Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

Introduction

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is Lenovo’s flagship “business” laptop. It is truly a one-of-a-kind machine, oozing subtle and understated clinicalness that is rather uncommon today. This is the first time I’ve got my hands on a ThinkPad X1 Carbon (the Carbon series was launched in 2012), so I have no previous context. But the moment I unboxed the laptop and held it in my hand, I knew this wasn’t just another regular laptop.

Build Quality: Nothing Short of Exquisite

The touch and feel of the body was just something I’d never experienced anything like before. There is a strong reason for that, and that’s the reason why this laptop has the word “Carbon” attached to it. You see, the chassis is made from a thoughtful concoction of aluminium, magnesium and aerospace-grade carbon fibre; the same carbon fibre that’s used in high-end Ferraris, and in rovers meant to hover around the International Space Station. The main lid, called the “A Cover” is made of recycled carbon fibre in a plastic frame. The rest of the body has aluminium and magnesium. Due to this, this machine is a tough one and is tested against 12 military-grade certification methods (MIL_STD 810H). That means that this laptop has significant impact and drop resistance, and technically, it is shockproof, just like a G-Shock watch.

So how does the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon feel to hold? In one word: expensive. Expensive not for the sake of it, but expensive for its functionality and practicality. To draw a parallel, the difference between a luxury branded shirt, versus a shirt that is woven using the rarest and finest of materials by hand; the ThinkPad X1 Carbon feels more like the latter. The result of the alloy concoction is soft to the touch, light as a feather, yet super sturdy and strong.

Portability: Light as a Feather

The result is a laptop that is quite unmatched in terms of portability and durability. The laptop has a 14-inch display, and it weighs just 1.08 kilograms (2.42lbs). To put a context on just how light 1.08 kilograms feels, the Macbook Air 14 weighs 1.24 kilograms. That means the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is around 15% lighter than the MacBook Air. Fifteen per cent on that scale feels more significant than it sounds. Thickness for the majority of the length of the laptop is around 10 mm and it maxes out at 14.96 mm (0.6 inches). I replaced my M1 MacBook Pro with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon for a month, and the space saved in my bag was significant. Sometimes I even forgot that my messenger bag had a laptop in it because it is so thin and light.

Design: Purposeful and Functional – A Subtle Flex

The best way to judge a machine like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon would be for its design rather than for its specifications. The design is just so refined in every aspect, the little elements in this machine are so well thought out that this just might be the perfect work laptop for professionals.

The lid of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon has “ThinkPad X1” debossed on the top corner, with an LED light over the “i” which acts as a laptop status indicator. On the opposite side at the bottom is where you find a glossy etched “Lenovo”. The overall look of the laptop with the lid closed is what I would describe as “Ninja Professional.” It is just a very high-end look for a laptop, yet very understated. From afar, it will look like a normal machine, but when up close, you will get the “high-end utility” vibe from the design.

The display, 14 inches in size with an aspect ratio of 16:10, is touch-enabled. I’m still not convinced of the value addition a touchscreen brings to the Windows environment. It just seems like a redundant overkill. Do you use a touchscreen on your Windows machine? If so, do let us know in the comments.

The screen can tilt perfectly to 180 degrees, and even further until about 210 degrees. This flexibility is more useful than I initially thought, and it somewhat made the touchscreen useful in certain scenarios.

Functionality: Ninja much?

In true businessman fashion, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with a nano-SIM tray, located beside two USB C Gen 3.2 ports that support Thunderbolt 4 and PD. The laptop can fast charge devices even when switched off. You get two USB A ports on either side too. The 3.5mm jack and HDMI 2.1 ports are located on the right-hand side. That is a great selection of ports for an ultraportable laptop. It would have been nice to have USB-C ports on both sides of the machine.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with an FHD 8MP camera that supports IR. It also has a mechanically operated privacy shutter. This is a nifty little camera that supports Computer Vision to identify objects using the Intel chip’s AI capabilities. Due to this, Windows Hello, the feature where you log in using face recognition, works flawlessly. I’ve tested Windows Hello on tons of laptops, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon does it the best, hands down. A dim red LED embedded in the camera blinks repeatedly when recognising the face for log-in. This makes the entire Windows log-in experience very seamless.

Sitting beside the right Ctrl key, you get a Fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint scanner works well too. However, I barely used it because the IR camera did the job of authentication so well that I even forgot that this laptop came with a fingerprint scanner. The position of the scanner is interesting. It is usually located on the top corners, but this year Lenovo shifted it to the bottom, which makes you travel your fingers less when using the scanner. That is thoughtful indeed.

Keyboard, Trackpad: and a Bonus

Along with the keyboard and trackpad, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 comes with the signature Lenovo TrackPoint with three buttons. Boy, it’s been a while since I used these.

The keyboard layout and design are well thought out and have received numerous iterations year after year. What we have today in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is a very refined keyboard, populated with tactile markings throughout. After the initial burn-in time of getting used to the keyboard, I scored the highest score (for laptop keyboards) on the Monkey Typing Test: 96.80 wpm with a 97.62% accuracy.

The typing experience on the keyboard is very plush and tactile. Key presses are instant with just the right amount of pressure. I found myself doing more typing-related workflows on the ThinkPad because the keyboard is so good. The laptop is meant for professionals, so Microsoft Excel and other productive apps are going to be used on this laptop a-plenty. Knowing this, Lenovo put the PgUp and PgDn keys right beside the arrow keys. Both the keys are tapered at the bottom, differentiating them from the rest of the keys. After the initial getting used to the stage, I noticed I used those keys with far more efficiency than I do on even full-sized desktop keyboards. The keyboard comes with an LED backlight with 2 levels of adjustable brightness.

The trackpad, I would say, is one of the aspects of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon that doesn’t shine in particular. It is exactly what I’ve come to expect from Windows laptops. The trackpad in itself works well, it is precise and accurate. The click is where the problem is. It feels clunky and bouncy. Please do note that I am guilty of being spoilt by the MacBook trackpad. Lenovo does offer a haptic touchpad for an extra ₹4,900 when you configure this laptop. This should have been offered in the baseline model though. It is unacceptable of Lenovo to offer this touchpad on a laptop of this price.

The TrackPoint is what I used for the majority of my time with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. For those unaware, the TrackPoint has been gracing IBM and sequentially Lenono since time immemorial. It is a device meant to control the cursor. It sits between the G, H and B keys, and works on the pressure mechanism. It takes a while to get used to. People who use the TrackPoint on the regulars swear by it. I preferred it to the trackpad too.

Display: A Two-Thronged Tale

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with the following screen configurations. The screen on our review unit is highlighted in bold:

• 1920 x 1200, IPS, 400 nits, 100% sRGB, Glossy, Touchscreen, 60 Hz
• 1920 x 1200, IPS, 400 nits, 100% sRGB, Anti-glare, Touchscreen, 60 Hz
• 1920 x 1200, IPS, 500 nits, 100% sRGB, Anti-glare, Non-touch, 60 Hz
• 2880 x 1800, OLED, 400 nits (HDR 500), 100% DCi-P3, Glossy, Non-touch, 120 Hz
• 2880 x 1800, OLED, 400 nits (HDR 500), 100% DCi-P3, Glossy, Touchscreen, 120 Hz

To be honest, using a 60Hz display in 2024 is a brutal experience. It is more magnified by the fact that even our phones run at high frame rates. Also, for Lenovo to even offer a 60Hz display on its flagship machine in this price bracket is audacious. The OLED non-touch display costs ₹12,400 extra, which is actually just about 5% of the cost of this laptop. This should have been the default display on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12. I digress.

On a more positive side, our review unit’s IPS display quality is very passable. Pictures, movies and other forms of content look great. The screen does support HDR, so you can expect the immersion of HDR-enabled content. Colour accuracy is on point, and viewing angles are great. The 60Hz refresh rate really kills the experience though, especially during productivity tasks.

Performance: Like a Boss

Now let us talk about the specifications and available configurations of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. This is the 12th gen of the ThinkPad series, and it uses Intel’s latest “Core Ultra” series of processors. Our review machine came with the Intel Core Ultra7 165U, the fastest “U” CPU in Intel’s latest lineup. The “U” stands for “Ultraportable”, which means that these chips are designed to run on low power, having a TDP of only 15W.

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165U has 2 Low Power Efficient-cores, 8 Efficient-cores and 2 Performance-cores, making it a total of 12 cores. The Low Power Efficient-cores are a part of Intel’s new Arrow Lake architecture. This core can lower its frequency to 700 Mhz. The maximum frequency the CPU can reach is 4.9 Ghz This chip’s Maximum Turbo Power can go up to 57W.

This resulted in a processor that yielded a CineBench Multi-Core score of 8104 and a Single Core score of 1544. The Multi-Core score dropped to half of this value when run in the “Balanced” power profile. In CrossMark the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 scored a respectable 1412. While these scores might not exactly be the chart-topping ultraportable scores you would expect, I would still go for the Thinkpad X1 Carbon simply because of its size, weight, durability and functionality.

In other words, the Intel Core Ultra7 165U is more than enough to get through most productivity tasks. It can even do some heavy-lifting tasks like video editing and running virtual machines. The processor is designed to work in quick speed bursts, rather than sustained loads. Likewise, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is meant to be an ultraportable business machine, not a workstation machine, so I’m not really complaining here. the 165U is more than enough to slaughter away Excel macros, and 100+ Chrome/Edge tabs with a little bit of video editing. There is nothing more I would expect from a machine this size. And having 32 GB of DDR5 LPDDR5X RAM clocked at 7500Mhz helps the cause. There is the option for 64GB RAM too, at a price of ₹15,100 extra. The RAM is soldered onto the motherboard so it is not upgradeable.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon can do some light gaming too. Make sure it is strictly light gaming only. You don’t have to worry about 120fps because well, your screen supports only 60fps (*smug smile*). The integrated graphics card on 3DMark Time Spy gave a score of 2268. This score means you can play Fortnight at native resolution with Medium settings and get around 40 frames per second. For better gaming performance, some configurations come with Intel’s Arc 8 iGPU, which improves gaming performance by 60-70%.

Our review unit came with the 1 TB M.2 Gen4 NVME SSD. The drive performs excellently, yielding Read and Write speeds of well above 5000 MB/s. For large files (32GB), we got a maximum read speed of 6851 MB/s on CrystalDiskMark. The speed drops for smaller files 16 MB in size, to 5077 MB/s. Write speeds, however, are unaffected by file size. This SSD performance is nothing short of the fastest. Rest assured, you won’t be spending time waiting for files to get transferred, because these are industry-leading performance numbers.

Heat and Noise: Silent and cool

The new Intel CPUs have finally got fanless operation right. The Intel Core Ultra 7 165U can handle itself without the fan rotating, for the most part.  With the power slider set to Balanced, the fan seldom spins, and when it does, it does only ever so slightly. At this rpm, the noise is audible only when you close into the exhaust. Turn up the notch to “Performance” and you will hear the fan blades spin at a barely noticeable pitch. Put the machine under stress, and that is when you can hear the noise persistently, but its decibel levels are so low that it was never bothersome to me, neither will it be to your desk neighbour.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon does not hesitate to reach its highest allowed temperatures. When benchmarking, be it PCMark, 3DMark or ChineBench, the CPU temperatures were quick to cross 100 degrees and throttle down. That is also when the power draw increases to a maximum of 49.49W as we observed.

Under these conditions, the upper half of the keyboard gets slightly warm but never too hot to handle. Even when under sustained loads, the heat was never a problem. It is worth noting that the laptop gets warm only when under sustained loads. During sporadic bursts of CPU stress, the laptop stays cool.

On Idle loads, the laptop temperature hovers around 50 degrees and power draws around 4-5W. The power draw is incredibly low and efficient in Idle and Low-stress situations.

Speakers and Microphone

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a professional, business laptop whose speakers can be discarded, but do make that mistake. The speakers on this laptop are actually excellent for its size. They sound better than the speakers on laptops bigger and thicker than the X1. Instead of being located at the corners where speakers usually are, the speakers here are located below the keyboard, facing upwards. This design works well for the ThinkPad. The speakers also get Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. They perform well with movies with crisp sound quality and a wide soundstage. The bass is lacking as expected from a laptop speaker.

The dual-array microphones on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon have Dolby Voice support. This means that the microphone can capture dynamic and spatial audio from around the room. These effects can only be heard by devices that have Dolby Voice support.

Battery Life

Over the 30 days I’ve had this laptop, I used it under various conditions. I made it a point to never carry the included 65W USB C charger to my workplace. That is because I never do so with my regular laptop, and I like my bag to be slim, and my desk to be free of wire clutter. The laptop never let me down for even a single day. My workplace hours are usually 6-7 hours long. At that time, I kept switching to Balanced and High-Performance power modes, based on my workflow. Screen brightness sits at around 50-60%. I have always managed to make it home with 15-20% battery remaining.

This basically translates to around 8-9 hours of battery life doing everyday productivity tasks. Under constant load and 60% brightness, the laptop lasted 2 hours and 41 minutes. This laptop can last really long on a single charge probably due to its 60Hz display. I would trade a 120Hz display for one or two hours of lesser battery life on any given day, though. The included 65W charger charges the laptop to 100% in about 75 minutes. The charger can be used to charge other devices too.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is a top-tier business laptop, perfect for professionals who value portability, durability, and premium features. Starting at around ₹1,58,000, it’s built with carbon fiber and magnesium, giving it military-grade toughness while staying super lightweight at just 1.08 kg. The design and typing experience are top-notch, though the 60Hz display and somewhat clunky trackpad are minor downsides. Powered by Intel’s latest processors, it’s great for handling everyday work tasks and ideal for execs or frequent travelers who need a dependable, high-quality laptop on the go.

Configuring the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 with a 120Hz OLED display, haptic touchpad, and Core Ultra 7 processor will easily push the price to around ₹2,50,000. However, this setup perfectly complements the ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s design, and despite the steep cost, you’re getting a device that excels in every way.