ‘Chiclet’ style keyboard; it has white LED backlighting with three levels of brightness including fully off. This is what Lenovo calls an adaptive keyboard – notice that the top-row Function keys ([F1], [F2] and so on) are absent; a touch-sensitive strip resides in their place with a digital background. Different functions display depending on the mode; for example the standard Function layout displays the traditional [F1] – [F12] keys. Other modes include Home which displays volume and screen brightness controls, quick access to Search, Windows 8 Apps and the Snipping Tool; Web Browser mode which has back, refresh and new tab buttons; and finally Web Conference mode which has microphone settings and levels.
The adaptive keyboard strip is a notable exercise in innovation but falls short on usability. I appreciated its handy auto-switch feature that changes the mode depending on the application; it switches to Web Browser mode automatically when using Internet Explorer for example. The Function keys conveniently show up when the [Alt] key is pressed as well. The general usability issue is that there is a near complete lack of tactile feedback; you’re unsure a “key press” registered until something happens on-screen. And while the keys are in their expected positions, it’s tough to use them by feel since there are no physical keys. One particular annoyance is that the Function keys don’t show up instantly when pressing [Alt]; keyboard shortcut junkies used to pressing [Alt] + [F4] to close an application for example will find this almost unbearable since that shortcut is usually one fluid motion but on this keyboard is two parts; pressing [Alt], waiting for the Function keys to display and then tapping where [F4] should be. It’s less than ideal and not at all intuitive. Overall the adaptive keyboard’s merits fail to counteract the deficiencies it bestows upon experienced touch typists and those that rely on standard keyboard shortcuts.
I have middling feelings about the rest of the keyboard. The tactile feedback is excellent primarily because unlike many Ultrabooks, the X1 Carbon’s keys have plenty of travel (distance between pressed and un-pressed positions) for a communicative typing experience. The keyboard tray has no flex and the keys themselves make a subdued sound, good for working in quiet environments. The middling feelings come from layout problems. The Caps Lock key is gone and replaced with the Home and End keys; to enable Caps Lock, press the left Shift key twice. This will throw you for a loop if you’re a frequent user of the aforementioned keys especially if you use other computers besides this one (thus switching between layouts and never becoming accustomed to this one). The tilde (~) key has been moved from under the [Esc] key to the right of the spacebar and the Page Up and Page Down keys are now part of the arrow key cluster.
In addition, the Backspace and Delete keys are oddly joined together in the same space the backspace key would normally occupy by itself. Furthermore there are no Printscreen or Insert keys. I find these layout choices baffling considering the amount of real estate available on this chassis to simply use a standardized layout; so why do this? I’d condone the changes if they improved productivity but the net effect is far in the other direction. Many years back I would’ve never forseen the day that I had such fundamental issues with a ThinkPad keyboard, the once gold standard. It saddened me to type what I just typed (not to mention I did so on the X1 Carbon’s keyboard).
The touchpad is actually a clickpad; press down anywhere to produce a click. As with numerous other makers who attempted clickpad implementations, Lenovo’s version falls short in practicality compared to a traditional two-button touchpad setup. The clickpad is appropriately sized for a 14″ screen and has a pleasant matte surface; the issue is however that the clicks are inaccurate. The clickpad surface has too much travel which makes it feel trampoline-like and as a result, imprecise. The clicks are in addition much too loud; someone across a relatively quiet conference room can easily hear a click. Per ThinkPad tradition, the X1 Carbon has a pointing stick in the center of the keyboard but unlike ThinkPad tradition, no dedicated set of buttons; awkward is the best way to describe using the clickpad as buttons especially since you have to press all the way at the bottom right of the clickpad to perform a right-click.
Screen and Speakers
The X1 Carbon is offered with two 14-inch display choices: the base 1600×900 resolution TN panel and the upgraded WQHD version on our review unit. The WQHD display is cutting edge; it features an ultra-high 2560×1440 resolution (a standard 1920×1080 (1080p) display has just 56% of the pixels by comparison), anti-glare surface, IPS panel technology and 10 touch point support. Color depth and contrast are outstanding; anything with color stands out. This display is plenty bright at 300 nits, enough to use outdoors on a sunny day. Backlight uniformity is generally good though there is some bleeding from around the edges especially the bottom. The IPS technology is what allows this display to have unlimited viewing angles; the picture looks the same no matter what angle you’re viewing. Despite this I did notice the brightness varied significantly depending on whether the display was viewed head-on or not. Changes in color were minimal however.
In terms of sound performance there are two small side-facing stereo speakers located under the palm rests. They have a surprisingly spacious soundstage and get louder than expected. The bass is faint but present. This setup suffices for personal listening but two people watching a feature film would likely be left wanting.
Performance
The X1 Carbon stays within the realm of Ultrabook specifications including low-voltage Intel dual-core processors, 4GB or 8GB of RAM (selected at the time of purchase since the RAM is soldered to the motherboard) and SSD-only storage. The highlight of our review model is its optional WQHD display which has outstanding picture quality as we noted in the screen section of this review.
The X1 Carbon’s SSD choice is worth mentioning; it uses the new M.2 format SSDs which are smaller than traditional SSDs or even the mSATA standard which is typically found inside Ultrabooks. The reason for the new M.2 SSD and soldered RAM is simple: Lenovo wanted the new X1 Carbon to be as thin as possible. Standard SATA and SO-DIMM RAM connectors that make it possible for end users to install upgrades also take up more vertical space inside the chassis. Unfortunately for those of us who want to the ability to service laptops at home or perform DIY upgrades, these types of internal changes are the future of thin and light laptops.
Heat and Noise
There is a single fan situated at the upper right corner of the chassis. This fan is off the majority of the time is in use for basic tasks. It has a relatively small sound when it does operate but its slight whine prevents it from being completely ignored. The location is somewhat inconvenient when using the notebook on a lap especially if your pants don’t cover your knees (for the record, I was wearing jeans while typing this review). The rear of the chassis bottom under the display as well as the area around the fan is warm for general usage but the rest of the chassis is lukewarm.
Battery Life
We use our Powermark benchmark in Balanced mode to test battery life. This benchmark is more demanding than a typical battery life test and includes automated web browsing, word processing, video and gaming playback workloads. In essence this test measures battery life under a litany of scenarios to provide a good real-world estimate of what to expect.
The X1 Carbon lasted four hours, 35 minutes at about half its display brightness which is “good” for a business Ultrabook. This time beats out the competing Dell Latitude E7440 by almost an hour and even edges out Lenovo’s own ThinkPad T440s by almost 20 minutes. Translating the X1 Carbon’s time to a more mundane usage scenario would likely result between seven and eight hours of life.
Unfortunately, there is no optional extended life battery or external battery slice for the X1 Carbon since Lenovo’s engineers wanted to make it as thin and light as possible. Still, this Ultrabook delivers pretty impressive battery life.
Conclusion
The 2014 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a high-end business Ultrabook that promotes many cutting-edge technologies but stumbles in too many areas to earn our Editors’ Choice Award. This Ultrabook gets a lot right: the carbon fiber construction results in an light-yet-strong strong chassis and great overall quality; the WHQD display is absolutely beautiful and has full touch support; the performance is good, the battery life is good for an Ultrabook (seven to eight hours of general usage) and even its speakers are passable.
The X1 Carbon’s downfall is its input devices. The adaptive keyboard strip fails to provide the tactile feedback and functionality of traditional Function keys; and the physical keyboard has a confusing layout for no apparent reason. The clickpad is another mistake; its excessive play makes cursor movement inaccurate and the clicks make too much noise. Another annoyance is that the TrackPoint pointing stick has no dedicated set of buttons as it should.
The X1 Carbon is in the top tier of Ultrabook pricing models targeting executive and high-profile business users. Its pricing, based only on the specifications, is good relative to competitors considering its superior screen. However, thanks to the aforementioned issues with the keyboard and clickpad/TrackPoint we can’t overwhelming recommend this year’s Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon over a business Ultrabook from Dell or HP.
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