- It's been a while since we looked at the latest
from Lenovo, but today that all changes.
We got the X1 Carbon 6th generation for 2018,
in fact, we've got two of 'em.
Today we'll take a look and tell you what's good
and what's bad, stay tuned.
(tech music)
There's few laptops out there that I consider
as iconic as the X1 Carbon and, in fact,
it's one of Lenovo's flagship devices.
If you're in business or enterprise
or just want a really good productivity laptop,
well, the X1 Carbon has been it.
It's one of the lightest devices out there and for 2018 this
6th generation does a lot of cool stuff that I really like,
including an outstanding display with HDR Dolby Vision.
But don't worry, like all things Lenovo,
you have tons of options if you still want a full HD version
with touch, well, you can do that too.
Hopefully you like jet black, because boy, is the X1 Carbon
dark, this is honestly the darkest black I've ever seen
in a laptop.
Now if you don't like black there is that new silver version
which was announced, I believe, last year,
it is now available too, so you can get that in two colors.
This is obviously the black one.
They also changed the logo a bit again thus year so the
ThinkPad is all darked out, really nice, subtle branding
here, I love the X1 too, with the little red,
it's, I think, very elegant looking, it looks great.
You've still, of course, got the "i" that lights up
to let you know it's on and it slowly shifts
between on and off, really cool touch there.
It is still a fingerprint magnet, though, so this is One
reason why I don't like the black, and that's where I think
the silver one comes in if I had to choose, I'd probably
pick the silver just because it's a lot cleaner.
Let's turn to the side here to see what we have going on
for ports, we have two type-c ports here.
Now this ort is is kind of unique, this is for the dock
that Lenovo sells as an accessory, it's a pretty serious
dock, so if you're into doing that kind of thing, well,
that's what this whole port is for, but within that port
is another Type-C port, so you actually have two of them.
It is Thunderbolt 3, so you can do four PCIe lanes
and all that kind of stuff, you also charge the laptop
that way and you get a little LED letting you know it's on,
so really nice there.
USB type A, full HDMI, this is a business laptop,
so not that surprising we're gonna see that, I still
appreciate having a full HDMI port, so that's great to see.
Turn to the other side, not much going on,
you got your headphone jack, you have your ventilation here
for the CPU, unique design, this is what Lenovo does,
they put it on the side, some people like it,
and if you're using a mouse, I'm not a huge fan of vents
on the side but it's to too bad with these new processors.
Another USB type A and of course the Kensington lock.
Finally on the back you have this unique drawer,
so it is a SIM Slot/SD, so it takes a Micro SD.
Not as ideal as a full SD card slot, but still kinda cool,
you use a little pin to pop it open.
Now, this does not actually have a LTE modem in it.
There are versions that do, so that's where
you would put this SIM card in there as well.
It doesn't support, as far as I know, eSIM.
The only reason I don't know a lot about this, the version
with LTE-A, LTE Advanced is not out yet,
I believe it comes out in May, so if you want to order this
with a full 4G connection you're gonna have to wait
a couple months, but that's where you'll put the SIM.
Turn to the bottom, you see you got some normal screws
here so you can pop this off
and there is the intake vent for the CPU.
Alright, let's look at the display here.
So, one of the new things that they have this year
it's this privacy screen, so you can slide this over
and that unlocks your camera.
That is good for people who like privacy, it's a little
clumsy, you find it kind of hard to use,
but it basically shuts off the microphone and blocks
the camera, so, if you want privacy, there you go.
The trade-off with that option, though, is you don't
get Windows Hello via facial recognition,
so it's one or the other.
Let's take a look at this display.
This is the full HD Version, so this is a 14-inch.
One thing that's unique about the X1 Carbon,
that I always liked about it, it's a 14-inch display,
I really like that size.
This is full HD but it's matte, but it's also touch,
so it's like kinda best of both worlds.
If you're really concerned about battery life
and you really want to get a laptop that lasts you
a long time, this is gonna be the version you get.
I really like this display, it's like I said,
no glare on it, it just looks really cool
and it's just weird to have a touch screen
that's all that, right?
You usually don't find that, but nice choice here.
The display does go all the way down, too,
so that's always a thing.
You can see the bezels are pretty think here, nice balance
between the top and bottom, excellent design.
Looking at the keyboard deck here,
well you got Lenovo's awesome keyboard.
Listen, I'm part of this club, this is easily one
of the best keyboards, it's just amazing to use.
If you never used a Lenovo device,
they're one of the easiest, I think,
to adapt to and get used to typing on,
and I just love the design and the layout.
They still have the weird function control keys reversed.
It's not a deal breaker for me, just take a little time
to get used to.
I believe you can still reverse it in the software
but that makes it even weirder, in my opinion.
I also really appreciate the fact you have a dedicated
print-screen button down here at the bottom that also,
when you combine it with the function key it launches
the snipping tool, which I use probably about,
I don't know, 20 times a day.
That's just a really cool feature here.
Obviously this is a productivity-oriented laptop,
so there you go.
Coming to the trackpad, you still got the nice, smooth,
I really love the click on this, it's very soft and gentle,
more importantly, Lenovo, this is where I get nerdy
about this stuff, they used to use Synaptics all the time
and then last year's model they used a hybrid of
Synaptics and Precision, which I thought was pretty good,
but it still felt a little weird.
This year, I'm glad to say, this is just full Precision
and they're better for it, this is a really good trackpad,
I love the feel of it, everything about it is excellent.
Still got your trackpoint button there as well, if you're
a fan, I'm not, but still cool that they're keeping it.
Finally, you have a fingerprint sensor tied
to the motherboard, so this is really good for security.
You can use it for Windows Hello authentication obviously.
Not my favorite fingerprint reader, though.
It works, it's just not the best fingerprint reader
I've used out there, I think Lenovo can definitely
do better in that regard, but it does have a little
cool LED that lights up to let you know where it is,
so that's kinda neat.
Let's talk about one of the banner features of the X1 Carbon
for 2018, it is the display choices.
So I just told you the full HD versions, mattes, touch,
really cool, awesome choice if you want battery life,
so for about $180 extra you can get WQHD with
Dolby Vision HDR, and boy, is this an outstanding choice.
So it's 500-nits of brightness, which is very bright,
so you're gonna be covered outdoors, it's also full glossy,
it is non-touch, though, so that is a drawback,
but this is easily one of the best displays I've ever used,
and I say that for a couple reasons.
First of all, if I were to show you this in person,
you would immediately think it was an OLA display.
Now, OLA displays are pretty great looking but they drain
battery life like crazy and you don't have that issue here,
and that's what's really cool about this.
I was able to get seven, eight hours
with a Core i7 processor and this display.
To me that's outstanding, that's basically
all day battery life.
Sure, I'd like 10 hours, but for this resolution,
it is very good and that color.
Now if you bump it up to 500 nits, they'll drop down
of course, so just keep that in mind.
But if you like watching movies,
this is gonna be your display.
And talk about color accuracy, this gets 100% SRGB.
Now, that's not too uncommon, we see a lot of that
in high-end Ultrabooks, but this also gets 100% Adobe RGB,
I've never actually seen that in an Ultrabook before,
it's usually around 70, 80% is on the good end,
so that's impressive.
You also get 99% NTSC, which again, very color accurate
display here, so Dolby Vision and Windows 10 is getting full
HDR support with I believe the Spring Creators Update,
due in a couple weeks, so this'll even get better
in the coming weeks as well,
but, it just looks really, really nice.
If you like watching movies, this is gonna be your choice.
The only downside, like I said, its non-touch
and you also can't do Windows Hello facial recognition
with that, so you can only get the privacy camera option
and that's a tough trade-off there but, for $180,
this is a steal of a display right here.
Let's talk about hardware options here.
So there are quite a few unique things I want to talk about.
First of all you can get Core i5, Core i7, these are Intel
8th generation processors, 15-watt range,
they are the new quad core runs, so that's pretty cool,
but what's really unique about this is, in most Ultrabooks
of this class, I expect the Intel 8550U, that's the standard
Core i7 that we find in almost all 13-inch laptops,
so the XPS 13, the HP Spectres, this, though, is running
the 8560U, that's the same processor found
in Surface Book 2, 13- and 15-inch, and that's really cool.
That means if you get the Core i7 version with v-Pro,
this thing goes up to 4.2 gigahertz, that makes this
one of the fastest 14-inch Ultrabooks on the market today.
Now, you don't get a full GPU, so you're still gonna use
UHD 620, it doesn't have any discreet graphics,
so, don't forget, this is a workstation,
it is meant for business, so you're not gonna do a lot of
graphics on there, but if you need raw processing,
this is a really good processor that I haven't seen
in a lot of laptops yet.
So kudos to Lenovo for giving that as an option.
But if you just want a Core i5, you can do that, too,
and save yourself some money.
When it comes to RAM, of course, you get 8- or 16-gig
options, so nothing unique there, but another cool thing
is the SSD, so you do get a performing SSD in here,
but this one is the one terabyte version, it's Opal,
it's all that cool stuff, but it's one I had never used
before, it is the Samsung PM981, I actually didn't know
that existed, so, but the benchmarks are off the charts.
This gets 3200 read speeds and 2400 write speeds.
One thing I just want to talk about
is the Lenovo Vantage app.
So, Lenovo, in the past, has had a lot of messy apps
that allowed you to configure their devices.
Well, they've put 'em all into one app now,
called Lenovo Vantage,
it's a UWP app, so it's updated to the Store,
it's really nice, actually, it allows you to check
for drivers and new updates for the device itself.
It also allows you to do things like configure the hardware,
like the keyboard back-lighting, the display, audio stuff,
controlling the microphones, and it's really nice.
There's even now a WIFI security setting,
which scans your network, I guess,
and makes sure that it's secure, I don' know,
they didn't really explain it.
But, overall, a really nice app.
I like to see these companies make a better effort here,
and I think Lenovo is doing that.
Okay, let's bring it all in, X1 Carbon 6th generation
for 2018, I really like this laptop.
I know it's a familiar theme here, but there's a lot
of good stuff on the market these days
and the X1 Carbon for this year has been
nothing but improvements, in my opinion.
I really like all the display choices you have
when configuring it, that Dolby Vision display is
just drop-dead gorgeous, I really recommend you get that,
unless you really prioritize battery life.
Keyboard is awesome, trackpad is fantastic,
Precision all the way.
Just a really nice design, I just have fun using it.
I also like the port selection here.
Now, if I had a choice I would get this with LTE,
'cuz I'm big on that.
The other downside about this laptop, it's super-expensive.
The one we have here configured is around $2,500, $2,600.
Which is, yeah, that's surface-level, folks.
But people who have Lenovo's, and specifically this device,
are huge fans of it and it lasts a long time.
It is military standard, so it's gonna have, ya know,
impact resistance and all that cool stuff as well.
Now, not everything is perfect.
For instance, the audio, I'm not a big fan of these speakers
and I know some people are gonna say, well, it's a business
laptop, blah blah blah, but if you wanna get that awesome
display, I kind of prefer to have really good speakers,
they're on the bottom edge, they don't sound that great,
not the worst speakers I've heard,
but I think Wahweh has proven to me that you can
put some really amazing speakers on a device,
and for this price range, I expect a little bit better.
The fingerprint reader is also terrible, so I would get
the Windows Hello facial recognition option if you can
unless you can get the Dolby Vision, which, then, you can't,
so, that's a tough choice as well,
but if you're looking for a productivity laptop
that's gonna last you a long time, and has all that
hallmark flagship stuff from Lenovo,
well, the X1 Carbon is it.
Remember, it's under 2 and 1/2 pounds, or 1.13 kilograms,
making it one of the lightest and fastest devices
out there in the market, and it's better off for it.
So there's a quick review of the new
X1 Carbon 6th generation for 2018.
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Thanks for watching, take care everybody.