ThinkPad X1 Carbon (3rd Gen.) Broadwell

For a few weeks?!? Clearly you know someone. Do tell!

 

Here's an important question... Will we get the HD6000 or HD6100??

 

You get the HD5500

 

Said 5-7 days. Fingers crossed

 

Well, duh!

8gb ram, 512gb ssd, touch screen. I don't have the OneLink dock for it. Other than getting used to the new layout, I like typing on it. The keys are springy and give good feedback. I'm beginning to come around to PgUp/PgDn being at the arrow keys, but I still hate having Delete in the upper right corner. I could use a little more space between the function key blocks.

Needs indicator lights. It drives me crazy when things just stop, and I can't tell if it's completely hung up or just busy.

I use the touch screen more than I thought I would. It's so easy to just reach out and touch a link or scroll through a site.

One thing I've had to get used to is having the trackpad click down if I rest my hand on it. Being a diehard TrackPoint user, I have it disabled, of course, so nothing happens. But it still clicks down a bit if I press on it in the right spot.

 

I was ready to order this, but after I was burned by Lenovo with the 1st-gen non-touch, 1st-gen touch, and 2nd-gen touch, I put in an order for the Dell XPS 13 that was released today. I didn't like the XPS series as much before, but they went all out for this new one. There were just too many poor QC issues I ran into with Lenovo. The Samsung NP900X3C has been great, but it's time for an upgrade.

I do hope Lenovo has improved things though, and those of you ordering are happy. I may have just been extremely unlucky. One tip I have is to thoroughly test it when you receive it. Looking forward to your feedback!

 

Price is way too much.

 

Damn it! Now you're making me worried...

At $1700 it better be good!

 

Update for those who care: ordered my laptop yesterday, status now says expected shipping on 1/16 with delivery on 1/23

When I ordered it said "ships in 5-7 days"

So their timeline is slightly off

 

Interesting. Mine says it's coming the 22nd.

 

Is going from a 1st generation (i7-3667U, 8GB ram, 256GB) to a 3rd generation a worthwhile upgrade?

 

I ordered a X1 Carbon with the basic 128 GB SATA under the assumption that I could swap out the 128 GB SATA with a SATA SSD that I already have. Is this assumption correct?

 

If the SSD you already own is a M.2 SSD with a length of 80mm (shorter might work, too), your assumption is correct. However, it sounds like the SSD you already own is a 2.5 inch SATA SSD. If that is the case, you can't use it in the X1 Carbon.

 

Is this true for the Broadwell 3rd generation one? I saw on the TA book that it'll accept PCIe, M.2 SSD, and SATA SSD, in contrast to only M.2 SSD for the Haswell 2nd generation.


http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook.pdf

Page 100 of this PDF for the X1 Carbon (2015):

Storage
M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD), PCIe 2.0 x4 or SATA

vs.

Page 90 of this PDF for the X1 Carbon (2014)

Storage
M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD)



If I have to buy a M.2 SSD instead, that's fine, but just want to double check that this is true for the new Haswell.

 

I think they mean that it takes an M.2 SSD that uses either PCIe or SATA interface but it's always in M.2 form factor. There's no room in X1C for a full size 2.5" drive and they even increased the battery size in 3rd gen.

 

Never mind. I figured out the SSD issue.

 

If I buy the version with the 128GB Serial ATA SSD now, can I later replace that SSD myself with a PCIe SSD? Or would my machine only have a SATA connection, not a PCIe connection?

I'm looking at 512GB PCIe M.2 prices on Amazon, and they seem to go for something like $500, whereas Lenovo seems to charge $700 for the upgrade to the 512GB version, so if I can exchange this myself this might be an easy way to save some money...

 

Don't think it's worth trying to go aftermarket with the PCIe drive as there are too many unknowns at this point. Lenovo may have included some proprietary interfaces/connectors to their drive and there is also also a chance that the ThinkPad may have a "whitelist" in the BIOS only allowing Lenovo branded parts. I recall that on the T440s launch, some people tried to save money and go with Samsung aftermarket SSD drives. Their laptops had random freezes and reboots and after a few weeks/months did Samsung update their firmware on the drive which supposedly fixed the issue.

I would pay the $200 and save time (and possible frustration) with installing and configuring a new drive.

 

That would be massively ridiculous if they did this and would help prevent me from buying ThinkPads in the future. It’s bad enough we need to deal with this for Wi-Fi.

 

I don't agree with your opinion.

They don't do so, they use a standard-compliant M.2 port.

That's unlikely. The last ThinkPads using a HDD whitelist are some years old now:

• T43
• T43p
• R52
• X41
• X41 Tablet

Lenovo never used a HDD whitelist again, why should they do so now?

 

The new interface is brand new to ThinkPads. Don't think anyone has taken it apart and truly seen how open the compatibility is. Even if it is open, there still may be some minor firmware incompatibilities as was the case with the T440s. Why take a chance? The time you spend troubleshooting and reinstalling could be worth more than $200.

Here is what happened when T440s tried to go with aftermarket Samsung SSD's

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T5...is-killing-Samsung-840-pro-SSD-s/td-p/1366903


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

^I cannot justify a 200 dollar upgrade that is a straight up rip off.

Also, how about a 256 or 128 pci express option,.

I'd love to buy the smallest sata option - then get a pciexpress drive of my own and swap it in.

For those who get the touch screen, please let us know if it has that awful film on it. I'd be tempted to buy one and try it out if not for the restocking fee.

 

I agree that the latest Lenovo laptops have ripoff prices for components. What's worse is that in six months, you'll see "end of summer" sales where the laptops are going for half of what they are now. Guess that's the price you pay for having the latest, "state of the art" laptop.

$200 is a lot of money but after buying ThinkPads for the past 15+ years, I realize that's the price you pay for peace of mind and convenience. I used to also search for online coupons, negotiate with the sales agents, wait for sales, etc. At the end of the day I realized that I spent so many man hours trying to save a hundred or two hundred bucks, that I could have better applied my energy elsewhere.

Here is the example I mentioned earlier where some users tried to save a few bucks with going with an aftermarket Samsung SSD on their T440s. See if you want to possibly go through the same process:

T440s is killing Samsung 840 pro SSD's - Lenovo Community

 

yes, I get it. I just spent 40 minutes trying to get an agent to give me no restocking fee.

I just think that it's a little crazy that I spend 1549 on a middle of the road x1 and they are going to charge me 240 dollars to return it, especially after the 2nd generation nonsense.

I'm typing this on a 2nd gen that my work bought 30 or so of. Every user hates the keyboard, the touchpad and the adaptive Function keys. After the fiasco of the 2nd gen, they shouldn't be so bold as to charge a restocking fee.

This 3rd gen that I will ultimately buy will be my personal laptop, work doesn't even want to go lenovo again after the 2nd gen BS. I tried to explain that to them but they couldn't offer me either a 240 off coupon or a no restocking fee. Oh well, their loss. I will suffer on with the free 2nd gen from work!

 

FWIW, the http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook.pdf has been updated to reflect the new X1.

 

Well... I just ordered the better i5, 8gb ram, higher res NON touch (can't stand the stupid film they put on the screen) cheapest hard drive, deal. I hope to enjoy the super high res IPS screen and replace the sata drive with a pciE drive of my own.. we'll see how it goes!

 

FYI - Shipped out today - 7 days / 5 biz days after ordering

 

lucky !!

I'm still waiting for mine to get past the "Released to Manufacturing" stage...

 

Thinking of upgrading from a T430s. Never had a laptop with a super high res before... It seems like most people getting 2560x1440 are scaling it down to 1080p? If so what's the point of getting the higher resolution screen in the first place? Does it look better than a native 1080p resolution?

 

Good question. I would like to know if 1080p looks good on the high resolution screen.

 

I'm not planning on scaling it back. It's all about the near 2k screen for viewing movies that are ultraHD and having more real estate on the screen

 

This is strange, I got an email saying due to demand shipping was delayed. However, when I actually checked the order status it's showing that it already shipped and has an earlier delivery date....

 

Alright!!! Got a UPS tracking number!!! Says I should have it by the 23rd.
It's coming from China.

 

What's your shipping process? which state is it going to?

 

Scheduled to arrive Monday, Jan 19 in New York City, NY

Louisville, KY, United States 01/16/2015 12:12 P.M. Import Scan
01/16/2015 9:17 A.M. Arrival Scan
Anchorage, AK, United States 01/15/2015 11:25 P.M. Departure Scan
01/15/2015 12:43 P.M. Arrival Scan
Shanghai, China 01/15/2015 8:56 P.M. Departure Scan
Shanghai, China 01/14/2015 8:23 P.M. Export Scan
01/14/2015 8:23 P.M. Origin Scan
China 01/13/2015 3:46 A.M. Order Processed: Ready for UPS

 

Cool, mine shipped today, says Friday, hope it's slightly faster like yours.. coming to NYC too.

 

You don't find the text too small when doing things like email/word/excel/etc...?

 

No, I don't.

 

Nope, I've got great vision though

 

I do not have great vision... I didn't change the screen resolution though, I just changed text only settings to 175%. It works well, and display looks incredible. The scaling in W8.1 is pretty decent on the WQHD screen, although there are a couple of applications where you have to go into properties and "disable scaling on high DPI settings" to avoid a really grainy appearance. Generally these are older programs on which you have to do this manually.

 

Mine is zipping along here..

Says delivery date is Thursday, I guess UPS has tomorrow off? As I said above, mine is coming to NY, does anyone know what kind of shipping this comes after it hits the states? Air/Ground?

If it goes Air I'd be surprised if it took three business days to get from KY to NYC

 

Seems mine is in the same group as yours. Got to Kentucky 7:37 am. Also coming to NY.

 

Sweet! After reading a few threads I thought it'd be late, not early!

 

Well, if I remember correctly, it was impossible, on a X1 2014, to install a SSD on the M.2 slot dedicated for the WWAN card. Sooo... Not a HDD whitelist per se, but sounds a little bit like it. It might be possible to swap the default SSD for another, indeed, but they also might block anything other than a WLAN or WWAN adapter on their respectives M.2 slots. Too bad, I would love to have a second SSD on this one. Gonna have to wait to see if it's possible, and if not, have to wait some more to see what will be possible with the T450s.

 

Hoping you guys get your X1s soon. Waiting for a few more first impressions before I pull the trigger.

I'd also be interested to know if the 128GB SSD is upgradable. Don't really need any more than 128GB currently for my uses but would be nice to have the option to expand further down the road without the absurd Lenovo upcharge.

 

Sure it is, you can use every M.2 SSD (attached via PCI Express or SATA) with a length of 80mm.

 

Anyone have any good sources on PCIe drives for this? 240 or so gigs?

 

If anyone can verify for sure whether or not it is possible to install two SSDs, please let us know.

 

I am also eager to know about this.

 

I don't believe it us possible due to space limitations (and maybe other limitations as well).

BTW, in the first generation it was possible to change the SSD, but there were no other options in this form factor.