Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook Review

Conclusion: Prosumer Grade

Much as Mark Rosewater can't go a month without mentioning how he used to write for "Roseanne," I have a hard time not mentioning my background in video production. The reason to bring it up with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is simple: whether you're a hobbyist or a professional in any kind of content creation field, you have a pretty good idea of what "prosumer" means. Consumer grade hardware and software are generally (but not always) not worth your time, but professional grade kit often requires a substantial investment. Thus there's the middle ground: prosumer. Prosumer kit is typically fully featured, but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. You get 90% of the power of professional grade stuff at a fraction of the cost.

That's essentially what the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is. Weird as it sounds, the ThinkPad is basically the Windows user equivalent of a Mac and has been for a while. The name has a cachet to it, and you have a good idea of what it represents. In the case of the X1 Carbon, we get a strong and sturdy build, great quality display, and the best chiclet keyboard in the business. We also get the kind of price premium we've come to expect for the ThinkPad brand, a premium that predates Lenovo's ownership.

I have often said that you cannot charge Apple prices for Dell products. That's not necessarily to disparage Dell, but merely to make a point: you can't make bargain consumer grade hardware and still try to sell it at a premium. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a fine Ultrabook, and the $1,187 touch-free entry level model is without question the best deal in the lineup (though the 4GB of DDR3 stings mightily) and easy to recommend. If you want 8GB of memory you'll have to fork over at least $200 more (you get a CPU upgrade in the process), which is a bitter pill to swallow.

Where the Carbon runs into trouble is that its price is, like its battery life, barely competitive, and the higher-priced models are almost impossible to justify. Actual business-class kit is more expensive, but the Carbon is really competing with the likes of Dell's XPS 13. Dell will sell you an XPS 13 with a 1080p IPS display, faster processor, and 8GB of memory for $1,299. Married to the 14" form factor? Not a problem, they'll give you an XPS 14 with the same resolution display for $999, and at $1,199 you can even get dedicated graphics hardware.

Ultimately, if you're still smarting from what Lenovo has done with the ThinkPad brand like I am, it can be difficult to appreciate the X1 Carbon. It bears repeating this really is an excellent Ultrabook, falling short primarily in battery life and price but otherwise pretty tough to argue with. And Lenovo has been thriving compared to some of the competition, so they must be doing something right. I just don't like how they've sacrificed the ThinkPad brand on the altar of consumerism, and the X1 Carbon doesn't buck the trend. It's a fantastic Ultrabook, but it's not enterprise.