Lenovo X1 Carbon Owner's Thread

I'm so jealous - why can't we get that config (and WWAN) already!

 

Thanks for reminding me, I need to pick up a 10GB 1 year data SIM card for mine. Sorry..

We do get to pay a pretty hefty premium down here in Australia though. Seems weird you can't get the same config still?

If anything the build quality is nicer on the new unit. Absolutely love the feel of it. The reason why I returned the first was a bulge on the bottom lip of the case so it stands to figure a unit without faults will feel better I guess.

 

I *think* I got rapid start to work, it's just that I'm finding it hard to verify. It only takes a few seconds to get back to where I left off, longer than resume from sleep but shorter than I remember from normal hibernation. It's just that the partition is showing as a "primary" one and not a hibernation in the disk manager. Also I tried creating the partition again and then the RapidStart informed me it couldn't start... so went back to the previous setup as that itself was a good indication.

Anyways, have installed most of the drivers and software on Drivers and software - ThinkPad X1 Carbon , excluding Lenovo Quick Launch. I haven't had too much time to optimize things, but will see if there's anything that adds a lot of overhead and trim that back.

I didn't install the GPU driver as the Intel one already installed by Win8 has a higher version number.
Here's my i7/8/2v56 WEI numbers:
http://tinyurl.com/dy8zcru

vs my old i5/8/256 WEI:
http://tinyurl.com/d7cl6hy

CPU and MEM are up by a few points from my i5, but interestingly it's down by 0.1 in the desktop performance. At the time, only a few driver packages were installed and I didn't have Rapid Start nor Rapid Storage drivers running.

EDIT: For the record, Intel's version numbers are confusing. I did have to install the lowered numbered GPU drivers that were actually newer, and this brought the 2D score back up to 5.4:
http://tinyurl.com/bt39g8h

 

Has anyone been able to use the "always" on USB charging port when the machine is turned off AND not plugged into AC power?

I've enabled always on mode in the BIOS and in the power manager, but still can't get this to work. It USB charges in on/sleep mode without AC power, or if on/sleep/off with AC power, but not when off and without power. Surely this is not intentional. My Samsung 9 series would always charge via the USB power port when off.

Have I missed an additional setting somewhere?

 

I have a i5/4gb/256 config. My last contact with this forum was when I was planning to return the laptop for issues with the keypad. I decided to give it another go, and they sent me a brand new replacement, which had a loose trackpad on the left side, and when you would click it a few times it would not return up, where any clicking would be interrupted.

They now are offering to send me another replacement unit, not refurb, or I can return both machines for a full refund. What would you do? What are the alternatives? I have gotten used to the rapid charge technology, and the screen door effect, and the great trackpad, but why cant they seem to get things right with this X1C, if its not one thing, its the other. If I was to get something else, its hard to give up such a nice trackpad, and the rapid charge. What alternative would you go with?

ADDITIONALLY, they are coming out with a X1C touch in December, although im sure we would have to wait another 6 weeks for it to ship, but that's a little disrespectful to consumers. Its almost like the fact that the iphone 5 just came out, and they are now testing the iphone 5s, just 4 weeks after debuting a the iphone 5. Thats why I use an android.

 

Just thought I'd report back on the Targus: It fits very well, with in fact a bit of room particularly on the y axis (back to front), and especially on the z (height). Still doesn't feel floopy by any shot, and as you can see from these shots it's a good fit.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AUTc/DLByg0jobpU/s643/IMG_20121124_154714.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...AUTc/1ABLQKtp2oE/s857/IMG_20121124_154547.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AUTc/q9lxI1bO5c4/s643/IMG_20121124_154806.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-...AUTc/8ky_OWKaPaY/s857/IMG_20121124_154827.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-...AUTc/1xtai5AoLs0/s857/IMG_20121124_154846.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...AUTc/mATtorzja44/s857/IMG_20121124_154910.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...AUTc/1wSxGiuaWd0/s857/IMG_20121124_154944.jpg

 

Just an interesting fact. Went into a Lenovo experience store (IN CHINA) and they aren't even offering the X1 Carbon. They are pushing the Yoga. I tested it out. Touchscreen worked pretty well, though I dont know when I would ever use it. Keyboard not too bad either. But heavier and bulkier it seems. Just thought that was interesting that they weren't even showing it.

 

I have no doubt Lenovo will have the X1 Carbon Touch on display very soon.

 

I think creating thin, light, ultrabook class machines isn't easy and Lenovo didn't get it figured out for the X1 Carbon. I would return the two machines and buy a proven machine.

 

If Lenovo can design X30x machines, i don't think X1 Carbon is too hard. There is nothing revolutionary about the X1 Carbon from a manufacturing or design point of view.

 

I am confident they'll eventually iron out the X1 Carbon issues, but this is a text book case for not being an early adopter. Hopefully the looming launch of the X1 Carbon Touch will be flawless.

 

Well, I'm perfectly happy with my new i/7/8/256 - which replaced the DOAed i5/8/256. It's running like a champ. I have no issues with anything.

Sure there's a mm of "give" before the track pad reaches the button activation trigger where you can click down, but this seems uniform and by design. So it's entirely a non-issue for me. I did rub down the pad which was a bit sticky with a bit of spit and a t-shirt, and now it's utterly smooth.

I'm starting to _really_ like the screen; a highlight would be how it renders Ubuntu terminal window fonts. But yeah, Win8 also looks superb on it.

I've got it dual booting Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10 using UEFI Secure Boot. I will hit F12 to choose the non-primary OS on boot if required.

I ended up reinstalling Win8 as part of this process (hint: don't let ubuntu installer do _anything_ automatic, always choose what to do yourself) and this time around I cherry picked the drivers omitting things like finger print, rapid start, but making sure I installed it with the rapid storage drivers from during Win8 setup (USB stick'ed drivers). Now I have about 46 processes on boot and the OS just feels so incredibly light and rapid.

Battery life is also very good - I will get from 4-6 hours of normal usage, a bit depending on what I do most of. I've seen it indicate 6.5 hours from current usage patterns several times. So yeah, I'm ultra happy with my X1C.

 

I had the Targus too and wasn't quite happy with the fit. Then I found this one & it is perfect: Custodia Second Skin Cargo per MacBook Air/Pro 13" & Ultrabook 13" . It fits like a glove, I don't need to remove it & the stand is wonderful for typing.

 

i took some thermography images of the ThinkPad X1 under various load conditions with the FLIR thermal imaging camera i got. enjoy

 

Interesting, thanks for that lead_org! It would seem to me like the case does a reasonable job of spreading the heat?

 

yes the magnesium base is actually very good at spreading the heat in the base of the system.

 

Where did you guys order from? The cheapest I found was from Lenovo's site (i5, 8gb , 128gb ssd) for $1289, not sure if they charge tax.
If it helps I am a college student.

 

I tried searching this thread for mSATA and came up with nothing, so apologies if this has been discussed but is it possible to install an extra SSD in the WWAN slot of the X1C? I found some stuff from before it was released where people speculated you might be able to put an SSD there but haven't seen anyone confirm it. Funnily I was actually planning on getting a W530 but decided since I have a desktop I don't need a powerful laptop, and then I realized that the X1C actually performs close to my current laptop. Apparently today's best ULV CPU and IGP are as fast as a regular voltage CPU and dedicated midrange mobile GPU of two years ago! So now I'm strongly considering getting the X1C. I don't care about Touch as I'll be using Linux primarily so I'm not waiting for that. The only thing that concerns me is the storage issue, because I currently have 120GB+320GB in my laptop and it's almost full but half of that might be Steam games which I never play anyway so it might be OK. Just a bit worried about the extra space needed for two operating systems but I think worst case USB 3.0 is definitely good enough for my purposes, just a bit inelegant to have sticking out. If mSATA was possible I figure in a year I could pick up another 256GB drive or something since SSD prices are falling constantly. Otherwise I'm pretty set on getting the X1C now, would love to have the same capabilities as my Envy 14 in a package half the size (and with input devices that don't freak the hell out in Linux lol, the Envy's touchpad is retarded but I imagine the Trackpoint should be perfect. I remember my dad's first Toshiba laptop from 1999 had one and I thought it was amazing but it seems like no one else really liked them).

 

the X1C doesn't have a mSATA slot if that is what you are wondering.

 

Installing a mSATA drive in the X1 Carbon is not possible.

 

Anyone bought one of these to replace a Dell XPS 14 Ultrabook? That's what I'm considering because I don't like the keyboard. Thoughts?

 

It's the best ultrabook keyboard I've used.

 

Thanks man, I guess I'll have to get the 256GB one then. I'm sure I can live with it. There is also no way to buy a larger after market SSD I presume?

 

Not at this time, AFAIK.

 

I agree. The keyboard is a joy to use. I'm extremely happy with my X1 Carbon. Build is great for me, and it also works very nicely with linux (I'm currently running elementary OS luna beta 1)

 

Anyone think it is ridiculous that Lenovo is launching the X1 Carbon Touch like 3 months after X1 carbon is released? I feel so cheated. One guy said it right. It's like getting an iPhone 5, then hearing that in 1-2 months the iPhone 5s is coming out...

Hope they allow for upgrades, but I know, that would be near to impossible....

Very disappointed

 

Being an early adopter can extract a heavy toll. Sometimes it is prudent to buy at the end of a model lifecycle. In fact, sometimes it makes more sense to wait for the second generation.

 

Is there any estimate time when the new generation x1 carbons will be out?
Also, anyone found the i5/8gb/128gb model to be any lesser than 1,400? I would like to know before I pull the trigger.

 

The first glimpse of Haswell based machines will likely happen after Christmas at CES. It's unlikely Intel will announce timing at that time to the public. Therefore, don't expect Lenovo or anyone else to announce ship dates for Haswell machines.

CES is a dog and pony show. You get to see some new engineering and get a feel for what is coming.

I consider Haswell to be the next generation, not a bolt on touch screen.

 

Good news ladies and gents.

Apparently, Lenovo X1 Carbon is compatible with the Yoga 13 65 watts charger, as they use the same plug head (which also share the same shape as the new NEC LaVie Z Ultrabook).

However, during rapid charge phase the Thinkpad X1C draws in 82.5 watts of power, which exceeds what the 65 watts adapter can provide.

The X1C 90 watts adapter = 420 grams.

Yoga 65 watts adapter = 280 grams.

ThinkPad - espresso3389 <--- source of info here

 

Does that mean it can successfully power the X1C, just not provide the rapid charge capability? That would open up some decent mobility options.

 

that appears to be the case according to what the person said in the blog. It can successfully power the machine, but he is scared that the current overdraw on the Yoga adapter may break something or another.

 

Anyone had issues with Windows 7 updates keep on failing on the X1 Carbon? Is the factory-installed software causing some kind of conflict with Windows 7 updates?

 

It's a Microsoft thing (i.e. one specific update) - just install the updates in small groups or one by one and it will work.

 

Thanks! That worked

 

Woah, was about to put in an order for an X1C and then I saw that the 256GB SSD won't be available for 4+ weeks... Harrumph. Is there any way I can get it after market (the original Lenovo SSD from a third party I mean)? (not terribly thrilled about the price of the 256GB SSD either but I've decided to stop waffling and settle on the X1C and I'm certain, based on my current laptop with 120GB SSD and 320GB HDD that I need the extra space, especially since I dual boot Windows and Linux). I wonder if it'd be better to wait for the touch version to come out and if the original would be a bit cheaper at that point.

The SSD is user replaceable right? It's just that your only options are the ones Lenovo sells since the form factor is proprietary.

Edit: Gahh... I guess I will just continue waiting and see how things happen with the touch model and whatnot. Although the T430s keeps tempting me, it's just that it's way less exciting on the whole than the X1C, but costs about half as much for basically one extra pound of weight :/

 

The delay on the storage device is indeed odd. You might be right, the Touch model may have it constrained.

I don't think Lenovo really wants users cracking the case and replacing the SSD. They probably charge an outrageous amount for the privilege.

 

I saw some posts here wondering about UHS support for the SD card. Since I can probably live with UHS speeds for some secondary programs I might just go for the 128GB SSD and get a 128GB UHS SD cars later. It sounds like UHS SD cards are about as fast as a spinning disk drive in terms of sustained read speeds so that might not be so bad. I've just been spending way too much time looking at laptops recently and I want to stop lol. But since right now the X1C is not really on a huge discount with the cyber Monday sale it might be fine to wait a month and see how things shake out.

Edit: what I wanted to ask was, has anyone tried benchmarking a UHS SD card in the X1C?

Or if anyone can retrieve the part number for the SD card reader that might be good enough to look things up, although it also depends how it's hooked up I think.

Is anyone here dual booting Windows and Linux? My concern for drive space is mainly because Windows takes up so much space on its own and I will probably have one or two big games on the Windows partition, and potentially some large (multi GB) source trees on my Linux partition. Although if I'm going to use this more as a remote client to my powerful desktop maybe I wouldn't keep that stuff locally anyway. I guess I'll give it a few more days to think about how I'm going to be using it but I feel like if I'm going to spend this much on a laptop I'd rather spend more and get enough space so that I don't have to think about it, rather than pay a little less and have to constantly count my free space.

 

I have the 256GB i7 8gb and yes I'm dual booting mine. Win8 is the "primary" OS, Ubuntu 12.10 the secondary. I have secure boot enabled. I have to press F12 during boot to choose the non-primary OS if I want. There's no bootloader that lets me choose. This works fine for me.

Ubuntu will _not_ see Win8 during install so you've got to be careful to do your own thing or bye bye Win8.

I can give you some numbers tonight on sizes. Once you back up the restore partition, get rid of the hibernation/rapidstart one you'll reclaim a lot of lost space. Win8 hibernation is a lot less pain and super quick; I tried and got rapidstart to work but it'd turn itself _off_ after every use. Huge PITA; I've dropped it now and am happy with Win8's stuff.

I've got a LAMP setup as well as e.g. MongoDB on Linux, and using Sublime editor. From memory I'm way less than 10GB on the total install of that.

Fwiw, whilst it was horrid at first, I'm getting seriously good battery time numbers now in Ubuntu after a bit of tweaking (having NFI but trying a few things e.g. installed jupiterapplet.org ) whilst writing code in Sublime editor, connecting to Github, running a bit of mysql, with gmail open in Chrome (I don't use Firefox due to being "locked in" to Google's bookmark sync). It's sitting at between 5 and 6.5 hours, a bit depending. This is at night with brightness turned down to around 50%, and I'm using dark themes in Sublime fwiw - that never hurts a LED backlit display I would guess. So I'm very happy with how this is running now.

 

Ah, you've got the configuration I want dammit Lenovo, I want to throw my money at you and your overpriced SSD, hurry up and find some for me.

Yeah if you could let me know how you've allocated partitions and how much free space you've got that would be excellent. I can definitely live on 256GB but 128 would probably be uncomfortable and if I'm going to spend this much on a laptop it can't be a compromise.

Is the i7 that useful in practice though? I feel like I might just go for the middle i5 since I won't be doing heavy processing locally anyway.

Oh, the other thing I'm curious about - how's the driver situation? I imagine with only Intel chips it should be pretty good. The only thing I hate about my current laptop is the drivers under Ubuntu are just dumb.

 

Ubuntu drivers... bit so and so I think. No detection of Ivy Bridge 3d afaik .. however I'm not an expert on this by any shot. It is fine for my needs though! At least I got the power settings to work ok, that was kind of the main thing. Ubuntu desktop performance is as snappy as it needs to be; i.e. no lag, but I haven't run anything 3D in it so who knows about that.

I think the i7 would make the most difference for games. Core speed bumped from 1.8 to 2ghz, and turbo from 2.8 to 3.2 with 1MB extra cache. I guess it doesn't hurt general performance otherwise either. I'd venture very little impact on battery life. If anything I'm seeing better battery times now than I did on the i5 / 8 / 256, but that's probably mostly attributable to the fact that Win8 drivers have matured in the mean time I believe. I also didn't have Ubuntu up and running on the i5 either.

Space. Apart from UEFI partitions, I have a 202.61GiB NTFS drive for Win8, a 7.63GiB for SWAP (couldn't get hibernate to work in Linux though so might be too big for a non-hibernation swap) and then 27.2GiB for Ubuntu (ext4). Of that, I've only used 6.10GiB so plenty of room to grow.

Windows 8 pro: It is pretty clean. I've only installed the basic driver, Chrome and WoT. I have 167GB free of 202. Should probably exclude ~12GB for World of Tanks == ~179GB free from the 202 formatted, which means that a Win8 install, the basic Lenovo drivers, Chrome, the page file and the hibernation file for the 8GB of memory takes 24GB. That's really not all that bad.

If you were to have the same partitioning as me with a 128GB drive but make the Linux swap 2 instead of 8GiB, that'd mean about 65GiB free (assuming it's 120GB formatted.. can't quite remember).

One thing about gaming: Don't buy it as a gaming PC primarily. I installed WoT just to test how much better it was than the i5 I had before (it was noticeably quicker, but that might also have been down to new version of WoT), and found that whilst it runs ok at minimum / low settings, it does get really hot and the fan is constantly running. I'm not sure about the long term effects of doing multi hour stints frequently. (Anyone care to comment on this??) For a gaming laptop I'd choose a high spec Asus G55 which of course is going to be at least 2x as big and have half the battery life. The G55 is a really good gaming laptop though.

Hope this helps. It's taken me 3 months to get my mint i7 8 256, as I had to DoA the i5 I first got, but was so worth it in the end. Absolutely love it for my purposes. I'm glad I got the i7 / 8 too; I'll be hanging on to it for a good while and I have the full Lenovo insurance on it.

 

I don't intend to use it as a gaming machine exactly, I have a desktop for that, but incidentally it may get used to play Starcraft 2 at low settings, which it should be fine with. My current laptop's GPU is apparently about as fast as the HD 4000 which feels kind of sad, and I play on low all the time with 100+fps no problem. I specifically play on low because I want to avoid instantaneous lags in busy situations and i don't mind it really. Other than that I probably wouldn't need the windows partition for much so I think I could get away with a 45GB windows partition pretty easily. Tempted to just pull the trigger on a 128GB model and keep big stuff on some sort of secondary storage then. By my calculations I could live on 128GB if I was just a little careful. Especially since these days I've stopped booting into Windows except for starcraft I could get rid of office and visual studio and all that junk that I don't use anymore since switching almost completely to Linux where the equivalents are much smaller.

Edit: I was doing my daily routine of configuring an X1 carbon and not ordering it, this time with i7/8gb/128gb, and was bummed about the 12/24 ship date, when I noticed that the screen was labeled as Premium HD+ screen. Then I checked on http://www.lenovosolutionscentre.com/usa/portfolio/system/thinkpad/ and noticed that the models listed with Premium HD+ screen were listed as "New Model - Will be announced soon." Did the screen always say Premium HD+? I wonder if it's a new screen, possibly IPS, and that's why the ship date is 12/24?

 

Still waiting for mine to be delivered.

i5-3317U / 4GB / 128GB
Windows 8 / Ethernet Adapter

I ordered the X1C with the above configs for $1,074.14 before tax. Was this a good deal?

 

Eh, it depends on how you look at it...I'm sure you'll love the build quality, trackpoint/trackpad, and overall speed with the SSD. That's not bad for a grand, especially when you compare it to say, a MacBook Air for a grand. But I'm holding off for now at I own a T61 with more RAM, a similar SSD (SATAII, not SATAIII though), decent 16:10 display, size, etc...and dropping a grand isn't worth it yet.

Can anyone comment on the trackpad performance (with comparisons to past thinkpads, new macbooks, etc...)? Does anyone who previously preferred the trackpoint switch to using the trackpad on the XC1 due to its better performance?

 

VanquishOE, that's a great price, one you wouldn't possibly get here in Australia; I think you'll be very happy with it.

I would assign a lot of value in the case. I absolutely _love_ the build quality of my mint X1C i7/8/256. If you get a proper unit (I got one on my 2nd try), it is very tight, light, with a great screen for working (I'm a programmer). Touchpad is great, but software support in Windows is nowhere as good as in OSX. So the experience of using the Touchpad on OSX on a Macbook is much better. As far as Windows goes, though, it's great. Having said that I don't use it much because the Track Pointer completely aces it. I use that 95% of the time now, and it is fantastic.

With some proper house cleaning you can also have a highly battery efficient build. I would recommend completely dropping the included Win7 build as it is a slow power hog (to put it kindly); a relatively clean Win8 build (I'm seeing ~45 processes after startup, going to the desktop) on the other hand suits this Ultrabook _very_ well, and an Ubuntu build with Jupiter Applet for power management works _well_. With Win8 I'm seeing a memory use of about 1.2gb booted, which would suit your 4GB config well I think. 8GB gives more headroom for junk - but the junk still affects battery life! So that's why I care about that.

One can get some exceptional battery times (for the format / considering the size of the unit). As an edge case in low power usage: I was reading the php manual last night in Windows 8, a CHM file as I'm picking up this as a new language. I had the display turned down to minimum (most lights were off, so this is easier on the eyes), and chose the power saver option. I saw that wattage was already way down (~5w), so I thought I'd switch off the radios too and the keyboard backlight as an exercise. The result was using 4.5w, with a Windows projection hitting 9 hours. Not bad.

In a more typical scenario, I can easily get 5-6 hours of working with a text editor against a local server ("LAMP") in Ubuntu (keyboard backlight on normal / step 1); I was doing a MongoDB training course (10gen) the other night and was getting about 5.5 hours frequently switching workspaces between Sublime editor, terminal window, and Chrome browser for viewing / googling documentation.

Of course, if gaming, or doing other things that push the CPU, you will be looking at 3 hours or so - so this all depends on your usage patterns. I'm just saying it suits my own very well.

Oh and to round this long post off, once you plug it in to charge, you'll be amazed by the fastest charging times I've ever seen in portable computing device. It's pretty nuts how quickly it fills up.

 

Gah the discount is gone now :-( but 256GB SSD no longer puts the shipping time at 4+ weeks. Too bad that delivery would most likely land in a time where I'm on vacation, so I guess more waiting to order for me. I think my bank account is going to talk me down to 128GB though. Maybe if I'm lucky the X1C touch will come out in the next week

 

I haven't seen the touch model, and I don't know anyone who has. But, for now, I'm not sorry I didn't wait for it; I just can't imagine it being thinner and or lighter. Maybe time will prove me wrong..?

 

All, I got about halfway through this thread and then jumped to the end. I tried to summarize the issues people have had on the Lenovo forums:
X1 Carbon - summary of differences between pre-pro... - Lenovo Community

Also have a question. Can I use a micro-SIM to standard SIM adapter to plug my iPhone 4 AT&T SIM card into the Carbon's SIM card slot? I've googled and can't find anything about swapping SIM cards into a laptop after about 2008.

Or maybe can I just walk into the AT&T store and get a second SIM for my plan which is of the correct form factor? How are you guys/gals using the SIM card slot?

 

Nice work, but re #1, assuming "There is no i7 4GB option" is a typo and you meant 8gb, you should have kept reading - at least the past few pages? I _have_ the i7 8gb, it is available in Australia. This is fairly obvious from my previous, recent posts (i7/8/256).

On #2, I'll try my wife's 2010 Macbook and the X1C at the same time tonight with my eyes closed and report on the difference. Mine's quite smooth.

On #3, screen door effect is a non issue for a lot of people, myself included. I can see it but typically only if I've just been on here reading this thread.. For my uses it is fantastic. I feel that is is very sharp, and I absolutely love how it renders Ubuntu and Windows 8.

On #4, I ordered mine with the 3 year on site accidental warranty that includes a battery swap should it be warranted.

On your question, my X1C takes a normal "big" sim card. I actually had to tape the one I got up as it featured a punch out micro sim for the iPhone4, and I punched out half of it by mistake as I got it out of the packaging (it was itself punched to the packaging). Tape fixed it up though. Great to have built in 3G. Can't comment on 2nd sim option.

 

The i7 with 8gb is there, it's just a bit hidden. Pick the i7 model and then go to the section labeled "base" when customizing. You can select 8gb there. It's pretty dumb I will admit but it's been there since I started considering the X1C about a week ago.