Thinkpad X1 Carbon 2012

One of the mods sent me the text of my previous work so it isn't totally gone. I will fix it up later today.

I was told the reason the Owners thread was deleted was because Lenovo isn't shipping yet so I couldn't possibly be an owner.

I created the thread because official specs were published and we could set aside speculation on many items. The base post for the Owners thread was going to be the anchor for that and also serve to reset the body of information.

This X1 Carbon thread has a lot of information, good and bad. Since it's nearly impossible to remove all the speculation from this thread, a reset seemed appropriate to me.

 

No I don't think so. They would simply pass along the cost to us and they would have many more customers.

No IPS on a premium laptop targeted to excecutives and all sorts of people who actually NEED great viewing angle, whether for business presentations or be comfortable while travelling is plain, or because they'd like to avoid Apple.....then it's STUPID .... just like another user said.

Or maybe they will sell us a refresh next year with IPS, but for me it will be too late.
It' s not like we asked them to bring on the very latest technology that just came out last month and it's not like they aren't trying to get to the typical MBA users that wouldn't mind Windows.

From that you may call the whining of people who want IPS, here and all over the world on any blog and forum, you can tell that the display is a disapointment and they are loosing customers to Samsung, Acer, Sony when they shouldn't even have to worry about it.

Not good enough Lenovo. At least IPS an an OPTION was the minimum required IMO.

 

I think a good TN is better than an IPS Display, because IPS isn´t problem free too, as you can see on the Asus Zenbook and the X220 IPS, which had some problems too.

The display in my L520 is also a good TN panel, and while the vertical viewing angles aren´t perfect, the horizontal viewings are very good and the overall image quality is good too (sure, my Eizo PVA monitor is still better, but not so much).

 

True. The light bleeding on the Zenbook Prime put me off from it a bit. I was hoping for an IPS but a good TN is great to hear.

 

People are complaining about the price of the x1c, but doesn’t it come with a 3-year warranty? I would say the extra warranty would cost you at least $150 more on another ultra-book. Therefore, if you think about it, the price is cheaper than you think.

 

Yeah, I don't know many others that offer that standard. One could argue that they should make it a choice and cut the cost if the buyer only opts for the 1 year. But I'm happy to take the 3 year.

Also, the web price is usually cheaper than the MSRP as you can see with pretty much all of their notebooks online. I'm not saying this will be the same treatment for the X1C, but it's likely.

 

Gizmodo.com is kind of doing a live review, where you can post your questions in the comments section and they will answer them. Here is the link: Lenovo X1 Carbon: Holy Crap.

 

You are the 1%, the vocal minority. This screen looks fantastic and probably one of the best screens on a Thinkpad. I haven't read a bad review on the display yet... seems to be one of the best TN panels produced.

And I hope you realize Lenovo's market share hasn't done anything but rise over the past couple years. They will soon be #1 in consumer PC sales, and it's because they have taken the time to get things right. This laptop will be a home run.

 

Yeah, hopefully that is an option--I don't need a 3-year warranty, and wouldn't mind saving ~$100 on it. The current MSRP for the X1C is certainly higher than what consumers will actually be able to buy the laptop for on Lenovo's websites post-discount (ie, Barnes & Noble Gold, which is already a 15% discount off MSRP, with more coupons on top).

 

People complaining about the lack of IPS are kidding themselves. Have you ever heard of anyone complaining about the MBA screen apart from the glossiness. Thanks to Andrew we've seen exactly how good or bad the X1C viewing angles are, and it's pretty decent even compared to the X220.

How long have Thinkpad users been waiting for this notebook? I'm happy for those who will buy it.

Here's the datasheet for the X1C. Sure this is not the graphics for this laptop? Could someone ask Gizmodo, it's not letting me log in using a google account. Andrew?

http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/x-series/x1-carbon/x1-carbon-datasheet.pdf

Intel® HD integrated7
NVIDIA N13P-GLP Optimus Graphics (2 GB
VRAM, 128 bit)

 

I'm pretty sure it will just be the integrated HD 4000. Any NVidia inclusion is probably just misinformation.

 

Since they make no mention of it in the description where they tout Intel integrated graphics, I would imagine that that's a typo. Probably cut and pasted from a T-series datasheet and didn't get changed.

 

Do we know if the SD card will be flush when installed? I hate it when they are not because then you cannot leave it in. This is a good way to get some extra space with the smaller SSD. I have bought two 64 GB class 10 cards for $50 a peace.

 

There's a 90W Slim power adapter in the datsheet, square-tip and all.

 

September 2009; that is when I bought my last school laptop and have been waiting for a larger ultraportable. The offerings from Lenovo were ok (U series, X series), but I just felt uncomfortable and not willing to pull the trigger. The X1C is absolutely the laptop I have been wanting.

 

I'm seeing a lot of complaints in the various reviews and previews about the slow boot times, will something as simple as a clean install of Windows fix this or will the problem be more of a pain to resolve?

 

Looks like the SSD in the X1C is really slow. Given that the darn thing uses a proprietary interface, you can't even replace it. In short: You're going to have to live with the poor performance of this laptop. Clean install won't help. In fact, Lenovo claims they did some smart things to make the machine boot as fast as possible. With a clean install, you may end up with even slower boot times. Like I said before, the perfect UltraBook doesn't exist. You're going to have to swallow some issues with each and every one of them.

 

This technicality is really a non-issue for the average Joe and not everyone shuts down its computer every day now...

 

But that's just a way to measure drive performance. You man not need to reboot it but that also means day-to day operations will be slower for you. For email reading this is not important but if you going to open large image file or compile app - that is noticeable.

 

Just curious what all of you guys are coming from as far as machines and IO is concerned where the following is "slow" or "unacceptable"?





I'm coming from a Intel sata2 SSD which seems to have half of this throughput and my T410s is stellar to use.

PS - as I mentioned in an earlier post, the boot time can be significantly improved with a clean install of the OS.

 

+1 I posted the same thing a few pages back. Another thing to keep in mind is that RapidBoot slows down boot speed if you've got an ssd installed. Dunno if they're using that in this model by default like the others. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the ssd, those numbers are stellar. Some reviews have reported slow wake out of standby too and that's just ram based.

 

I'm also coming from an Intel SATA2 SSD which has been excellent for me. I can only imagine it'll be better with what Lenovo is including. This is the same complaining I see for the launch of most ultrabooks lately. I think with the numbers we're seeing, there will be a lot of happy buyers.

 

I sampled the current Thinkpad's at CDW yesterday. Surprisingly the new keyboard has grown on me. The key spacing and larger key surface area are really great. Sunken trackpoint and lack of back/fwd buttons are annoying but hopefully at least the latter can be worked around. I know I want it and don't want to change laptops again for a while. Dilemma now is whether to wait for Haswell which is going to release in much earlier next year than Ivy Bridge did. Where Ivy Bridge wasn't such a big step forward, Haswell will be once again like Sandy Bridge. In a laptop like the X1C with limited battery capacity I think the battery life savings might be worth waiting for. If the X1C sells well they'll produce future generations right..

 

Could it be that there is an SSD lottery like in MBA's a while back.

It seems all the review models are (relatively) slow SanDisk drives, but some of the pre-production preview models had a faster Toshiba drive. I have a hard time believing they completely dropped Toshiba as a supplier this late in, especially considering that Toshiba has a large surplus of NAND to get rid of, and its a custom part.

btw, even considering the SanDisk SSD, 1min seems slow. Possible drive/BIOS update that will improve boot time?

 

File copy operations are roughly a factor of two slower than on some other UltraBooks. Is that a "technicality", too?

Any source for those numbers? Do they have anything at all to do with the laptop we are talking about here? How would we know?

Those kinds of technicalities aside, that's synthetic benchmarks, which mean next to nothing for practical usage. The practical performance tests for disk throughput I have seen for the X1C have been -poor.

 

Where are all of those complaints you speak of? I have seen it reported one time in one review but that doesn't mean there is any widespread problem. The number of professional reviews that have been conducted is really small right now and most of those reviews haven't really measured much.

Regarding the proprietary form factors of the flash storage devices in the Macs and Ultrabooks, the vast majority of people don't look under the hood and don't upgrade their notebook. The vocal minority here might, but that isn't the target audience for the design.

Regarding performance, like everyone else I want the top performing and most reliable flash chips and controller. But the OEMs are going to try to maximize their profit margins so using Sandisk versus Samsung is going to happen. You just have to decide how willing you are to accept that. That's a pretty tough decision.

I know in the case of the Samsung Series 9 ultrabook, I was shocked to find out Samsung was using slower Sandisk flash storage. That's really unacceptable on the Samsung Series 9.

 

Most people arent upgrading storage because they most likely have at least 320GB of hd space. But those 128GB in ultrabooks are going to fill up fast. By not allowing users to upgrade, computer companies are making sure buyers are stuck in 2012 which is ridiculous in an industry that changes so quickly.

 

Sorry, I figured everyone had seen those numbers. They are from the NotebookReview review of the X1 Carbon which is linked on the homepage for this site.

Apologies for not clarifying where the numbers were from and whether they were from a X1C or some other random laptop (this is the X1C thread, isn't it?).

Would you care to share the "practical" tests to which you are referring that indicate real-world performance is poor?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Some of the ultrabooks have upgradable storage. The Samsung Series 9 uses mSATA form factor flash storage. You can replace the 128GB device with other devices now on the market. Crucial recently started shipping a 256GB model. See CT256M4SSD3 - 256GB, mSATA Solid State Drive , from Crucial.com

If all the other makers including Lenovo used the mSATA form factor, then we would have a thriving market for them. Because ASUS, Apple, Lenovo and others went the proprietary route, users are going to get fenced in.

The problem I worry most about is the break/fix aspects of this industry move. With the proprietary devices, there's no way for you to crack the case, pull the device, and check to see if it is the culprit for a machine that won't boot. Assuming it is, you can't get a replacement quickly.

So the problem isn't just about capacity or I/O throughput. The problem is expanded into other areas because the OEMs apparently won't standardize.

 

I agree but most users like myself come from mechanical drives so they most likely will be thrilled with any SSD. However if you are used to some high performance Intel SSD then it's a different story.

 

X1 Carbon Support Training (Technical Specs, Disassembly Videos, BIOS Simulator): ThinkPad X1 Carbon Service Training Course

 

Thanks for the link ibmthink. There are some insightful tidbits we can find in here. Some more confirmation of Toshiba SSD being used...




When the Asus Zenbook Prime was being released, the pre-release press notebooks had Sandisks, then on release we started seeing ADATA SSDs. So that's a good sign. On the other hand, some users are still getting Sandisks randomly with the Asus.

In the slides there is still some indication of Sandisk being used too.



Confirmation of the RAM being soldered in. There's also what appears to be another SSD option, an Intel 180GB being evaluated?

 

Thanks for the link, I was able to ditch the T430u because no backlit keyboard...

X1C is still number one on the wishlist.

 

ok, despite not having planned to pick one up, i think i'll be ordering one of these august 21st rather than waiting til next years model.
i want thunderbolt and battery life similar to my t400w/9 cell, but i can live without both until next year or the year after.
edit: oh and 802.11ac is important as well for future proofing, but i guess i'll wait til next year.

will likely go 8 gigs with 256gb ssd and damn will that likely cost alot, but if its not upgradeable, i guess i have to pay for the options.
currently have 4 gigs with 128gb ssd and while enough for the most part, i feel i need to make the jump to higher capacity to justify buying this thing at all.

lastly, how is the performance of these ultra mobile/low voltage cpus? its one of the things that worries me, but at the same time, its 2012 and even mobile processors should be plenty for the average user, right?

 

If you already have that, you can't justify buying this period.

 

I like Notebookcheck comprehensive list :

Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

well yeh, performance wise i dont expect great leaps.

i mainly want a new computer because my screen is horribly destroyed, ironically enough from cleaning it a bit too much. color and contrast are also pretty poor.
with the 9 cell battery the laptop is also a bit heavy so a 3 pound laptop would be a nice improvement.
and last, i'm just getting this itch to upgrade for some reason. the T400 is still in great shape for the most part aside from the screen, and performance is still great. only thing thats bothersome at times is SSD size as i prefer to have 30 to 40% of free space for performance reasons; i've read that performance declines if your drive is full, so correct me if i'm wrong on this one.

 

Apologies, I didn't read the specs on your sig. Figured 128SSD and 4RAM from your previous post was an ultraportable from last year or so. Yes, free space available does impact drive performance (don't think this really matters until you get down to 10% or so.

 

i'm very seriously considering the X1 Carbon on August 21st when it is expected to come out on Lenovo.com. Too bad there aren't places to actually see it / touch it here in nyc/manhattan! that's kind of strange that Lenovo won't make more of an effort to have at least one or two retailers to have a display of their higher end Thinkpads here in NYC - one would expect them to have made this type of effort.

may i ask for more details please regarding how to best get discounts on the X1 Carbon? it doesn't seem easy to find discounts. if you don't mind explaining what you meant by Barnes & Nobles Gold and "other coupons", that would be awesome! Where would one find other coupons which are stackable on top with the Barnes & Nobles Gold?

thanks in advance.

 

I'll second this post. There's got to be some sort of a login for BN Gold, correct?

 

https://shoplenovo.i2.com/SEUILibra...eURLID=1315863188188&affinity=barnesnoblegold Log in for B&N Gold. To order you must be a student, academic or staff. I don't know is a college email address is mandatory or not. Deals and coupons are normally listed on the first page.

 

those B&N discounts are similar to EPP pricing, right?

 

So how would one replace the battery on one of these anyway? Is there a 'Lenovo store' that you can walk into to have it replaced? Or is the machine doomed to become a paperweight in 5 years?

 

Identical.

 

There's no requirement. Just need to sign up with an email address

 

Very very keen to keep an eye out for the 180GB ssd version if it makes an appearance ... Will most likely be an intel 330 series !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

We will be too tempted to buy a new, faster, more feature rich one after 5 years than spend 25% of the cost to replace a laptop battery (battery and labor).

 

Another extensive video review

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review - YouTube

She talks fast but includes a lot of good information. She even contrasts the screen with the UX31A Zenbook Prime, the benchmark ultrabook screen IMO. Also, what's interesting is how she discusses the ADATA Vs Sandisk on the Zenbook Prime and recognizes how vocal everyone has been about it (13:45). Despite that, she feels the Sandisk performs great on the X1C and scores an excellent 7.9 (highest score you can get) on Windows Experience.

 

Lisa's reviews are always excellent.

 

what does EPP pricing stand for please?

is that the Educational pricing?

what about the Small Business 1-49 employees' pricing?

thanks in advance.