Thinkpad X1 Carbon 2012

Samsung has a 256gb PM830 mSATA. idk about Intel and Crucial.

 

The comparisons will vary from user to user. I still think the MBP is a candidate for some users who may have been considering the X1C.

 

1.4 lb is almost half of the weight of x1c.

 

Deja Vu

I know they make one. But where can you buy one in the USA? I have yet to see one for sale at a reputable retailer.

 

I think the price point and battery life of the X1C will be critical. Above $1500, and I don't think it'll be a realistic selling price, with all the other attractive options coming from different OEMs. Below 6 hours of battery, and I'd view it as a "con" against the laptop.

The new MBP is priced quite prohibitively, so many of its competitors will have a very significant price advantage. I certainly won't be spending $2000+ on my next laptop.

Up to 1920x1200, since it's a 16:10 IPS display. Anandtech has taken a look at it, and at least without any hacking done, resolution above 1920x1200 is not available to the user outside of certain (full-screen) applications. Some full-screen games see the native resolution, others do not.

MyDigitalSSD also offers a 256GB SATA III mSATA drive. Wouldn't say they're on the same level as Intel and Samsung, but some people have had good results from them.

 

good correction, I saw anand article and confused the ratio of the display.

My main gripe is that currently the apps that are going to really work with the new mbp retina are the ones made by apple. And Im crome addicted.

 

PM830 isn't currently available retail. My bad. The one I saw was a 1.8 inch uSATA, not mSATA.

MyDigitalSSD has a 256GB. Mushkin has a 240GB one. Both use SandForce SF2281 controllers and 24nm Toshiba flash chips. SSDReview seems to suspect that the MyDigitalSSD one is a rebrand of ADATA's.

 

I fully expect Lenovo to price their premium Ultrabook at premium prices. If they use Samsung and the Series 9 as a template, that would put a 8GB RAM, 256GB Carbon at about $1800.

 

By the time the X1C is for sale I will want 16GB and 512GB. At least if I got the X1C I would feel as cool as a Mac owner with the magsafe

 

Does anyone know if this has an IPS display screen? I'm tired of these TN displays that have poor viewing angles..

 

actually with a modded driver, users at macrumors have a retina display working in native resolution... with windows 7 only. nothing with OSX

Gamers - I got my 15" Retina $2799 - Have questions? - Page 6 - MacRumors Forums

 

They haven't mentioned IPS (or TN for that matter). But the viewing angles look pretty good according to review sites that got to play with it briefly.

 

any chance this thing will have quad core i7 cpus?

 

Definitely not. Not only is it very improbable that such a sleek machine which has to live with a rather weak battery, but also it is called Ultrabook, which means that it will be equipped with one of the Ivy Bridge CPUs that end with U. And sadly, there is no quad among them.

I'd liked to have that too

best
Hecke

 

The new Vaio Z is very attractive with its Quad. Hopefully, some other thin and light notebooks will follow suit. 35W quad and thunderbolt for external graphics.

 

The Sony Z isn't an ultrabook. It doesn't qualify since it's CPU is too fast. The X1C is an ultrabook according to Lenovo, thus that implies that it will only have ULV CPU's.

As for SV CPU really really thin and light notebooks. The Panasonic SX1/NX1 aren't as attractive as the Z, but they are lighter, 1 inch thick, 900p 12.1 inch display, SV CPU. SX1 even fits in an optical drive. J series aren't really thin, but SV CPU's under 1kg. That's really it I think.

 

my hope is that lenovo will go with an mSATA ssd and a mix of soldered ram + 1 sodimm.

Hopefully you'll be able to buy a 128gb +8gb ram soldered model and later upgrade to 16gb ram (with an 8gb sodimm) and 256gb or 512gb mSATA drive.


a pessimist would suggest that lenovo will use the apple model, at least for the ram (all soldered, no sodimm). I have a hard time seeing lenovo create a proprietary storage slot, so mSATA is a safe bet. Enterprise clients will have a major issue with all-soldered ram though, so i doubt they go that far.

 

At this point in the game, they absolutely will have to offer it with 8 gigs of RAM and at least 256 gigs SSD, and I am certain that's what they will do.

If they throw in a killer screen, they'll have a winner.

 

well, they could go 4gb soldered 4gb sodimm for the base model, limiting you to 12gb max ram instead of 16gb.

i'm not saying it would be a good idea, but they could do it.

as for storage, i'd actually prefer the base starts out at 128gb, so users that dont need 256gb can either wait to upgrade themselves or upgrade for cheaper than what lenovo would charge.

 

Holy. This laptop looks incredible. I have had my R61 for. . .well for as long as it was out. This will be a nice upgrade for grad school. Probably a repost but found this link in Russian that gives some more info on the laptop.

 

Stuffing it through Google Translate.

Interesting stuff:

-1600x900 display matte and 300nit. I believe this is a different panel than the T420s display since that one is 250nit. Let's hope its a better panel.

-"At least 3 hours" So 3hr under heavy use? idk really. Someone that knows Russian take a stab at the original please.

 

It's the same link as before. It has the same translation as before. There's no new information in it.

It has to have a minimum of 5 hours.

 

Well you know what they say, "If it's new to you. . ."

 

Those are pretty lame specs. The 15" Samsung Series 9 has a 1600x900 400-nit display, and can get up to 10 hours of battery life. Of course, that's "up to" versus "at least", but the "at least" number is pretty irrelevant anyway. Who runs an ultrabook on battery at full blast for hours on end?

 

X1 Carbon = X300 redux?

Supposed to be cool, but just can't be cool enough. Coming, coming, coming... Gone!

 

Another article in the Lenovo-Blogs about the X1 Carbon: Developers on the X1 Carbon - Project - Design - Lenovo Blogs

 

^^^ Thanks for the link. I like this statement:

 

These guys teared it open: Ñóïðåìàòè÷åñêèé óëüòðàáóê: ïðåäâàðèòåëüíûé îáçîð Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon | Íîóòáóêè è ïëàíøåòû - 3DNews - Daily Digital Digest
It's in russian, so you probably need to turn to google translate for help, or just look at the pictures

Edit: They also tested the screen and the results are very nice. (page 2)

 

Shoving that link into Google Translate

Important stuff
-Memory is soldered on.
-Their review model has 8GB or RAM
-SSD is not mSATA, not any standard whatsoever.
-Their model uses a 128GB Toshiba SSD. Definitely a lot better than the 128GB Toshiba SSD in the Z830... Oh well, still not user replaceable so
-They mention Magnesium alloy. I thought it was entirely CF, so its not or they are lying.
-46whr battery. Not stellar, not enough for me, but not really bad either.
-400:1 screen contrast.
-Very good viewing angles for a TN
-Good color gamut (for a TN)

So. It seems to be slightly more upgradeable than the RMBP.

The Russians apparently.

 

Only the lid. They never said that the entire notebook is made of CF.

 

This notebook had my attention until it you mentioned it had a TN Panel. So long ThinkPad X1 .

 

I fail to see the obsession some have with IPS, particularly on a business notebook such as ThinkPads.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

^^^ If you look past the IPS reference, you'll understand that people are expressing their dissatisfaction with the mediocre panels being used on ThinkPad 14" models.

Would you suggest "business" laptops have monochrome screen and text-based interface? Why does Lenovo bother to offer an IPS upgrade option on the X220, a "business" notebook?

I notice many "business" people use smartphones with great screen. Are they out of their mind?

 

Hello Guys,

I'm dedicated user for a very long time, but now I wanted to speak up Great forum due to great users, with broad knowledge!
Sorry if my English isn't so good, i'm not native (living in Poland).

In fact, X1C has really good quality TN Panel. sRGB is nearly covered (according to their measures), so it means that gamut reaches ~72% AdobeRGB, which is very good. The same range of quality like panels of Dell Precision M4600. Lenovo x230 with IPS, has 66% sRGB cover. Test Lenovo ThinkPad X230 2306-2AU Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests.

And here: Обзор ультрабука Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon - YouTube
at 2:17 you can see that also viewing angle from below is suprisingly good.

 

If it did miracles to battery life (transflective ebook like type), I really wouldn't mind a monochrome screen.

More on topic, the X1C has a pretty damn nice TN panel. Not IPS, but its better than the current 14 inch Thinkpad displays.

I would say the bigger deal breakers are the soldered RAM, non standard SSD, and relatively weak battery (compared to X220, its okay compared to most ultrabooks).

 

The non-standard SSD and relatively low capacity battery (5-6 hours of average use? We'll see, I suppose) are the primary flaws, I think (and the former is only a problem for enthusiasts like us). Honestly, I don't really see why most users could ever need more than 8 GB of RAM on the X1C, so I don't think that will be an issue for most potential buyers.

The non-standard AC adapter is a bit annoying too, but it was expected given the different socket shape.

The screen seems very promising so far, though

 

IPS = better viewing angle = easier on the eyes when used on the road or planes / buses because the image is more stable with less "shifting" of the color/shades @ different viewing angles. The old thinkpad T60 IPS displays were great imo and I immediately notice the difference between a solid-quality IPS and a regular-TN display. "IPS type" of display screen is a requirement for my next notebook or "ultrabook" purchase. I only have 1 pair of eyes, so might as well take care of them with good quality IPS display .

 

Fair enough. I thought it was mainly due to viewing angles, which personally I don't care about because I only ever look at my screen from one angle.

Your other points are valid so I can see why it might be a deal breaker for you. I was interested in this until I saw it has soldered RAM, that's a deal breaker for me. I guess Ultrabooks are not what I'm looking for. I just wish someone made something that looks as good as the Dell XPS, has the build quality of the MBP and the power of the VAIO Z - is that too much to ask?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The screen of my T400s had such a bad angular stability, especially with black, that I had to either sit entirely still when watching a movie, or tilting the screen constantly to compensate for even very small vertical movements.
When working, I usually do not have that much darkness on the screen that the effect is not that striking, but still the color shift when moving is annoying for the eyes.
Now, with my X220 IPS, I even don't care how the screen is facing when looking at it with more people.
The difference is even bigger between my X220 and the T420s of my colleague. the colors are soo faded on that display.

I'm very curious how the panel of the X1c performs against the X220. I'll see.

 

8 gigs would be fine, but limiting buyers to a 128GB SSD has got to be a joke. That's a showstopper if there ever was one.

 

Guess we'll find out in August. I wouldn't buy a 128GB Carbon.

 

Good news: The SSD in the X1 Carbon is connected via mSATA. That means that it isn´t proprietary. YOu can use any mSATA SSD on the market.

 

That's excellent news. Source?

All I need now is a slice battery since 46whr isn't going to cut it.

 

You can see that here:
http://www.3dnews.ru/_imgdata/img/2012/06/07/630595/ltpx1c-inside-6.jpg Look at the SSD connector.
And now on the connector of an Intel 310 mSATA SSD:
http://www.storagereview.com/images/Intel SSD 310.jpg

It is just a double-lenght mSATA SSD.

And now look at the SSD of an UX31A: http://www.computerbase.de/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=285819&stc=1&d=1340039097 It is the same.

 

I second that!
But if you have a look at the bottom of the base, you cannot see any connector for a slice.

 

Even if they are the same physically, doesn't mean they are compatible. EEEPC's don't support mSATA, but use MiniPCIe SSD's for example.

Though, considering its double size. There might be a chance for a 512GB SSD option.

 

With so many sites posting inconsistent spec-sheets for laptops lately, I need to make sure....there is NO HDMI on this right? If not, what are my options for connecting to my current 1080P Asus display? I typically use HDMI. I believe the X1 has a mini display port but I'm not familiar with it. How do they compare with today's standards, and how are they typically used?

Thank you.

 

you can buy a mdp to hdmi adapter or go for legit mdp to vga adapter

 

Thanks for the quick response.

I'm assuming the HDMI route is better than VGA? I've always heard using adapters in these cases don't work well compared to say using the straight connection, sans adapter. Is that still the case with say mdp to hdmi?

 

Sorry for a probably stale question, but have we been officially informed of any more information regarding the screen? I'm aware of the resolution, but has the TN vs. possible IPS-option been settled by Lenovo?