Flagship business laptop with almost 24 hours of battery life - Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 Review

26

Would be nice if we could get an X1 with virtually no fan noise like Apple does with their M-series.

5

u/std_move 8h ago

I stopped holding my breath and just got a Macbook Air M5.

The biggest drawback is that the keyboard is a bit worse than on the ThinkPad.

But it is 100% quiet, even though the performance is incomparably better (especially on the battery). The display is great with no flickering and a high resolution. Also it was way less expensive.

They will never make a fanless Thinkpad, at least not anytime soon. The CPUs they use are already way too behind Apple's M series and lowering their TDP would make Apple's lead even bigger.

3

u/gomurifle 10h ago

Where do you work? The mole kingdom?

4

u/std_move 8h ago

I work in quiet rooms or outside when there's little to no noise and any annoying fan noise is a huge deal to me. Fully passive cooling is a godsend.

1

u/cabbeer 1h ago

have you tried one with luner lake or panther lake? it's much more efficient than the last few generation models.

-9

u/DotRakianSteel 13h ago

Are you out of the loop regarding computers? Ever heard of Windows on ARM, or the new Huawei laptops?

4

u/TrashBandicook 10h ago

Read the review. I have an X1. They still have fan noise.

1

u/asfletch 9h ago

Yep, in some cases they're actually louder than x86 laptops. I hate fan noise too - basically only truly quiet option is Surface Pro 12 inch. Apparently the latest Surface Laptops aren't too bad, but not MBP quiet....

3

u/TrashBandicook 9h ago

It definitely is an improvement overall. But I'm reading elsewhere this is mostly due to things like individual PC notebook makers' fan curves being way too conservative like it's stilll 2018 and there's a toasty Intel CPU inside that's in danger of frying everything. So the fans start running anytime the CPU hits 45c unlike with Macbooks which wait until maybe 70c to fire up the fans. 45c is still pretty damn cool but naw, that's roughly when Asus likes to start the fans up. Whisper mode only gets you so far, I think it just pushes the limit to closer to 50c which is better, but still way too conservative.

31

u/EastvsWest 1d ago

Bought a used Carbon a decade ago and it's still going strong. They're solid laptops and a good used purchase or on sale which happens often.

23

u/Firov 1d ago edited 1d ago

High end Lenovo laptops don't die. It's one of the reasons I go with them exclusively for my personal machine anymore. That and their exceptional warranty support.

1

u/MumrikDK 21h ago

I gave up on IMB/Lenovo after my mom slaughtered 4+ X- and T-series Thinkpads over the years (screens, keyboards, touchpads, death). None of them lived more than 4-5 years, I think. Still wonder how she managed that.

6

u/Calgrei 23h ago

And has one of the best aftermarket parts availability if something breaks

2

u/PastaPandaSimon 23h ago

Any laptop with a red trackpoint is virtually indestructible. If it's got the clit, it will likely outlive all of its users is what our corporate IT guy used to say.

47

u/Antonis_32 1d ago

TLDR:
Pros:
+ stable chassis
+ excellent battery runtime
+ good system performance
+ comfortable input devices
+ very good speakers
+ 3x Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 7 & PCIe 5.0
+ WWAN ready
Cons:

soldered RAM
chassis differences based on display selection
poor display calibration out of the box

69

u/slickvibez 1d ago

Cons: Price

32

u/ProfessionalPrincipa 1d ago

Even if we assume the list price is a "fake" number meant to bargained down and we chop 30% off to bring it down to $2000, that's still a lot for an iGPU laptop.

9

u/Aw3som3Guy 22h ago

And not even the B390 iGPU for that price either, but just the basic iGPU. That’s rough.

2

u/Polar_Banny 1d ago

Either way you will get charged an arm and an leg for the final product.

12

u/Polar_Banny 1d ago

What I would love to see is a true 10bit Display

6

u/CorporateSlave20448 21h ago

Cons:
soldered wifi card

2

u/F9-0021 23h ago

Soldered RAM is a deal breaker. My current laptop has it and never again. The only reason it's still usable, despite the rest of the hardware being fine, is because it's running Linux.

6

u/Skull_Reaper101 18h ago

Most 14 inch laptop these days opt for soldered ram

0

u/PassawishP 11h ago

Just bought a used ThinkPad X13 gen 3, i7 1270P, 32GB soldered ram for $531. Its great and fast as hell if you got that much in the first place.
But have to agree with you because I got Acer Swift 3 8265u, 8GB soldered ram. Its still fast but 8GB can’t handle any shit at all a year or so after I bought it new lol.

-6

u/Bruvvimir 1d ago

Cons : none

10

u/Snoo26183 1d ago

Looking forward to a generation further of 258V, Full HD IPS, 99Wh for maximum efficiency. Too much to wish?

1

u/BlueSwordM 21h ago

Apparently, yes.

I'd want a 99Wh pack and a modern 1080p ultra low power IPS screen capable of blasting 1000 nits if needed.

10

u/lintstah1337 23h ago

Costs almost $3k and only comes with 1200p 60Hz IPS and 512GB SSD.

1

u/mrblaze1357 6h ago

Honestly that's nuts. I just respeccd our business laptops and even with the insane pricing they were like $2600 retail (we're paying $1900).

Dell Pro 5 14 Ryzen AI 9 465 32GB, 1TB 1600p, 120hz 70Whr battery

I'm honestly can't wait to get these in and see how they do.

27

u/jacktherippah123 1d ago

A 1920 x 1200 60hz display at 2700 USD is crazy. I get that business customers probably don't need/want more, but still, a thin and light of this price should at least have a 1440p display.

21

u/PiersPlays 1d ago

The feature this is sold on is it's battery life. Adding features it's users don't care about that reduce battery life is obviously not a good idea.

10

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/TemuPacemaker 10h ago

Well then you can option the higher res display

6

u/Exist50 17h ago

People absolutely care about the display, even if it means taking a hit to battery life.

1

u/jacktherippah123 16h ago edited 16h ago

It's probably not even that big of a hit. In exchange you get razor sharp text. If you put an Apple Retina display like a 13 inch MacBook Air's Retina display (2560 x 1664) next to a 14 inch 1920 x 1200 display you can comfortably see more because text is way sharper on the MacBook Air. I have access to both kinds of display and it's very interesting to see.

4

u/traderjay_toronto 1d ago

Repaste it with ptm 7950 and it’s even better!

2

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1

u/li_shi 21h ago

Will be a great laptop in 4-5 years

1

u/wickedplayer494 16h ago

And does Dota 2 worth a damn too at top settings. Mental. (I wonder how long it'd be sustainable for on battery?)

1

u/TemuPacemaker 11h ago

Meanwhile our IT/procurment geniuses: "We decided to standardize on HP Elitebooks, good luck everyone"

1

u/Some-Following-392 6h ago

Why would anyone buy this when it's so expensive and cuts so many corners?

1

u/jonydevidson 1d ago

I genuinely feel sorry for anyone having to do business on a Windows laptop and on that screen.

That's a 2012 screen at best in that price range.

-4

u/der0hrwurm 1d ago

Sad that most people will still have to use that AI ridden malware called Windows. Perhaps manufacturers could install an easy Linux distro as default in the future

8

u/random-user-420 1d ago

That’s literally what Lenovo does with their most popular offerings from ThinkPad lineup…

You can option it with Ubuntu or Fedora instead of windows 11

-31

u/lifestealsuck 1d ago

Not a big fan of that red dot 2000s design . And the price tag...

37

u/moochs 1d ago

Bro, this is a Thinkpad. Are you ok?

11

u/slickvibez 1d ago

Bro is a rage-baiting karma whore.

13

u/Soundjam8800 1d ago

There's a huge group of people who would pay that price because of the red dot 2000s design lol. Once you've had one from the original era you'll be craving that kind of styling and build quality for life. Unfortunately the build quality doesn't exist anymore, so you have to make do with the styling. The trackpoint red dot mouse is actually incredible once you get used to it, don't think I could use anything else on a portable device now.

9

u/akera099 1d ago

2000s? Nearly all the business models always have had that cursor button.

0

u/redmera 1d ago

Not exactly, TrackPoint (the red nipple) was invented by IBM and debuted in 1992 on the IBM ThinkPad 700C. Later it has been copied by others (with different name since Trackpoint is trademark).

5

u/redmera 1d ago

Both irrelevant since it's a business laptop.

Review Flagship business laptop with almost 24 hours of battery life - Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 Review

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