Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook Review
by Dustin Sklavos on May 15, 2013 12:01 AM ESTSystem Performance
By this point, Ivy Bridge is old hat. We have a fairly common ultra low voltage Intel Core i5 and a speedy Intel SSD; no dedicated graphics required. This isn't Lenovo's fault, it's just the result of catching a product this late in the refresh cycle. Performance testing winds up being more of a sanity check to make sure everything is running smoothly.
That said, I did run into a hiccup during testing. In BIOS, the CPU was set to "Battery Optimized," which locked it at 600MHz. The setting labeled "Maximum Performance" actually just allows the CPU to turbo the way it's been designed to, and I feel it's worth pointing out that the "Battery Optimized" mode actually had worse running time than "Maximum Performance." This is easy enough to explain; modern processors are designed to finish tasks and go idle as soon as possible, so capping the CPU's top speed prevents it from doing exactly that and forces it to work longer.
System and CPU testing yields absolutely no surprises; the ThinkPad X1 Carbon's i5-3427U falls in line exactly where it's supposed to.
Graphics results are more of the same. The HD 4000 in the X1 Carbon puts in a strong showing (comparatively) in 3DMark's Ice Storm test, but it's basically still an Ivy Bridge HD 4000.
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Shinobi_III - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
1600*900 is a joke, Lenovo went out when I bought my Zenbook last year just because of that.Think the 13 inch one I looked at then, had a laughable 1024x768 res.. My two year old phone has 960x540 for crying out loud.
The Asus Zenbooks are a lot more bang for the buck here.
peterfares - Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - link
The QS77 chipset natively has 4 USB 3.0 ports and 10 USB 2.0 ports. It really makes no sense as to why they wire up USB 2.0 ports when they haven't even used up all 4 USB 3.0 ports offered by the chipset.jonup - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
not to mention the vizio thin and light that retails as low as $600. Based on the Anandtech review of the 15" model, the screen is superior, you get 2 USB3.0, aluminum body with rubberized bottom. I got the 15" for office (audit) use and I can't be happier. Having two spreadsheets side-by-side on a less than 4lb package, priceless!boe - Thursday, May 16, 2013 - link
My 3 year old Sony Z has an i7, weighs 3lbs and has a higher resolution screen and a much larger SSD drive.OCedHrt - Thursday, May 16, 2013 - link
I have a Z too, but it's not 14" ;)OCedHrt - Thursday, May 16, 2013 - link
The Samsung Series 9 15" is about the same weight with much better specs.imaginarynumber - Friday, May 17, 2013 - link
But Sony (for example with the Z series) showed that the only tradeoff need to be the price tag. The Z11 series had much higher specs (bar touch screen) but managed to weigh lessrailhan - Thursday, May 16, 2013 - link
It's a Thinkpad. It has a clitoris and a great keyboard. Comparison to other brands is irrelevant. Specs are only relevant if you are feeling that your current Thinkpad is slow :).Unless someone else starts making good keyboards and a practical implementation of the trackpoint(Toshiba and HP ones are rubbish) there will continue to be only one brand for laptops.
synaesthetic - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I don't see a blue enter key--what "great keyboard?" Lenovo threw away the main thing that made Thinkpads awesome to jump on the Apple-Sony chiclet train.I don't get it. This really just doesn't compute to me. Am I just going to start having to carry a full-size mechanical switch keyboard around with me wherever I go just so I can have a decent typing experience on a laptop?
Nah I'll just use my old X200 until it quits working.
Evil_Sheep - Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - link
1000000 points for making an obscure MaRo reference which only one person will get ;)