The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Hi, I'm close to ordering one of these (if work agrees). Normally I put a lot of weight on forum reviews here when picking a new laptop, but was very surprised not to find anyone talking about this laptop.
Can any owners tell me if they're happy with it? Any known issues? Specs to avoid?
I'm thinking of the i5, 16gb ram and FHD screen, mostly due to budget constraints.
I got it last week, mostly because it is the only small laptop with 32GB ram and legacy ports. Issues so far:
1. Still doesn't like active Thunderbolt cables. I have gen 6 and it was the same story, endless connect/disconnect loop. Need to position my eGPU 2 ft away using passive cable.
2. Have some issues with USB hub, external keyboard and mouse are freezing sporadically. Nothing in the logs. But these are Razer products with notoriously buggy software. And I was lazy and just moved the drive from Gen 6 into it. Looks like software/driver issue. May need to reinstall windows or just use original image.
3. Low height M.2 slot, can't use double sided SSDs. 2TB max. Had 8TB in the Stealth.
Other than that it close to perfection. Light, small, quiet, finally nice and bright FHD+ matte screen. CPU benches higher than unlocked Blade Stealth 13 with Ice Lake. I was afraid these two tiny fans will be loud, but they're fine and move a lot of air. I like that the inlet is is the middle so that you can keep it on a lap without blocking air flow.
Edit: Got rid of the USB hub problem, used a different, shorter cable. Definitely a con that it may be finicky with TB or USB cables, on the other hand didn't disconnect once 4TB Nvme ssd in external enclosure (connected to TB port), that was popping from time to time on both my Macbook and Blade Stealth.
I just popped in here for the same reason --
@Thysanoptera, I would love to hear how it's going, several months in! And if anyone else has this one and wants to weigh in, I'd love to hear that too.
I have the X1 Carbon Gen 4, and I've been really happy with it, but it's finally (five years and counting!) showing signs of age. I see that the Gen 9 is available in a touchscreen -- is there anything else that's new that I should be paying attention to?
I did end up getting the X9 through work. I'm generally very pleased with it. The keyboard is excellent, miles ahead of any non-thinkpad laptop I've used, and I work in IT, so thats every major manufacturer. Build quality also excellent, no hint of flex or flimsiness even though it's incredibly light.
I ended up with the i5,16gb ram, non touch screen model, largely because it was actually available. I'm happy with the screen, 4k is actually counterproductive for me on a 14" screen, some older apps I maintain don't scale, and my eyes are old anyway.
Bios updates seem to have resolved the throttling issues. I ran it for several weeks hooked up to a 2k 27" monitor via usb-c (also delivering power) with a 2nd 2k 27" monitor on hdmi, and this worked very well, performance was remarkably good.
It doesn't seem to like the usb-c ethernet dongle I got from amazon, it drops out a lot, I don't have anything else with usb-c to test if it's the dongle at fault though.
I'm moving it to my dedicated Linux machine role, using a different laptop as main now.
1. The keyboard is worse than gen 6 that I also have. It is good, but not excellent as before. And it makes squeaking noise, especially long keys, when pressed, I think these are the metal stabilizers. Couldn't find any video of caps replacement on gen 9, may need to put some grease but didn't want to break the keycaps without knowing how are they attached.
2. The showstopper for me was the low profile SSD slot. I thought I can live with external SSD, but it is too annoying. I managed to cram 4TB WD SN750 SSD in it (it has memory chips only at the back of the underside), but it was bent, and I always had it on my mind that it will fail.
3. Problems with USB-C/TB continued unfortunately. Now I don't think the cable was a cause, it is kind of random, can't pinpoint the cause.
Thank you both for the replies! I'm still leaning toward getting it -- for my purposes, the only worry could be the keyboard -- but I appreciate the caveats.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
