Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

By Joel Santo Domingo

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon retails for just under $1,500 and can be upgraded to cost almost $1,900, which makes it one of the more expensive ultrabooks out there. But it looks and feels expensive with a chassis partially constructed of exotic and ultra-strong carbon fiber. It might be sturdy, but the X1 Carbon weighs less than three pounds and has a battery that lasts almost 7 and a half hours. It's got plenty of business and IT-friendly features, so it's one of the first official ultrabooks that will slot into your growing business or enterprise. For the medium to large business that has multiple departments, the X1 Carbon is the ultrabook that you should purchase to equip your constantly traveling high-up executive.

Design and Features
Part of the X1 Carbon?the lid and the roll cage (internal bracing and structure)?made from carbon fiber, a material that, after processing, has the same weight and strength as solid billets of aluminum or titanium. As a result, the system weighs just 2.93 pounds alone, which is light when compared with the Dell Inspiron 14z which is 4.08 pounds. Granted, the Inspiron 14z has a built-in DVD drive, but there's still more than a pounds' difference between the two. The aluminum Apple MacBook Air 13-inch is a smidge lighter at 2.85 pounds, but that's with a smaller screen (with lighter glass), and only a difference of 0.08 pounds, not noticeable to most users. The system measures 0.7 by 13 by 9 inches (HWD). Not only does it meet the 14-inch ultrabook spec with room to spare, it also fits into the same laptop case that you used to use for your old Lenovo ThinkPad T400 (with room for a binder or two as well).

The X1 Carbon's matte, 14-inch panel has a 1,600-by-900 native resolution. This is a lot higher than the 1,366-by-768 resolution panels that we saw in the first generation of utlrabooks. The matte finish also helps tame screen glare, which is a concern for business users that may work near office windows. The screen is very bright and very sharp. Images and documents are clear at normal seated distances. You may start to see individual pixels on the screen when you get really close up (closer than 10 inches), but you can minimize the effect by sitting at more ergonomic distances.

Inside the X1 Carbon's chassis are a dual-core Intel Core i5-3427U processor, 4GB of memory, a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), and dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wi-Fi connectivity. There are plusses and minuses to the included 128GB SSD. On the plus side, it's fast, with boot and wake?from-sleep times that measure a few seconds. The SSD also helps the system's day to day performance (more on that later). On the other hand, 128GB just seems to be almost too small for this setup, since the X1 Carbon comes with only about 54GB of free space when you take it out of the box. There are a few (small) programs you can uninstall, but for the most part the C: drive is full. Programs like Evernote, Adobe Reader, Google Chrome, and Norton Internet Security (30-day trial) are pre-installed, but you're unlikely to gain more than a GB once you remove them. While 54GB isn't a lot for a consumer user, it may be enough for a businessperson who doesn't download a lot of videos or photos, it may be enough. Lenovo offers a larger 256GB SSD in the $1,649 and $1,849 versions of the X1 Carbon.

The X1 Carbon's keyboard is backlit and each key is curved on the bottom. This is Lenovo's current design ID for keyboards and we've seen it on desktops like the IdeaCentre A720. For the most part it works, the keys are comfortable to type on and the concave keys help prevent mistypes. The wide touchpad is easy to use and responsive, with a glass surface that's easy to swipe. In addition to the touchpad, the keyboard has Lenovo's traditional TrackPoint pointing stick for those business users that aren't comfortable using anything else. There are separate physical mouse buttons for the TrackPoint, but the touchpad is one seamless surface with built-in clickable areas like most ultrabooks.

The X1 Carbon has very few I/O ports because of its compact chassis. There is a single USB 2.0 port on the left, and a single USB 3.0 port on the right. That's it. It would have made more sense to have two USB 3.0 ports, so there's no confusion (neither port is color coded, and the only indication which one is USB 3.0 is the small "ss" icon on the right USB port). On the right side, there's also a headset jack, SD card reader, and a Mini DisplayPort. You'll need an adapter to use VGA or HDMI, neither one is included. There's a switch for the wireless radios on the left, along with the jack for the new power adapter. Unfortunately, the rectangular power jack isn't compatible with Lenovo's existing round plug, so your business will have to stock separate power adapters for its X1 Carbons. Recharges are accelerated: 30 minutes will charge the battery up to 70 percent, and a full charge of the 45 WHr battery takes only 90 minutes.

The ultrabook bundles in a USB-to-Gigabit Ethernet adapter, so you're still able to easily connect to wired networks. The system can act as a mobile hotspot, sharing the Ethernet or mobile broadband connection on a Wi-Fi network. This way you can help your fellow tablet or ultrabook users get on the Internet. The X1 Carbon has Intel vPro capability and Intel Anti-Theft technology, both of which make IT workers' jobs easier. The system's 720p HD webcam can be used for videoconferencing, and the downward-firing internal speakers are surprisingly loud for an ultrabook. There is very little distortion at the highest volume levels, and you'll be hard pressed to find another ultrabook that can be heard by everyone in a medium sized room. The included Dolby Home Theater v4 sound software helps dynamically shape the sound to fit music, movies, or games. The system comes with a three-year standard warranty.

Performance
The dual-core Intel processor has Hyper-Threading technology, so it can handle up to four streams of data at once. Thanks to that Intel Core i5-3427u processor, 4GB of memory, and particularly the speedy SSD, the X1 Carbon is a speed demon among the ultrabooks. The X1 Carbon completed the Handbrake video test in a quick 1 minute 50 seconds, and the Photoshop CS5 test in 4:18. These scores are only a few ticks behind the class leader (and high-end ultrabook Editors' Choice) Asus Zenbook Prime UX32VD-DB71 (which scored 1:43 in Handbrake, 3:58 in CS5). However, the X1 Carbon's SSD help it gain some of the highest scores on the PCMark 7 test (5,149 points), which measures the system's performance at day-to-day tasks like file transfers, booting, Web surfing, and office tasks. The X1 Carbon's score is far ahead of rivals like the Asus UX32VD-DB71 (2,523), Dell XPS 14 (Summer 2012) (3,348), and HP Folio 13-1020us (3,150).

The X1 Carbon's battery lasted 7 hours 19 minutes on the MobileMark 2007 test, which is very good. It was beaten by the Dell XPS 14 (9:37) and HP Folio 13-1020us (8:47), but 7 hours is solid, considering the weakest battery numbers for ultrabooks range around 5 hours.

So, should your company buy Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabooks? It's as sleek as the MacBook Air 13-inch but adds all the Intel vPro manageability your company needs. The X1 Carbon also has the TrackPoint, which could be the selling point for veteran users who won't adopt the touchpad. Compared with high-end and business ultrabooks we've seen before, however, the choice may be tougher. The Zenbook Prime UX32VD holds on to its high-end ultrabook Editors' Choice, thanks to its higher resolution (1080p HD) screen and faster performance on the multimedia and gaming benchmark tests. The UX32VD is also a better consumer model since it has a 500GB hard drive for storage. On the business side, it's a tougher sell. The earlier business-oriented ultrabook Editors' Choice HP Folio 13 has a much similar battery life (7:33), but is significantly slower than the X1 Carbon on the other benchmark tests. About the only thing that the HP Folio 13 has over the X1 is its HDMI port and its price. The X1 Carbon's business-friendly features, higher resolution screen, thinner design, lighter weight, better keyboard, and dual pointing devices overshadow the HP Folio 13's few wins. If you're looking for a business ultrabook, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon should be on your buy list. It's our first Editors' Choice for true designed-for-business ultrabooks.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS: Check out the test scores for the

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