Thinkpad Carbon X1 Extreme (upcoming)

What you mean? Fan noise?
X1E also little bit quieter than the XPS 15.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenov...x-Q-Laptop-Review.335608.0.html#toc-emissions

In overall XPS 15:

1. Cheaper
2. Have better battery life
3. Brighter displays

But X1E have:

1. 2*m.2 slots with RAID support
2. 2*Thunderbolt 3 vs 1
3. LAN port, with dongle, but better than nothing
4. Little bit better cooling and performance and quieter at the same time
5. Equipped with faster SSD's (Only very lucky ones getting fast Samsung in XPS15)
6. More durable with MIL-STD 810G sertification and spill resistant keyboard
7. 3 Year warranty
8. Personally, I like ThinkPad keyboard typing experience better than XPS15
9. Not deal breaker for me, but many users prefer to have Track Point
10. Also not deal breaker for, but 64GB RAM support can be important for someone

 

you can whine to dell support until they give you the samsung branded ssd, worked for me and my aw17 with just the standard 1 year onsite warranty

 

@vs40 Somali pirates

 

Sorry, but I'm really don't understand that you mean

 

Read the post you quoted! I'm replying to you since I am somewhere in that chain of messages.

 

Does anyone know if the screen is edge to edge glass on the 1080p model? On the Dell, only the 4K option was a glass edge to edge screen.

 

No, screen shots for FHD and 4K both show a bezel all the way around, thinner on the sides, thicker on the bottom (in particular) and the top.

 

So the screen has a plastic bezel around it? Not a glass one for both the 1080p and 4K? That is annoying, a lot of new notebooks are edge to edge glass..

 

Although a 4K, mine arrives day after tomorrow and I'll follow up and confirm.

 

Glass means glossy and reflections, lots of people like me prefer matte displays and less or non reflections.

 

Agreed, but if they made these beasts' panels with gorilla glass like the Yogas or X1 tablets I'd be all over it like a fly on ****e.

 

You can get some good anti-glare. I have a 1080p version of the XPS 9360 and the screen is lovely, but due to the plastic bezels and the screen recessed behind it

i. Looks cheapish
ii. Collects dust
iii. Opens itself to backlight bleeding

I went in store and saw a few of the 4K XPS 13/15 and my god, even though I think 1080p is perfect, just to have that single sheet edge to edge glass just screams quality to me.

 

Don't be fooled my marketing. All glass screens have reflections even the anti-glare.

i. Looks cheaper, fortunately I don't care what others think.
ii. Collects the same amount of dust and it's less noticeable.
iii. Bleeding comes from the panel not the bezels.

 

If it uses the same panel as the P52, it isn't really that reflective IRL as you get the feeling from watching videos etc.

 

I guess that Lenovo does not use anything but air shippment for their laptops these days so in order for the Somali pirates to get hold of them...

 

It is edge to edge glass on the 4K model. That is also why it is slightly heavier and thicker for the 4K model

 

This discussion is a bit off I think, the 4K X1E has bezels and so does the XPS15. Its more about how visible they are and it seems like the XPS15 and the X1E is quite similar here. The visible bezels on my P52 seems to be more obious.

 

Strictly speaking, a bezel is a physical retainer that goes over the top of the screen. Edge to edge glass screens don't have bezels. The marketing departments and media have changed the word to be any black space. Both X1E FHD and 4K have the same amount of black "non screen" space, but only the FHD model has a plastic bezel over the top. I think this is what @iMbaQ was referring to?

 

It doesn't use the same panel. But they should have the same "anti-reflective" coating. It has better contrast levels, so it may be slightly better than the P52 for reflections.

Yes and no. Many devices suffer from bleeding because the pressure the bezel can exert on the panel. Edge to edge glass can cause the same effect if it is a tight fit (and there is hardware like hinges beneath), so one is not necessarily better than the other for Backlight bleed problems.

 

Yes, this is what I was referring to. As an example, the Surface doesn't have this plastic bezel, just a single sheet glass display. You'll notice that laptops which employ edge to edge glass displays rarely have light bleed issues (or dust build up issues, or things going into the gap between the plastic bezel and the screen).

 

I wish these laptops had been announced before I bought my T480 with MX150. The 150 seems to be just enough power for doing basic stuff I've used it for so far, some CS or WoW but it's not the best and if I had waited a little could have gotten a 1050 although I would have had to move to a 15 inch for that. Still, the new X1s and P1s are awesome laptops, wish I could have gotten one of those instead earlier in the year.

 

Sweet. Haven't seen that in a single pic or review, but if so it'll be like my SP3s and SP4.

 

Going by the track record of the XPS 13, 15 and a few other laptops which offer two versions, there is clearly some manufacturing advantage of the E2E glass as the reports of backlight bleed are far less common (or when they exist, far less pronounced). Some people even on the gaming laptop forums have got the 4K screen rather than the 144hz panels because of BLB problems.

 

I can deal with the BL issues at corners if it means I have a lighter/glassless display.

Honestly, Its great that the option is still out there.

My favorite screens were always on Sony Vaio Z's.

The Carbon's HDR Flicker Free (No PWM) display is my new favorite aside from it high input lag.

 

Really? there have been a ton of "hands on" pics from the press release.

the official press release video also clearly shows it (starting 1:10):



Notebookcheck also took some photos but also has the full panel description and stats:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenov...GTX-1050-Ti-Max-Q-Laptop-Review.335608.0.html

 

Mine has been delayed until late October. I am not happy.

 

Never saw the official press release, wasn't even really looking for a 15" machine. Get regular solicitations from Lenovo, saw this machine, then started looking, reading reviews on TechRadar, AnandTech, etc., then came back up here looking for an owners forum and started tagging along. First 15" machine (Inspiron 5000 with a DVD!) was in the fall of 2002 commuting weekly to Joysee, concluded that "era" with a W500, W510 and W520, then started dropping weight. 22# on your back on a laptop backpack gets old after the four hundredth time out the door or so. Been in the ultrabook world for the past six machines.

 

Roll of the die, mine's on the delivery vehicle.

EDIT: Unit just delivered. As I'm not cloning the drive to a larger one, but just adding my own data drive in the second slot this will be a really quick, easy upgrade. More later this evening once I'm up and running on initial assessment.

EDIT: Build, fit and finish is solid. 20 min for initial setup, Windows Update and Lenovo System Update in Lenovo Vantage in another 15 min, including flashing the BIOS. Done all my own personal tweaks I've evolved over the years, uninstalling all the HP bloatware and installed apps on my Samsung EVO 960 Pro still in my HP Spectre 360, plopping it into the second M.2 slot on this X1 Extreme, then installing base apps - MS Office 2016 Pro, Thunderbird, VMware Workstation, Eclipse, Visual Studio, should be up within an hour.

4K machine, the screen is edge to edge, no bezel. Luuuv and missed this keyboard and the trackpad both. I know it's only a little over 4# which is very good for it's size, but it feels like a lot more after my 13.3", 2.89# Spectre X360 and 13.9" Yoga 920, but the screen is bloody nice to look at and that was one of two determining factors in my jumping back to a 15" machine.

FINAL EDIT: Three hours end-to-end, including putting my Samsung EVO 960 Pro in the second M.2 slot. Seven screws on the bottom that don't come all the way out, just loosen them as loose as they'll go, then grab the edge at the back underneath the screen and lift up gently and the clips will snap out. Second M.2 slot if you're putting your own SSD in there doesn't have the little screw already in there to secure it so if you're adding your own be sure to have one of those little screws handy. Also be sure to hit F1 and go into BIOS before shutting down to disable Fast Start on the battery before shutting down and cracking the case.

Seven years ago with Acronis or Easeus, an HDD in an external enclosure or using a gigabit ethernet crossover cable and Windows Transfer this was a two day exercise. Fast SSDs and Macrium reflect have gotten me down to about six hours in the past few years, this was a pleasant, easy migration done in a snap.

 

Anyone know about how well an eGPU would be supported on the X1 Extreme? Thinking about the Razer Core v2 to an external display.

Also, anyone here have knowledge on the internal workings on the TB3 4xPCIe lanes? I was wondering if those lanes are shared by other peripheral inputs or totally allocated to the TB3 ports. Would make a performance impact.

@leindurstit do you have any thoughts on this? planning to undervolt and repaste mine as well

 

If anyone's on the LenovoPRO program, another promotion today dropping the units about another $300. Picked up the phone, CSR shot me an e-mail, I remitted a screen shot of a cart with the lower price and they're crediting my CC. Sweet.

 

They are 25% off via Corporate Perks program until 10/14

 

Yeah, I knew it was a given that the moment I popped for a unit that the prices would start going down, but I'll keep picking up the phone 'til they say 'no.'

 

I see a similar discount with the program I have access to, although it ends on 10/11.

Can someone confirm what make/model SSD is used the X1 Extreme? I'm looking at the 1 TB option.

Thanks,
-LB

 

Usually they go with Samsung 961.

It really doesn't matter in most cases. The random writes of any NVMe SSD are all good enough that you will notice no real world difference.

Very specialized sequenced writes and rewrite tasks over long periods of time are needed for you to benefit from "the fastest" SSDs

 

Can the X1E charge via USB-C at all? I read initially that it can’t, but then I saw that it was going to be compatible with an upcoming Thunderbolt Business Dock that connects to both TB3 ports on the system to provide sufficient power and is itself connected to two separate AC adapters. Seems a bit ugly to me. But the reason I ask is that the XPS 15 can charge from a 60W source. That’s not enough to drive the system, but it means you can use a travel charger to charge while the system is asleep, which is kind of a nice capability.

Speaking of the dock, I really wish Lenovo had a better setup for their 135W systems. Dell docks can deliver up to 130W over a single USB-C connection with a single AC adapter input, and their TB16 also has more options for running high resolution displays. Lenovo’s current TB3 dock reserves an entire DP 1.2 channel for the USB-C upstream port and splits the other across the rest of the outputs — so if you don’t use that upstream USB-C port, no dual 4K for you.

But I do like the dual M.2 SSD slots, the port selection, and the keyboard — even with the incorrect Fn/Ctrl placement since that can at least be swapped in the BIOS and despite the sad lack of media keys....

 

Yes. I hadn't read, heard that, but I am doing it now with a Dell U3818DW monitor. It flakes a little (several times a day) with the left half of the screen going blank (I run PBP with a client's ThinkPad T470), but I just unplug from one port and plug to another and the screen comes back. I uninstalled the Intel USB 3.1 eXtensible host controllers (1.10 Microsoft), re-installed the and rebooted the machine and that seems to have helped a lot.

 

Thanks! How does the system behave when running hard and connected to a source that provides less than 135W? Does it throttle performance or keep draining the battery to make up the deficit? As for the USB 3.1 drivers, unless you’re running Windows 7 on that system, which I don’t believe is supported, I don’t think you want separate USB drivers installed. I’m surprised they allowed being installed to begin with.

 

Hardest thing I run is VMware Workstation VMs for RHEL 7.5 with DB2 and WebSphere in them so it's mostly disk I/O and memory and that's fine. The "blanking" occurs when firing a new app that pops up large or full window on the screen. Win10 Pro, the drivers were already there.

Battery doesn't drain, stays fully charged. Before messing with the USB controllers I uninstalled the display adapters for the Intel 630, then re-installed, but that didn't fix the problem.

EDIT: Testing different use cases, doesn't do it when I run the Dell full screen.

 

In my recliner, I'm running off a second Lenovo 65 watt adapter I have from my X1 Yoga 1st Gen and right now it's not drawing down. Will do some heavy work tomorrow and see what it does. My suspicion would be it will draw on battery if load draws more than the adapter can supply, but if I can go most, all of the day with the two combined then a third, slim 65W adapter I have that I got for the X1 I'll hold on too as well for if, when I ever bounce out the door again.

 

Thanks, and great news! I mostly just wanted to make sure it would at least charge from a 60W USB-C source while asleep or powered off. The reason is that I'm hoping a solid vendor like Anker comes out with a "road warrior" charger that I'll be able to use as my single power source for all devices when I'm on the go. My ideal product would have a USB-C port capable of delivering at least 60W and then 3 USB-A ports each capable of delivering at least 10W, with all ports able to deliver that output simultaneously. Thus far nobody makes a charger quite like that, and the couple I've found that come close are from no-name brands that I'm not sure I want to trust with my devices. But knowing that the X1E can charge over USB-C even from an undersized source definitely keeps it in the running for me. I may end up waiting for a version that includes the Titan Ridge TB3 controller to support DP 1.4 over USB-C though.

 

Funny you should bring that up as I just remembered I have a Finsix DART and I'm waiting for them to get the USB-C adapter cable back in stock. You can check them out at Finsix.com. Their web sites are a little screwy, to actually order you have to go to https://store.finsix.com/, they have no link to that from their main web site. I actually got mine new in box on eHoseBags for $35, less than half full retail from Finsix directly.

Meantime, fired up at 94% this morning, ran off the 65W adapter all day, including going in and out of multiple VMs all day. It charged to 100% and has been there for the remainder of the day. Will let the 65W Lenovo slim travel adapter go with my X1 Yoga 1st Gen when I sell it here in the next week and will take my Finsix on the road.

EDIT: Finsix Dart, also 65W, works just fine. It's only 85 grams (.18#). X1 Extreme UHD is 4.06#, my 13.3" HP Spectre X360 is 2.89# so basically a wash on weight when I walk out the door with the Dart, but way more screen real estate and way more horsepower. #winning

 

Cool product, didn't know about it. Looks like they also have a native USB-C version but it's out of stock with no ETA. Not quite the road warrior travel charger I was looking for since it's only got 1 USB-A port, but it is impressively small. I also wonder how the power for the USB-A port is handled since the DART can deliver 12W there. If a USB-A device is consuming that, would the DART reduce the power available to the laptop to 53W max, or is the DART actually a 77W device that can deliver 65W for laptops and 12W to a USB-A device simultaneously?

 

They had a FAQ which explained their technology and the "impressively small," but looks like their Cloudflare is down right now. Their tech specs really don't say.

 

Scored a 16GB DDR4 Crucial SO-DIMM on eHosebags for $99 with my eBay bucks (was $126.98). 32GB RAM, 1.5TB of SSDs, I'm good for a while if not indefinitely.

Sure did miss this keyboard and the mouse buttons at the top of the touchpad.

 

Lenovo delayed my x1e from arriving oct 4 to shipping from China October 26 without explanation, so I cancelled it. I'm trying for a P1 FHD P2000 directly from HID evolution instead, which should hopefully ship by Friday

 

Not that I would want a SATA SSD on a system like this, but has anyone noticed that on the configurator, you're told to choose an NVMe SSD if you want to see options for a second hard drive, and then the second hard drive options are all NVMe? Does that mean this system will only support one hard drive if a SATA SSD is installed? That could be inconvenient for people who use a single NVMe SSD during normal operation but might occasionally want to install a SATA SSD in the second slot to recover data from it, for example. The PSRef specs don't mention anything about this limitation.

 

It'll work, just not offered as an option.

The Lenovo SSD options and prices are garbage anyways.

 

Any throttling issues so far? Some youtube reviewers have it underperforming the Razer Blade 15.

 

I think most machines underperform the Razer Blade, due to it employing a vapor cooling chamber.

 

New/old bios apparently has a weird premature throttling. 85c is the limit for some reason. Some owners on reddit say that their machine is performing like this. Not sure if this affects everyone since reviewers have managed to push the machine to 99c.

It's kinda similar like the X1 Carbon gen 5 that throttles at 75c, setting a premature throttle temp to create the illusion of low temps.

AFAIK that's the current experience from owners on reddit, not sure if this is a bug or not.

Blade is still throttling with the vapor chamber. It isn't possible to run the 8750H efficiently in cooling systems designed for lesser CPUs.