ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen) Owners Lounge

No, X1C has an Intel iGPU only. If you are looking for a "similar" model with a dGPU check out the new X1 Extreme (you can order it with a 1050ti).

 

Hey wondering if you could help me. Moved from a mbpr 2013 13” and could never fault that machine. Upgraded to an x1c6 with FHD and for obvious reasons wasnt pleased with the display.

So now ive got an hdr model and out of the box it looked very red. I updated the drivers until a colour setting option was available on the desktop which allows switching from native to standard. Standard looks dull but no red, red looks good but.. red.

Is this as good as this display gets? Anyway I can make it most similar to my 2013 mbpr?

Thx

 

Hey there, if I understand your question correctly it looks like you want a custom colour profile. You can try using one available from the Internet, potentially tweaking some options (have a look at: https://amp.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/8fy0zw/x1_carbon_6th_generation_hdr_screen_red_bias_and/ as well at the Lenovo Forums). If that's not enough you can try to calibrate the display by yourself; you can either trust in your eyes / colour taste or invest in a monitor calibrator tool such as Datacolor Spyder or X-rite ColorMunki.

Personally I'm ok with the overly saturated red on Windows for the small amount of time that I use it. In openSUSE colours were just right out of the box so I never spend much time tweaking it.

Cheers,

 

Thanks for that pal. I did look at the reddit, theres also the color management settings. I tried adding the custom profile but it didnt change anything. Maybe its clashing with the other colour settings.

Either way is the 2013 retina mb panel “better” at all?

 

It is hard to quantify "better". Apple displays are known to be very good and most often than not set the standards for everything else. MacOS does a better job with its "scaling" support when compared to Windows; a must for HiDPI displays.

The ThinkPad HDR screen is also known to be one of the best in the market. Pros: it actually tops the MBP Retina Screen in brigthness levels and colour gamut; it has Dolby Vision support and is very energy efficient. Cons: It is certainly more reflective than the MPB screen; Windows 10 colour profile is certainly biased towards red and Lenovo is actually "faking" HDR with a 8-bit display.

Otherwise I think that colour perception is a very personal thing. I'm also not a designer or specialist by any means, so don't take my word for it, however I do think that you will manage to tweak the display more to your liking.

 

Yes indeed i do like it otherwise. Do you face issues with noticeable ghosting? I don’t know if its poor refresh rate or stuttering during scrolling on chrome.

 

There are certainly reports across the forums. I haven't noticed much of anything on Linux. Although I mainly use my other computer (G-Sync 120hz 1080P screen) for gaming and fast-paced stuff.

 

Oh ok. I’m looking to replace my mb with this entirely. I don’t use monitors/desktops so would be my main driver. Hopefully I can get used to the display before the return end, otherwise the laptop is top.

 

Thank you for your comments. Googled and found some comments from other Thinkpad owner's about that FHD displays that got replaced might get same issue in a short time. Since the spot it self and its location is not really significant for me, I would leave it as is for now.

W10 LTSB Enterprise AFAIK doesn't have any other version, except 1607 and will be upgraded to LTSC next year. It works perfectly after complete firewall reconfiguration (all default rules were deleted and firewall is in "disabled by default" mode except specific rules enabled via Windows Firewall Control) and turning off telemetry, updates and many other services that I do not need.

I also solved S3 sleep issue, actually the solution is to upgrade to BIOS 1.30 and change "Sleep State" under Config -> Power section of BIOS into a "Linux". After that drain over the might is about 1-2%, which is totally okay for me!

 

There is a BIOS version 1.31 that addresses "L1 Terminal Fault aka Foreshadow" vulnerabilities.
https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/n23ur12w.txt

Has anyone already had a chance to upgrade to the latest version?
What about performance?

 

Installed a few hours ago. So far so good.

 

Hello everyone. I'm a new X1C6 owner. I'm also new to Lenovo, coming from many years with Dell Latitude laptops. I had no real complaints about the Dells, but this time I was free to choose, and Lenovo offered a more appealing combination of features and price.

I bought the Costco model which has i7-8550U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1080p screen. It came with the Samsung SSD and Delta cooling unit.

I haven't yet read through this whole thread, but I plan to. A few quick questions:

- Is a clean install of Windows recommended, or is the factory install good to go?

- Any recommendations on docking solutions? One reason I chose Lenovo is because they are one of the few manufacturers who still offer mechanical docks. Previously I used the Dell E series docks with my Dell machines and never had a problem with them. Dell only offers tethered docks now (i.e. USB-C or Thunderbolt). I'm leaning toward the Lenovo Pro dock 40AH, or the TB3 dock 40AC. I'll be driving a pair of 1440p displays connected via DP, so either of those docks will handle it. The pro dock seems like it might be a little easier to use, since the laptop just snaps in and no driver software is needed. The TB3 dock seems like it might be more versatile, since it keeps a TB3 port available on the dock and on the computer, while the Pro doc covers up both TB3 ports. The TB3 doc can also be used with non-Lenovo computers in the future. I've also read that the X1C6 can run hot, so another benefit of the TB3 dock is that it would allow the use of a cooling pad under the computer if desired. Any comments would be appreciated.

- Any other tips or tricks for a Lenovo/X1C6 newbie?

Thanks in advance!

Edit:
Found this thread on reddit that has some related discussion, including a list of known issues.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/8ybokm/new_x1c6_on_the_way_what_do_i_need_to_know/

 

The clean installation is the only way I follow when I purchase a new laptop. Two main reasons:
1. I try to use portable apps where possible and only install those apps, that I absolutely need to be installed. Nothing more.
2. I don't use Windows 10 Pro with all telemetry and rest of the garbage that default Windows 10 Pro is coming with. Right away I legally upgrade to Enterprise LTSB, reconfigure firewall and turn off many useless features.

So for me a complete reinstall is the only way to go.

 

Thanks. For the time being, I will only have the license for Win 10 Home that came with the machine. I will probably still try to do a clean install.

 

Perks finally came in around 40%, so I went for an i5 HDR 16GB model.

Not a glossy fan, so I am hoping the backlight can overwhelm most glare.

This will be my first laptop since 2010 without a Nvidia GPU o.0

Edit. I got it a couple of days ago and have been using it side by side with my E5450 Dell.


TL;DR: I like the laptop. Some things about the old Dell I still appreciate, but overall, I like the X1 carbon's first impressions and am looking forward to keeping it for at least 2-3 years (and hopefully not 4 years like the Dell).



KB is a bit better than the Dell, trackpoint is actually easy to use, compared to the Dell. It's a firm trackpoint, and not mushy like the Dell version. The screen isn't a massive upgrade over the Dell (glossy vs a really good matte), though 2560x1440 basically removes a lot of the issues with Windows Snap - namely, many apps require at least 1100 or so horizontal pixels, which is more than a 1920x1080 display can provide in Windows Snap side by side mode. This meant Windows Snap usually allowed one app to take over ~60-70% of the screen, while the other application is crammed into a smaller sliver of the display. With the WQHD display, this is no longer an issue!


As for battery life, it seems to be a tiny bit better than my E5450 with the 62Whr battery (Thinkpad has 57WHr). Acceptable, IMO, given the much higher specs and lighter weight of the X1.

It lacks a dGPU (which the Dell has), and will be my first computer to rely solely on Intel IGP that I have ever purchased. After experiencing my parents' Intel Extreme Edition 2 graphics when I was younger, and GMA950 a bit later, I've always held off buying anything with Intel IGPs. Hopefully the Skylake IGP doesn't fall flat on its face (only game I really play anymore is Starcraft 2).

In the SSD lotto, I got the Intel Pro 6000p 256GB, which is a fairly slow NVMe SSD. I ordered a Samsung 970 Pro 512GB long in advance, and will likely keep the Intel SSD as the "restoration/backup" SSD.

In the fan lotto, I may have lost out, I'll know for certain when I upgrade my SSD. It seemed noisier before the latest BIOS upgrade was applied, so maybe the fan lotto results won't matter.

Battery life when watching YT videos is (from 80% to 20%, just like the Dell) around 4 hours, a bit better than the 3.5 hours then Dell afforded. When typing or other less Network + Display heavy tasks, it seems to be around 7 hours (estimate only).

Modern standby seems to work for now. If/when it fails, I will revert to S3 standby. From what I've read, S3 standby on the X1 carbon doesn't take appreciably longer than Modern Standby. On the Dell, the laptop would be basically unusable for at least 30 seconds, due to some odd latency (and this is even with Hybrid Standby/Hibernate disabled - enabling it made everything far worse. 16GB RAM with a slow SATA SSD was never a recipe for success in that mode).

A couple of gripes compared to the Dell (and Sony):
Battery charge limit values are poorly retained. Seems to lose them whenever the app is updated, or if I started charging when the laptop was powered off. I don't know what caused it to fully charge. I'll keep track for future purposes.
That leads into my second complaint: the BIOS is really limited compared to the Dell. It's not HP consumer PC bad (though their Probooks are quite good, IMO), but in the Dell, the battery charge limit could be set in the BIOS. This ensured that the charge limit would be respected across all OSes and a software update wouldn't just "lose" the limit value. After reading about the TB3 BIOS settings potentially bricking Thinkpads, I'll hold off adjusting anything I don't need to adjust.

I've stumbled a tiny bit with the fn-ctrl placement, but I think I've gotten used to it. The placement is the same as my old Thinkpad and a Sharp Aquos laptop we used to have (that laptop had a bright, glossy, high resolution display, too).

I'll have to see in a year if the laptop has held up as well as the Dell did after a year. The Dell battery started randomly dying and taking the laptop with it. The chassis of the Dell was quite a bit stronger than I expected, including a metal lid on the display half of the laptop (no longer available on the Latitude 5000 series). The chassis of the Dell finally started cracking after 3 years. Part of that is likely due to being in a backpack with only a softsleeve for protection. I'll try to avoid that with the X1 carbon, since it's actually small enough to fully fit in that sleeve (which has a handle), whereas the Dell and Sony were a bit too large..

The display seems to somewhat match the capabilities of my old U2711h that I still use. In a worst case scenario, I will at least have a light, portable version of that display.


Now, if this wasn't already long and rambling enough, I may as well get into why I chose the Thinkpad? TL;DR? Dell doesn't make what I want. I will never, ever buy another HP (no explanation given), and Lenovo still seems capable of making a passable Thinkpad.


The first computer I used was a Thinkpad, 310ED. Used it for 6 years (was my parent's laptop). Didn't even know "mouse" meant some external puck and not the red eraserhead until I was older. I recently pulled that old laptop out during an x86 assembly project (rather than relying soley on a Win98 VM) and rediscovered the fun of using the Thinkpad (only relation in this old laptop were KB, trackpoint - it also has a 6row, rather than the classic 7 row). Since my first computer purchase was a M11xR2, I've been somewhat biased in favor of small, compact powerhouses. However, these are anathema to Macbook Air clones, so that segment is basically dead. The Vaio I bought was the next best thing (13.3", dGPU), as was the Dell that I replaced it with (14", dGPU). Anything else was simply too big and too heavy to really count. I considered the XPS15 for a while, but the lack of a trackpoint and the poor KB (worse than my E5450 Dell, almost worse than my Vaio), basically nixed that for me. It was only marginally larger than my E5450, too.

I'm not a stranger to the Lenovo era thinkpads, either. I purchased and gave a X230 to someone leaving for university. That owner is quite careful, and even so, that laptop has survived a lot (including what seemed to be a malicious attempt by a 3rd party to spill a lot of OJ into the KB and cover it up). I haven't gotten much feedback on it, other than it has taken a beating over 4 years and still easily functional. That person now uses a MBP15, though. Maybe a 12.5" display was a bit too small, and I should have chose a T430s, instead. But this was back when I still had the M11x, and I was in strong favor of smaller laptops (and the 12.5" display was already larger than my 11.6" display - little did I know how good small laptop displays could get, even in small chassis, like the XPS13 9343). I guess this is a good time to bring up the XPS13 9343. Wasn't mine, but I have a bit of experience with one (2 months). Decent display, matte coating isn't as strong as I'd like it to be. Fit and finish were good, but I've read it wears poorly under heavy use, and I can believe that. Very rigid chassis, but I didn't iike the cold, aluminum exterior (mag alloy on the E5450 was better, IMO). CF/plastic interior was great, though. The KB just isn't great, nor is the KB layout. They fixed the KB layout with the latest gen, but strunk the battery and nixed basically all of the ports. I'm okay with the missing ports, but not the shrunken battery. Also, a display model in Costco didn't seem as rigid or well assembled as the 9343 sample. It now only comes with glossy displays, and the WQHD+ option was removed, in favor of a 4k display (overkill, IMO).

In the Latitude side of things, it wasn't much rosier. Given the continuous decontenting of the 5000 series latitudes, the high price and limited featureset of the 7000 series latitudes, I decided to look in the Lenovo waters. The X1 was the only one that came with a higher resolution display (vs 1080p) and had an interesting camera shutter feature. The T480 and T480s lacked that specific combination. The Dell Latitude 5000 series used to have decent quality display panels, too. That is no longer the case, and passable displays are now exclusive property of the 7000 series.

Ultimately, the X1 Carbon 6 isn't exactly what I wanted (I wanted a dGPU), but it is close enough to the ideal. I like that it uses USB-C PD charging, which reduces the number of unique chargers I have to carry on trips. It may actually outperform my i7 2600k desktop in CPU tasks. I like it.

 

Hello everyone.

Does anyone have any experience using regular Kensington locks with 6th gen?
Manual says that it is only compatible with Kensignton MiniSaver with Cleat system. However, 5th gen (which seems to have exactly same body) is compatible with regular lock, so I suspect this might be just a cashgrab by Lenovo (they sell the lock for 50$).

 

I don't know. I've found surprisingly little information comparing the two (beyond the basics: the newer MiniSaver is smaller). At a glance, it shouldn't work.

I have a question of my own: can the fan itself be directly replaced without replacing the heatsink, or is it all an unified unit?

 

The new Intel graphics drivers once again break ChromaTune! Stick with .6168.

 

Unified unit.

The Furukawa Nidec one is even spot welded so you can't take the fan out to clean.

The Delta one is held on by several screws so you can partially take it apart to clean the fins inside.


Even if the Furukawa Nidec one isn't spot welded there's still the issue of the top cover plate being differently shaped and that's soldered to the heatpipes, presumably to act as a passive heatsink / more surface area.

 

Thanks! Everything is so fast on this laptop. Even Edge works properly o.0. I'm beginning to realize how thermally (firmware) broken my old Dell was.

Is there anything less desirable about the current Lenovo 6223 drivers?

 

They break ChromaTune and you're stuck with the wrong color gamut in Windows (again). There's no reason to upgrade since it's a maintenance release. I'd hold on to a copy of the .6168 driver installer from Lenovo before you upgrade to any newer ones, since they don't make old drivers easily accessible.

 

Does anybody experience sound distortions in headsets when power cable plugged in?
I was surprised to hear noise and sound distortion using apple wired headset when I was listening some piano soft an calm music from youtube.
Seems like it is less distortion in a headset after I turned Dolby Atmos off.
For now I just stopped listening any music in a headset, but it is not a solution

Goolged and found this topic on Lenovo forum: https://lnv.gy/2ySD6mv

Some report, that it is may be a hardware problem, that was fixed in some cases with motherboard replacement.
But there are were several reports, that mb replacement didn't help.

Do you have such sound issue? Thanks.

 

Just received my X1 Carbon 6th gen, what a fantastic laptop - minimal design, light and beautiful WQHD HDR screen. No flex anywhere either, build wise this is the laptop I have been waiting for after numerous thinkpads and a zenbook. Even sweeter I got in on the EPP deal plus cashback.

The colors do seem slightly over saturated though, also any other settings or tweaks you guys can recommend? TIA

 

Chromatune? I haven't been able to find such an app, though the desktop context menu has a color mode selector (this still works as of the current Lenovo 6223 drivers - Intel's website shows no indication as to the existence of any official 6223 drivers, they skipped the number).

I suppose one could use the color mode selector in the desktop context menu. As noted in a few posts recently, upgrading to newer Intel IGP drivers is likely to break that functionality, so just keep the official Lenovo drivers (and as noted, hold onto the installer file for them).


As for other items on today's docket, I repasted and replaced the Nidec HS assembly with a Delta unit. The fan is a bit larger. Of note, the heatsink has a cutout to ensure the southbridge (Intel PCH) isn't contacted by the heatsink.


22.7C Ambient temps.

Nidec did a bit better initially - it actually did a lot better today than it usually does. You can see the saved score of 491 in there, which is more reflective of what the second run typically entails.

What usually happens is the second run drops down to 12W, which is no fun.
First run was 624! This is much higher than normal (usually starts in the 590s). Fifth run comes down to the 480 seen there.


After replacing and respasting (I may not be good at that).

Fan isn't much better in terms of acoustic quality (initial impressions). I'll know if I like it better sometime down the road. First run was 605, ended the 5th run at 519.


SCREEN
As for the WQHD display, I feel I would also have liked the dimmer, matte screen (if the matte was thick enough). I was just disappointed to learn my old E5450 had a relatively decent 1080p matte panel, and most 14" 1080p panels today are much, much worse (in terms of contrast, gamut). Especially if one wanted a dGPU.

I like the extra workspace WQHD brings, especially in Windows Snap. Some applications can quite benefit from it (simple IDE example on left) or are antisocial enough to take more than half of a 1080p screen (around 1100 pixels, last I counted, when only 960 were available in a 1920x1080 screen)/ In this case, the battle.net application is one of these greedy applications.


The brightness and color gamut of this display do not overcome the glossiness, IMO. I was quite curious about the Thinkshutter, and the T480/s models didn't have a Thinkshutter/WQHD option in the US, leaving only the X1 Carbon's two WQHD choices. After owning this "WQHD HDR" display for a few days, it really is like a black tinted mirror. It's nowhere near a Macbook Pro display, which is also glossy, but not glaringly glossy. So far, it is somewhat limiting in how I use my laptop.

In terms of screen positives (outside of resolution), screen uniformity is really great. This is in spite of the thinner LCD section (compared to the metal back of the Dell E5450). The Dell would easily distort with any sort of pressure on the lid.


HID INPUTs
Keyboard seems to be marginally nicer to type on than my old E5450 Dell, in terms of tactility. The E5450 was mushier, but had similar key travel.

I haven't used the touchpad yet, so I don't have any reports on that.

The red mouse cursor is fine. Somewhat firm, but now my Dell's feels loose and unresponsive. The X1C has a Synaptics unit, which means I can use the TPMiddle utility to gain both scrolling and middle click functionality.


MISC
I wish the uSD card reader was easier to access.You don't actually need a long pin to remove the SIM/uSD tray, a fingernail can just pry it loose. Something like the X1Y3's setup may be better. Port placement outside of the uSD reader is just about perfect.

In terms of longevity, I knew my M11x's days were numbered quite soon after I got it. Same with the Vaio SA/S13. The Dell, I intended to hold onto longer (ended up being almost 4 years). This laptop, at least two years. I originally had intended to make the jump at 10nm, since my Dell had a Broadwell chip (first gen 14nm...). However, Intel's U series quad cores were enough of a performance increase to justify a move. Meanwhile, my Dell had started falling apart in a manner that impeded normal use.


CONCLUSIONS
The keyboard backlight control isn't that clever. The Dell's (and frankly, every laptop I've had with a keyboard backlight) will keep the backlight off until you touch the KB, upon which it stays lit for 20s. Or, one could toggle one or off via a software/BIOS option.

All that said, I like the laptop well enough. It's not like my Dell, or Vaio, both of which compromises. Compromises that may have been lessened by not requiring a dGPU, since the newest game I have played for years is Starcraft 2. The Intel HD620 can easily handle that.

Overall, I do still intend to upgrade at Intel 10nm.

 

I did a trade with another user that had a nidec fan so I could compare side by side how the Delta and Nidec (Furukawa) is constructed.

The main issue with the Nidec one is that the top of the fan can't intake any air, or is extremely choked by the opening, while the Delta one has a much bigger opening and a different fan design that allows more air to pass through the said opening.

Fan dimension isn't considerably bigger/smaller on the Nidec/Furukawa one.

I will post a picture of both the Delta and Nidec/Furukawa a bit later, remind me to do this!

@triturbo don't miss it.

 

Thanks. I did replace my Nidec heatsink assembly with a Delta. The Nidec performed unusually well on its last batch of performance testing, very uncharacteristic of its prior performances.

I'm almost completely certain I drowned the die in Noctua paste, and will have to redo it soon. Also, something (likely a corner of tape) is hitting the spokes of the fan, since I hear the familiar sound of an impeded impeller.

Can the fans even take in air from the KB side? I know in my Dell, despite the abundance of tape around the KB, still had some airflow around the KB area.

 

Yes, the color selector is ChromaTune. But when it's broken, the selector doesn't do anything, it will always display native gamut no matter what you select.

 

not that I'm aware of

 

Wow, @Mobius 1

You are right, I did not take a close enough look at the heatsink assemblies the first time around!

The fan intake side is much larger on the Delta:



And we can see a bit of it here, but the other side shows much larger fan hub is on the Nidec, potentially blocking airflow (?).


That's all solid plastic on the Nidec.

We can also see my poor pasting job.

After redoing the paste, I reran the CBR15 loops again. With the same ambient temperatures, the fifth CBR15 run improved a bit to 535 (up from 519; like the previous time, I ran CBR15 5 times in a row to get a better view of long term performance). While I still consider that within the noise range, it's consistently better than the ~480 I was getting with the Nidec (notebookcheck was getting around that, too, for sustained performance).

I was editing and rendering some videos at work today, and the laptop did appreciably well.

I normally use Premier, but I also tried the Windows Photo Movie Maker (built into the current Microsoft Windows 10 Photos app), because it properly supports Intel Quicksync for exports. It is quite fast. Shame the basic editing tools in the current iteration of "Movie Maker" are far worse than the Windows Live Essentials revision, otherwise I would not have needed to let Adobe software taint my laptop.


EDIT: grammar.

 

Never even noticed that option, the standard color setting works perfectly for a quick fix. Thanks!

 

Shame the Nidec Furukawa fan is spot welded assembly, would love to see the inside of the fan but don't want to destructively take it apart.

I'm prett sure that top portion of the fan either doesn't have or have much smaller blades compared to the underside.

Really not sure what they were thinking about when doing this.




Anyways, you can try to use tpfancontrol manual mode and setting the speed to 64, this will disengage the fan and make it even faster than what the bios allows.

 

I got around 5600RPM as the max speed (using 7[max], on the 0.63 revision of TPFancontrol).

As for airflow being drawn through the KB, I finally remembered why that's silly. If water got through the KB tray, then it would not be a water resistant KB, lol. Imagine the water getting into the fan, and spraying everywhere. Droplets would easily find at least one unprotected lead/wire/pad and start corroding things.

 

Any thoughts on extended warranty from Lenovo? How good is their customer service? I have an extra year from my CC on top of the base warranty. But I am getting offer of $69 for 3 years extended warranty from Lenovo, along with CC that would make it a total of 4 years which is pretty cheap.

 

No clue, the opinions on their customer service range from good to bad (Thinkpad side; consumer Ideapad/Lenovo side is considered poor).

Latest round of BIOS updates have come around to the X1C6.

Code:

CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE
  Version 1.34

[Important updates]
  Nothing.

[New functions or enhancements]
 - Updated the CPU microcode.
 - Updated the Diagnostics module to version 04.04.001.
 - BootOrderLock was shown as Enable in WMI command if Device Guard was enabled.
 - Supported ALPS TrackPoint Firmware Update function.

[Problem fixes]
- Improved Thermal FAN behavior.

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/n23uj13w.exe
https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/n23uj13w.txt <-- README

 

I ordered another X1C hoping to get one with a non-mushy keyboard. As luck would have it (or not), the unit was spec'd with the EXACT same keyboard part # (KBD+Bzl_US,FPR,AlpsTP,B,CHY / 01YU651). It's coming later this week.

Does anyone have a nice clicky keyboard that they like? If so, would you mind sharing the part #?

 

Doesn't the X1C6 only use one keyboard FRU?

 

I don't know. But the lottery still exists.

You know its bad when even Tom's Hardware is calling Lenovo out.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/lenovo-laptop-quality-control-issues,37510.html

 

gg

at least in usa you have a working return policy, unlike other parts of the world

 

Hello all,

I’m very close to pulling the trigger on a x1 Carbon 6th Gen. This would be my first time purchasing a Think Pad. I will be using this notebook for business but no gaming. However, I will need a quality notebook for MS Office applications and marketing projects that may include Adobe CC Suite. I will also be frequently traveling and on web a lot to manage various projects.

I believe I have found a good purchase from the Lenovo website.

The i5-8250u is less expensive but the website is forcing me to get the i5-8350U. Any reason? I don’t see any major differences in the processor. Also, I would save about $135.00 with purchasing the 8250 processor.

My major configs are as follows:
8250/8350 processor
16G Ram
256G Hard drive
14" FHD Non Touch 300nits
WWAN-Fibocom L850-GL 4G LTE-A cat 9
-Warranty-
One year Onsite and ADC
One Year Depot

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Right now, I’m paying right under $1400 with the 8350u processor.

Is the WWAN a good feature or a waste? (Lenovo said I couldn’t install later.)

Should I be able to select the 8250u processor? Any major or great difference in processor?

Am I missing any savings?

Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

Jim

 

PM/DM me and I can give you access to the special discount store, I don't profit from this.

Much better deal.

 

16GB of RAM in the USA requires the vPro CPUs (i5-8350 and whatever the i7 version is). It's an arbitrary restriction that doesn't exist in some of the other markets. But we do get our Thinkpads much cheaper than most other countries.

The non-WWAN version is missing the cellular antennas. However, the X1C6 puts the antennas into the base unit, rather than the screen, so adding in the antennas on your own is not too hard. That being said, it will be cheaper to just get it in the beginning, if you want LTE.

 

Guys, How to a send DM/PM? I've searched everywhere.

 

Finally received what I think is a keeper X1C 6th gen. About time. Question, is there any way to make the brightness toggle appear when you click on the battery icon on the task bar? It used to be there and is there on my other W10 laptop. But on this laptop there is just the power slider. It shows up if I click on the "notifications" icon. Is there a way to put this back so I can adjust it when I click on the battery icon?

Also, there are no other options for power saving. Laptop is always in balanced mode.

I swapped the crappy Intel SSD for a Samsung SSD and did a clean W10 Pro install. Updated to bios 1.34. My Windows build is 1809, 17763.168.

 

Both of your questions are answerable with this: Windows changed how power settings operate (including brightness - the slider is gone from the battery popup).

I don't know if there are ways to bring it back. I usually just use the fn+f5/f6 hotkeys. It's a lot easier than my old Dell, which was something like fn+f9/f10, making me stretch across the KB (hard to do one handed).

Congratulations on your new device. Replacing the Intel Pro 6000p with a Samsung 970 Pro was the first thing I did, too.

 

Thank you for the reply. I can deal with this by clicking on the notifications icon, the toggle brightness % button appears there now. All seems well aside from the front right side of the lid not being even when closed. Leaves a slight gap between the front right part of the lid and the base. Looks to be a pretty common issue from what I've read, not worth returning or exchanging. Especially since I finally got a perfect AUO screen, that is the most important part to me.

 

Was about to order a Delta fan from Parts to replace my Nidec fan. Because why not. Called tech support just for kicks and they are sending me the Delta fan as a CRU. Figured it was worth a shot, score. Really cool support rep. Screw the parts lottery. I re-pasted my MateBook X Pro which was a colossal PITA, the X1C6 looks like a walk in the park in comparison. Will use some MX-4. Saved myself a fistful of dollars by going through tech support.

 

Neat! Yup, that's the way to do it. The X1C6 also has nice, spring loaded clips (well, plastic springs). This is in contrast to most cheaper laptops (say, an E485) where the plastic clips are rigid and have a tendency to easily break when being opened. Reports of the latter are a big part of why I avoided Dell's Latitude 5000 series this time around.

 

I called into tech support about the fan last night and it just got delivered to my office prior to 10 AM today. Talk about prompt support. They aren't requiring me to send back the Nidec fan either. I see that the fan assembly comes with thermal paste pre-applied which is cool. Is there really a big difference between the stock compound vs. MX-4 or something similar? I have no problem wiping the stock stuff off, but if there's no difference may as well just leave it on.

 

Very simple process swapping out the fan. Running 2 runs of Cinebench back to back I saw an increase in score and overall temp drop of about 5 degrees. At full blast there is less high pitched noise from the Delta fan. I'll prob never run Cinebench again, just wanted to compare temps. I'm going for silence and cool temps at idle and office work, so should be stellar in this regard.

Nidec fan, stock paste:



Cleaned die, re-paste with MX-4:



Delta fan, MX-4:

 

8550U can do 16GB.

Only the lowest end i5 is not able to select 16GB.

If you are smart and a smooth talker, you can convince the customer support to send you an EXACT FRU Samsung SSD while you send back the defective and inferior Intel one under their cost.

Someone said that the Nidec fan spin faster, but the Delta one is "bigger." But the fan is around the same size and the heatsink shape isn't that different.

The Nidec opening is much smaller, so the fan is choked and can't really move that much air.

When I wanted to get the Nidec FRU just to compare Lenovo ran out and wasn't able to ship me one for 4-5 weeks. I just got a Nidec FRU from a contact of mine.

Too bad I don't have an X1C6 anymore though.

Use Kryonaut or Nanogrease extreme, MX-4 will dry out and degrade in a very short period of time.