X1 Carbon Gen 2 (Haswell)

Will they still be under NDA, or does this mean we will start seeing early reviews of them at that point?

 

thanks for the update. any clue as to how long after that production would start?

 

It seems like X1 Carbon 2013 / X3 launch is getting closer now, they are already adding the new X1 Carbon to their supported devices. See these driver changelogs:

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/gggx43ww.txt

Lenovo Power Management Driver for Windows 8.1 (32-bit, 64-bit), 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - Notebook

 

So exciting!

 

I'm getting excited as well!

What's the new 5 button touch pad mentioned in the OP ? ( I totally dislike the new design of the touchpad even though I haven't used it )

 

Are the 20A7 and 20A8 machine types for sure the new ones? I guess so since the current ones are (type: 3443, 3444, 3446, 3448, 3460, 3462, and 3463).

But why wasn't there support for the existing ones before?

 

Yes, these are new machines, thats for sure. This is the new model-number scheme, only Haswell ThinkPads (and the T431s) have these new model numbers with the 20 at the beginning.

 

Awesome. Thanks for the clarification. Sounds like they are close.

I'm hoping these don't have the same poor assembly issues I experienced with the X1 Carbon and X1 Carbon Touch. They really left a bad taste in my mouth. I do think the Touch had a better fit/finish than the non-touch. But the touch panel was barely working. I hope they perfected it with this new one.

 

This is very interesting. I had both the X1C and X1CT and was disappointed in both (screen door), but loved the rest of it (other than loss of 3G). The X3 appears to have LTE and a great screen. Count me in. I was about to pull the trigger on the Sony Vaio Pro 13, but couldn't get past the shallow keyboard and the flimsiness of the laptop. I hope the X3 is solid (and I hope they make that freaking charger smaller).

Question: Those of you that want touch, do you actually use it? What for? Since this isn't a laptop/tablet hybrid, I am thinking about just going with a non-touch.

 

It’s still 16:9. How sad. Apple knows how to make a great display and Lenovo still hasn’t a f*cking clue.

 

i've been using a laptop with touch for a couple months now and i've played around with touch a couple times, but never use it.

i would be thrilled if the X3 comes with a matte 1080p IPS non-touch option.

 

Will we still have the pretty mute and volume buttons and blinking wifi/hdd lights?

Lenovo has mistakenly inverted the picture of the X3.

Here is the correction:

http://i.imgur.com/EnbJP4G.png

You can quite easily see that the power button is top right and what appears to be missing mute/volume buttons etc. - probably moved to the fn key.

 

the new X3 should be using the same keyboard style as the ThinkPad Yoga. So the mute button is integrated into the function key.

 

Is the keyboard the same or just similar layout?

 

I have news for you. The 14" FHD IPS screen on my T440s is extremely nice (non touch matte).

 

similar layout.

 

that's encouraging to hear.

who makes the panel for that model? any screen door effect? how's brightness and color saturation?

 

lead_org

Thank you for all your superb contruibution on new ThinkPad Yoga and coming ThinkPad X3.

I have a very special favour to ask - I am looking for direct contacts in Lenovo top management and Product design desicion makers. I represent a large and serious community of business users and users who use their laptops and tablets for serious use and create business content - spreadsheets, documents, slides, web pages, document pages. These all reqiure more square-ish screen for use. I respect the choices of others for gaming and video watching or whatever they do in 16:9 narrow screen with plastic bezels at the top and bottom of their machines, but there should be choices on the market even at very high premium, there should be choices. And I have a business case and potential investors for Lenovo to build and issue (good old Lenovo business) 4:3 or 3:2 (like Google chrome book, best ratio, close to A4/magazine page) or at least 16:10 (like Mac Book Pro).
Imagine 13 or 14 inches X1 or X3 carbon with 3:2 ratio screen or ThinkPad Yoga 12.5 or 13.3 inches with 4:3 ratio screen - you can take business meeting minutes notes on these like on notpads, read books properly in portrait mode, long dream come true...

Can you help me to get through to these guys? Everyone will benefit from more choices on the market. Lenovo will benefit by showing that they listen to their most and long trusted community of business users and will sell more machines. Imagine firm pre-orders of tens of thousands of machines from law firms and financial companies.

Let me know. Thanks

 

I'm debating between an x3 and the yoga 2 pro. How would you guys compare these two, based on what is known? Has lenovo gotten better with release dates and build qualiity on launch? I waited months for the x1c and x1ct before ultimately returning them.

 

well the ThinkPad X3 will have a removable ram, and it is probably better built than the Yoga 2 Pro (not that is a badly built system).

 

Do we know whether matte screen options will be available (maybe only the touch version is glossy)?

 

As much as I like the Thinkpads, the Fn key in the bottom corner really bugs me and is almost a dealbreaker. Do you have any insight into if the Ctrl key has finally been restored to its rightful place?

 

With modern ThinkPads, you can switch Ctrl and FN in the BIOS: This is a non-issue.

 

Unless the BIOS option can change the labels on the keys, that's not a solution, and frankly its worse than the original problem.

I don't want to hijack this topic, so I just wanted to check if they addressed this issue, since they seem to be changing many other aspects of the Thinkpad line lately.

 

@lead_org: are you sure that ram will be replacable/upgradable? Any information about hdd/ssd you can share with us?

 

How is having the option in any way "worse"? Why does the key labelling matter in any way, it's not like you won't be able to remember that Control is the leftmost key according to your setting.

You are fretting over an insignificant detail that is easily rectified by an options change.

 

i don't have any inside information (if i did i would have shared it here already), but the original spec sheet that was released showed that the RAM (single dimm) is removable. Also the HDD from memory uses mSATA or NGFF if i didn't mistaken it, it was the result of people complaining about the X1 C using a rare form of SSD interface which people can't upgrade.

I will tell you more when i get the full information, and when the hangout going to occur.

 

Thank you . I really hope they keep ram/ssd/hdd user-replacable without voiding the warranty. Also, in the last hangout about the yoga, someone from hardware design said they designed the yoga to last 3 years. Thats a very short time compared to the older x series (typing on an x61 right now that is still going strong even after my girlfriend stepped on it accidentally) and i hope they aim for at least 5 years with the x3.

 

Do you know if the physical buttons are still there on the touchpad?

 

No, of course the X3 also will come with the new ThinkPad TrackPad with integrated TrackPoint-buttons.

 

, why must they ruin all the good things?

Will I at least be able to feel the difference between left and right click? using a yoga 2 pro now temporarily and not too thrilled about the visual separator being completely useless because I can't feel the difference and often right click instead of left click

 

In my opinion the new TrackPad and the integrated buttons are much better than the old dedicated buttons, so I would say "enhance" instead of "ruin" I have now problems when I go back to one of the older models with dedicated buttons...

If you are using the TrackPoint, you can feel the difference between the different buttons zones thanks to the small bumps on the middle button.

 

I guess I will have to see for myself, what about the texture, is it less slippery than the yoga 2 pro?

 

I havn´t seen a Yoga 2 Pro in person yet, so I can´t compare these two touchpad surfaces.

 

Still no official pics or specs yet? We are a month from the supposed release date, would have thought we would see more by now.

 

They should announce it soon, this week or next week. Originaly, it was planned to be announced in September.

 

My office had a tech demo of the first gen. X1 Carbon and the T440s, so I had the opportunity to compare the machines. The travel on the keyboard for the X1 was shallower than the T440s, which I expected from the various reviews floating around, but it was still very nice. My concern is the touchpad. The touchpads on each machine had a really nice, smooth surface, and the X1 Carbon's felt especially nice, with a more traditional "clicking" action on the bottom region of the touchpad. The new mechanism on the T440s honestly felt a bit weird. It was certainly functional, and not really that loud, but the deeper travel, and the "clunkiness" of both the action and the sound made it feel considerable less refined than the X1 Carbon. It also didn't respond quite as well near the bottom of the clickpad, which is where I by habit tend to click.

I not a trackpoint user, so I'm not that concerned by the loss of the trackpoint buttons, but I use the touchpad on my current laptop a lot, and Lenovo's new combined clickpad concerns me a bit. I'm really looking forward to the X1 Carbon refresh, since by all appearances it will be an all-around improvement on screen, battery life, thickness and weight, and 1st gen device I played with was already a really slick machine (honestly I really feel Lenovo would have been better off fitting the 1st gen chassis with a bigger battery rather than slimming the whole machine down further).

Since the new X1 Carbon will be so much thinner than the T440s, can we expect the exact same clickpad from the T440s to be imported directly into the X1 carbon, or will we see a modified/updated clickpad designed for the limitations of the X1's smaller chassis? Is it too soon to hope for the engineers to have gone through another round of R&D to refine the action on the clickpad?

 

I have tried many laptops and to date I have not seen a touchpad with no buttons be anywhere on par with the good old buttons. But I would be glad to be proven wrong.

 

I haven't used a button on a trackpad in two years. For the most part you can do everything now with light multi finger taps. Same for scrolling. The glass pads on the Macs still rule but the trackpad on the T440s I am using right now is very decent. I would expect the X3 to be as good or better. It would be nice if the X3 is actually as good as the Mac, but so far, nobody has created an equal that I am aware of.

 

What sort of price point are we looking at?

 

I have not tried the T440s, but I have tried the Macs and again, not impressed. At issue is not using them for a few minutes but when you start doing work on them for a lengthy period of time.

I actually end up disabling multi-functions and finger taps after a few days as they tend to cause issues. So far on my temp Y2P I only disabled the tap to click but give it a week and i'll prob completely disable it, (I disable them when they start acting up)

 

This is a very exciting machines. Feels like a Sony VAIO Pro, done right with a decent Lenovo Thinkpad keyboard and Trackpoint and hopfully without the body flex. Although judging by the Yoga 2 Pro keyboard, the thinness of this machine will mean really limited key travel. It will also be interesting to see how the new 5 button trackpads work in such a thin frame.

Also concerned about what the thinness does to battery life. Lets face it 9 advertised hours = 5ish real use hours. Which means it will not be an all day machine like the latest Apple machines, which means one needs to lug around a clunky power brick and a dangle of cables. IMHO, this kind of defeats the purpose of having such a sleek, beautiful machine, if you have to lug all this additional stuff around, and constantly have juice anxiety.

One option is to do what Sony does with the VAIO Pro and provide a sheet battery option that doubles the battery life. But Lenovo does not seem to do sheet batteries anymore.

I almost wish instead of trying to make these machines paper thin, they would just leave it the same size as the current x1c (not x1ct) and use the extra space to pack in some extra battery, and make this an all day machine. I was perfectly happy with the size of the x1c. As a business user, this would be much more appreciated than putting all this effort into shaving off a couple of mm.
But i get it, we need something to show off against the MBP, and that is fine. The "X3" probably satisfies the CEO toy use case very well. It would be great if Lenovo kept the original x1c around, with updated haswell, extra battery (added a sheet battery option) and updated to matte QHD panel. Wishful thinking, i know.

Thanks for the great information & discussion guys!

 

So far I have not had much issues with the pro 2 keyboard other then getting used to a few things (not liking the tiny right shift or that ALT+F4 is default on F4 press, though I am sure that can be reconfigured). Though I am only on day 3 so it is hard to judge fully until I get more time with it. I don't understand why there is so much bezel though on keyboards. My Toshiba z830 is just as thin and lighter(key travel is bad) but I do like the fact that keyboard is practically edge to edge, so I get full sized enter, shift and backspace keys.

The best way I think to improve battery life is to use an IGZO panel, the other option is the new Lithium Ion Silicon batteries which have higher energy density. The screen is what uses up most of the battery these days. But I agree the obsession with thinness needs to end, more battery is what we want, sheet battery would be nice, or at very least bring back removable batteries that can be hot swapped.

And yes, using the Yoga 2 Pro was a painful reminder on how important Matte is.

 

I'd like to specifically point out your statement and agree with it: I really hope the X3 non-touch version has a matte screen, mirror displays are just horrible for working no matter how they are coated. Glossy only would certainly greatly diminish any interest I have in this machine (which is currently pretty high).

 

I can't echo this enough. What is the purpose of a razor thin business laptop, if the charger is big? It's not like any business professional is going to be traveling with one, but not the other. And most are going into a briefcase, so a few mm doesn't even matter. 1lb does matter. 3oz, not so much. I'd rather have something that is ultrabook size, but nice screen, good keyboard, and SMALL charger.

 

Looks like there is a picture of a new X1 up at the lenovo site.

Thinkpad X1 Carbon Business Ultrabook | Lenovo (US)

Also, can someone shed some light on the new trackpad thing for me? Right now I'm using the T430s I got from work and I really can't imagine using a laptop without the trackpoint. One of my favorite features is the scrolling with the middle mouse button. As far as I understood and the picture also shows that - the three physical mouse buttons are removed from the X3. So, is there still a middle mouse button and is it still a physical button or just an extended touchpad? I guess the X3 isn't the first notebook with this change, do you know of any other model that already uses the new touchpad and does it have a name?

I would really appreciate some insight, thanks.

 

Looks like the updated X1 Carbon is up on Lenovos website (one picture leakage by Lenovo): Thinkpad X1 Carbon Business Ultrabook | Lenovo (US) And it looks like its quite different from the X3 prototypes shown in my infos on page one and like it is the first machine with capcative/virtual F-keys.

Picture:

 

Interesting - I hope this mean we'll get specifications and pricing soon, having a single picture of the new model along the old version's information can't be anything but an oversight.

I'm not sure I'm thrilled about the prospect of capacitive function keys - seems like that could be a hassle for executing key kombinations.

 

That is great point about the IGZO panel/batter life. I asssumed these are IGZO-like panels. I was curious about that because I have heard that the Yoga 2 Pro uses the same QHD+ panel as the Samsung Ativ 9. I believe that panel is manufactured by Samsung. If you recall earlier this year, Samsung invested $110 million in Sharp's display division, and I heard that the deal included access to IGZO technology. So curious if these are actually IGZO displays by another name manufactured by Samsung. Does anybody have any insight into this?

 

Which picture, the main one? Looks like that one is missing the trackpoint buttons, and the F-key strip does look pretty bare, but there's also some strange empty space at the bottom of the trackpad. Also an extra key next to the backspace, and fingerprint reader is moved.

But virtual F keys? That would be really bad, though I'm more concerned about the Esc key which would also be on that row. As a Linux guy, that's a primary key and a virtual one would be a dealbreaker.