Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch Review

Today we are taking a look at the latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon from Lenovo, which features a Multitouch screen. The review sample we received features a Core i7 processor, 240GB Solid State Drive and 8GB of DDR3 memory. With prices starting around £1,400 this laptop targets the high end enthusiast and business user - but is it worth the money? We put the diminutive business machine through a series of synthetic and real world tests today. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch is available in various configurations. Our review sample received a processor upgrade from the basic Core i5 3427U to the Core i7 3667U, which has 4 MB of cache with a Turbo speed of 3.2ghz. The Touch screen is an LED backlit model with 1600x900 resolution and features a 720p high definition front facing web cam for chatting and conference calls. Our sample also has a 240GB Intel Solid State drive and 8GB of DDR3 memory. Lenovo have yet to upgrade their ThinkPad X1 range with the latest Intel mobile processors, which is a little disappointing especially when considering the integrated HD graphics improvements. The starting price is £1,405.99 and you can configure your own on the Lenovo website over here. The specific configuration we have in for review is £1,727.85 inc vat. ThinkPad X1 Carbon, 3460AQG Specifications: 14.0" HD+ LED B/L (1600x900) 10-Point Multi-Touch Display Antiglare w/ Camera Intel Core i7 3667U 2.0-3.2 GHz w/ HD 4000 8 GB RAM onboard Intel QS77 Chipset w/o Ethernet (RJ45) 240 GB FDE SSD Platine SATA 3 (6 GB/s) WWAN Ericsson H5321 WLAN Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205S-SFF a/b/g/n Bluetooth 4.0 1 x USB 2.0 Always On 1 x USB 3.0 1 x Mini Displayport HD Audio Energystar 4-in-1 Cardreader Ultranav (Touchpad + Trackpoint) Fingerprint Reader Intel AMT 4-cell Battery Power Supply 90W 3 Year On-Site Warranty Power Plug UK Keyboard w/ Backlight UK Windows 8 Professional 64 Bit UK No fancy box for the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch. It ships in a simple brown box. Inside is a universal power supply and a single sheet of paper which explains how to get started, alongside button functionality. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch looks very similar to previous Lenovo machines we have had in for review. The surface is actually quite resistant to fingerprints and is a breeze to clean, thanks to the materials the company use on the chassis. The famous ThinkPad logo with red dot is displayed bottom right on the front of the lid. The underside of the laptop is kept clear, with only a couple of vents at the side to exhaust the hot air. The left side of the laptop has a USB 2.0 port, a vent, a wireless radio switch (on/off), and the power adapter connector. Along the right side is a single USB 3.0 port, a mini Display port connector, 4 in 1 card reader and a headphone jack. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch is a beautifully understated laptop, very slim to fit the Intel Ultraportable profile, with an antiglare screen covering. The touch screen implementation is excellent, especially as the system is using Windows 8. The 10 finger touch system is easy to use and works extremely well. I must admit I am not a believer in a touch screen on a laptop as I hate seeing fingermarks in front of the important text and images I would be looking at for work. I could very well be in the minority however. A tablet? sure, but a laptop? I am still not sold. The screen quality isn't the greatest we have seen and another couple of brightness levels would be beneficial, especially in direct sunlight as it was hard to read small text. Colour saturation is above average. Off angle viewing is not great, although with such a small laptop it shouldn't prove too much of a problem. The touchscreen layer is sadly not invisible and can be seen, displaying a little grain across all the images. The ThinkPad X1 keyboards really are the cream of the crop and easily the best on any laptop regardless of price. The curved edges help improve feedback of the individual keys and it is a pleasure to use. The little red joystick may seem a pointless inclusion, but having used one for years I find it much more intuitive than a trackpad. The keyboard is also backlit, with two intensity settings on offer. Bottom right of the wrist rest area is another ThinkPad logo and a fingerprint reader, meaning you can protect the start up sequence without having to remember a password. On the left of the wrist rest area are a couple of stickers, which can be easily removed. The trackpad is oversized and is easy enough to use. I hate trackpads so I much prefer using the red joystick above the 'b' key. Above the trackpad is a left and right button, as well as a center button which can be used in conjunction with the red joystick for scrolling and other tasks. Top left, above the keyboard are buttons for speaker mute, volume controls, microphone mute and a black button which can be used for specific tasks. Top right is the system power button, this glows when the machine is on. The onboard audio is reasonable ... it can hit quite a loud volume level, but there is little bass response meaning the audio is always tinny. We would expect this anyway, especially from such a small laptop. We think the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch looks great from all angles. The slim line design is attractive and the build quality and standard of finish are exceptionally high. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. The system doesn't score that highly in the Windows 8 Experience Index due to the weak integrated HD4000 graphics on the Intel 3667U processor. Lenovo have yet to update their system to the latest Haswell range of mobile processors which is unfortunate. We have reviewed several laptops featuring the latest Haswell processors, such as the MSI GE40-20C Dragon Eyes in June. The Intel Solid State drive scores well in this test, but we will look at this in more detail later in the review. Not the cleanest of system installs, however Lenovo do install a lot of useful software for these machines which can help with updating software, controlling the trackpad and fingerprint reader and monitoring battery life. We do dislike seeing Norton Internet Security however as it takes up a lot of resources and there are equally good free packages available online. An overview of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch in CPUz. The last generation (Ivy Bridge) 3667U (ultra low voltage) is built on the 22nm processor and runs with a maximum turbo of 3.2ghz. There is 4 MB of Level 3 cache onboard and there are two physical cores which support HyperThreading (2+2). Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares): PCSpecialist Inferno 11.6 inch (Intel Core i7 3630QM) MSI GE40-20C Dragon Eyes Laptop (Intel Core i7 4702MQ) MSI GX60 (AMD A10 4600M) Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (featuring Core i5 3427U) Lenovo ThinkPad Edge S430 (featuring Core i5 3210M) PC Specialist Vortex III HD72 (featuring Core i7 3610QM). Asus G74SX-91013Z (featuring Core i7 2360QM). Dell XPS 14z (featuring Core i7 2640M). AlienWare M18X (featuring Core i7 2960XM Extreme Edition). MSI CX640 (featuring Core i5 2410M). Intel Core i7 2600k desktop processor. Intel Core i5 2500k desktop processor. Software: 3DMark 3DMark 11 PCMark 7 Cinebench 11.5 64 bit FRAPS Professional Unigine Heaven Benchmark Unigine Valley SiSoft Sandra CrystalDiskMark ATTO Disk Benchmark Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 12 Cyberlink MediaEspresso Dirt ShowDown F1 2012 Metro Last Light Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment: Asus USB BluRay Drive Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing) Thermal Diodes Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens. Game descriptions are taken with courtesy from Wikipedia. SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting. It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc. Native ports for all major operating systems are available: Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86) Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64) Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64) Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01) Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02) All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of: SMP – Multi-Processor MC – Multi-Core SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86 IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit The Intel Core i7 3667U delivers good results, for a last generation ultra low voltage processor. It is slightly faster than the Core i5 3210M. PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use. The system produces a very healthy score of 5,188 points, assisted by the fast Solid State Drive. PCMark 8 is the latest version in the popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes battery life measurement tools and new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. The system scores 2,809 points which is a reasonably good score for a laptop system such as this. CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free. This system would be able to handle some light rendering duties on the move, although for more serious requirements it may prove a little slow. What is notable however is the performance from the ultra low voltage part, which is remarkable. Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable: Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems Multicore CPU support Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles) Powerful C++ API Comprehensive performance profiling system Flexible XML-based data structures We test the system at the native resolution of the built in panel, as well as 720p. The Intel HD4000 integrated graphics struggles to handle this intensive Direct X 11 benchmark test, even at the moderately low resolution of 720p. 3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page. The integrated graphics performance isn't wonderful, scoring 1180 points in the entry level test and 641 points in the default performance test. 3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance. Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good. To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.” A little intensive for the system, although the Ultra Low Voltage Core i7 processor scores well in the physics test. We test the performance of the 240GB Intel Solid State Drive. Very good results from the Intel drive, both in compressible and incompressible modes. The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. Excellent results in ATTO, scoring 550 MB/s sequential read and 525MB/s sequential write.We test the USB 3.0 performance on the PC Specialist Vanquish Enforcer system with one of our fastest portable flash drives – the Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB. We reviewed this back in February, check it out over here. No performance issues from the single USB 3.0 port on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch, scoring just over 300 MB/s in the read test and around 160 MB/s in the write test. Due to the nature of this kind of flash, and via the USB 3.0 interface, 4k and 4k QD32 performance is substantially worse than from a native SSD drive across a SATA connector. The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. The drive scores around 270 MB/s read and 60 MB/s write in the ATTO disk test, a little down on those achieved with CrystalDiskMark, but still strong. Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests. Cyberlink PowerDVD 13 Ultra is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with The BluRay Disc of The Hobbit: An UnExpected Journey. The system only requires 17 percent of processor time to playback High Definition media content, with 83 percent left for multitasking duties. The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard Multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed. We use the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP). We ripped our BluRay disc of AVATAR to 1080P MKV and use Windows Media Player to playback the file. The system requires around 24 percent CPU time. CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats. Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology. New and Improved Features Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously. Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention. Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices. Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment. Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A. Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier. For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the latest version of the software. We enabled hardware encoding and decoding, as shown above. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch system took just over 17 minutes to complete the encoding task. The fastest Haswell Core i7 desktop systems can complete the same task in around 7 minutes. Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007. At 720p with medium quality image settings, the game judders a little from time time. We would need to reduce image quality settings more, or lower the resolution to get perfectly smooth frame rates. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools. We selected a 720p resolution and configured image quality settings to low. The game is playable throughout, although the image quality settings do ruin the appearance when directly compared against a reasonably powerful discrete graphics card. F1 2012 is a video game developed by Codemasters. It is based on the 2012 Formula One season, and is the sequel to F1 2010 and F1 2011. It is the fourth Formula One game developed by the Codemasters studios after the company renewed its licence to develop the official games of the series. Getting this game to run smoothly was difficult. We experienced some frame rate issues, even at 720p, dropping under 20 frames per second a few times. We would need to drop image quality settings to low. The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this. Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by running Furmark and Cinebench together. Room ambient temperatures were 23c. We measured results with CPUID Hardware Monitor software. The CPU was loaded with Cinebench in a loop and Furmark stress test. The Intel Core i7 3667U doesn't get too hot, peaking at 73c under extended load. We attached five diodes to the back of the chassis and measured the temperature (Celcius) after one hour of intensive work and gaming. The underside of the chassis remains relatively cool, even under load. The only warm area is close to the main exhaust vent, at the rear. The use of an Ultra Low Voltage processor was a great move from Lenovo as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch could be used on the knee without discomfort. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground with our Extech digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA - High Quality Computer fan 40dBA - A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA - Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA - MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA - Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA - Threshold of Pain 140dBA - Military Jet take off/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA - Instant Perforation of eardrum When idle this system doesn't emit a lot of noise, barely registering on our meter. Even under extended load the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch is relatively quiet. Again, the choice of Ultra Low Voltage processor helps ensure that the cooling system never has to work that hard. To test today, we are putting the machine through a variety of ‘real world’ situations, mirroring the real world usage of a potential customer. One as a media movie lover on the move (wearing headphones), a person wanting to watch high definition media on a train journey or bus with screen brightness two notches from maximum. Second as a businessman, with screen brightness around half way. Wireless was enabled. A mixture of checking, answering emails using Microsoft Office and editing pictures in Adobe Photoshop. Lastly as a gamer, playing Left4Dead until the machine turned itself off. Battery life is reasonable especially under the light use test, lasting around 5 hours. when the processor is heavily loaded, such as when gaming, battery life is reduced to 2 hours. The battery charges very quickly to around 90%, in around 35 minutes from flat. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch is an extremely impressive business machine which will suit a discerning executive who needs a portable, extremely well built, ultra compact laptop. Lenovo don't ship the system with a plethora of bundled items. You simply get the laptop in a plain brown box along with the power supply and a sheet of reference literature to get the system up and running. The full user manual is installed on the machine along with everything else. There is no question that the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch is not designed for gaming. This is compounded by the fact that the company have yet to update to incorporate the latest Haswell range of processors which feature more powerful integrated graphics. The Core i7 3667U processor is a great choice for a business user who requires a powerful processor for video editing and even 3D rendering, but it has problems dealing with the latest game engines at even modest 720p settings. We are confident Lenovo will adopt the latest Haswell processors sooner rather than later, giving a much needed boost to the 3D rendering prowess of these machines. For a business user, the keyboard really is class leading. It is miles ahead of almost every other machine we have reviewed in the last two years - nothing has yet to come close. If you need to type long documents on the move then this single point alone should ensure the ThinkPad X1 gets serious consideration. It is a truly remarkable design. Additionally, the keyboard offers user adjustable back lighting as well, which will be beneficial in certain situations. The trackpad is also as good as you are likely to find, although I do love the little red joystick in the middle of the keyboard as it is more user friendly than any trackpad. The touch screen takes a little getting used to, and although I hate getting fingerprints on a screen, it did prove useful in certain situations, such as when travelling on a train with limited space to operate. The panel has noticeable grain due to the touch screen layer, however the overall quality is well above average. I would like another couple of notches on the brightness slider as I found operation during direct sunlight almost impossible, even at full setting. The Anti glare finish on the panel is commendable however, blocking out all but the strongest of rear lights close to the user. In regards to performance, the Solid State Drive combined with the Intel Core i7 3667U leave no concerns. The machine is very quick to boot and general operation is snappy and responsive. Outside of gaming duties, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch will not leave the user wanting for more. Thanks to the adoption of an Ultra Low Voltage processor, the cooling system in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch never has to work that hard, meaning noise levels are reasonably low. The underside never gets hot too either meaning it is practical to regularly use this machine on a lap. We highly recommend the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch, if you require touch screen features alongside a fast, compact, powerful ultraportable laptop then this should definitely be shortlisted. If you want to play the latest games on the move, then look elsewhere. If you want to save some money and don't need the touch screen functionality, then we recommend the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. It is lighter, thinner, has better battery life and is around £350 less expensive. You can check out the full range over here. Pros: fantastic build quality. responsive touchscreen. class leading keyboard. good SSD options. quick charging. Cons: integrated graphics are weak. Due a Haswell update. touchscreen adds a fine layer of grain to the images. battery life could be better. audio is thin. Kitguru says: A fantastic ultra portable which is quiet, powerful and cool running.