So last year I reviewed the Lenovo X1 Extreme I gave it a good review I said it was my favorite
laptop from Lenovo because it was light portable and had a dedicated GPU, which was perfect
for more intense applications.
Now this here we got the second generation of it and there's not a lot of difference
aesthetically but there are a lot of internal improvements to make it a better experience.
Now to tell the difference between the first generation and the second generation is by
looking at the lid.
On the first generation, we had your typical black matte rubberized texture that felt very
grippy.
But also attracted a lot of fingerprints.
This year you get the same sort of feel but instead of just a black top you get a carbon
fiber look which adds a little bit of character to the laptop.
Port setup is exactly the same tons of IO for any sort of function or situation.
You have your power connector to USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI, you have your network
jack.
But on the other side you have an SD card slot, 2 USB-A ports and of course a Kensington
lock.
So internally the layout is exactly the same as the first generation the main takeaway
though is that you do get a faster swappable Wi-Fi card.
This is Wi-Fi 6.
So if you have access to a router that can take advantage of it technically, you should
get better speeds.
You still have the extra spot for another SSD.
This one is quite fast.
You have two slots for RAM upgradeable to 64 gigabytes and you have an 80 watt hour
battery.
Now because this is using the 4K display.
I'm only getting three hours and 30 minutes before needing to charge The other area of
improvement is the display.
You have the option to buy with a 4K matte display.
Not this Matt!.
I don't come with the laptop.
I'm talking about a matte display that prevents reflections from happening when you're around
a lot of light.
Here's the matte version and here is the glossy 4K version from last year.
It's hard to tell on camera because I'm in a one light source room, but if I take my
finger and I put it over this display, you can see the reflections a lot more.
You can also see the reflections of the light above me whereas on this monitor, you can't
see it at all.
The downfall to having a matte display is that it no longer touch, like you can't interact
with your fingers with this display.
Color accuracy, brightness is identical to the first generation Xtreme.
The other area of improvement is the webcam.
The webcam is still the same quality, but you are now getting is a ThinkShutter.
So speakers, keyboard and touchpad are exactly the same.
There's no difference compared to the previous model.
However, I do like the fingerprint scanner.
It is definitely an update to the previous version.
I'm just finding it a lot easier to set up and it's also a lot quicker to log in.
The nipple.
Still there!
Still good!
Still soft.
It's a nipple I like to use, it's a nipple I let my friends touch.
Now the unit I have here is the i7 9850H paired with 32 gigabytes of RAM and the brand new
GTX 1650 Max Q.
If you're looking for a big performance jump from last year's model, you're not gonna find
it here, especially when you're doing CPU related tasks.
This is using an Intel processor, it just gets really really hot for a form factor this
thin.
That means the laptop has to work really hard to keep it cool a powerful processor to make
sure things stay in line.
That also means when you're rendering a file and it's utilizing the CPU at a hundred percent
it's going to have to drop the frequency from anywhere between 2.5 and 3.5, which means
you're going to get the exact same CPU speeds from last year's model.
Now, if you're doing anything GPU related, you will see a 10% or 10 to 15% performance
increase compared to last year's 1050 TI Max Q. Besides that heat, fan noise everything
is pretty much similar to last year.
The only big difference is this year, they improve the fan curves to give you more of
a balanced system.
I'll be honest with you.
If you have last year's version, you have nothing to be jealous about because you're
not gonna see that much of a performance improvement.
If you are buying a brand new Lenovo X1 extreme and you can get a good deal on the second
generation you will get a lot of refinements.
You get the updated Wi-Fi card a slightly better processor, even though you might not
see it, you'll still take advantage of it doing simple things like loading up a web
page quickly or anything that's not task intensive.
You have a slightly nicer design a better fingerprint scanner, and of course the think
shutter to help with privacy.
At the end of the day, it's really hard to really push the performance of these laptops
until we get better Intel processors.
The 14 nanometer architecture is stale and we need to reduce that in order to see efficiencies.
Anyways, if you have any questions about this laptop or you want to see the original review
of the first edition, I'll place that in the description below.
You can also reach out to me on discord.
I'll be happy to help you there.
Like the video if you liked it subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you guys
in the next video.