The ninth-generation X1 Carbon, which starts at $1,106, takes things a step further by adding a 16:10 screen that allows you can see more of your papers at once. You have one of the greatest ultrabooks, whether you're buying it for work or personal usage, when you combine outstanding audio with over 15 hours of battery life. Also, you can see the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Review: High Performance at a Very Reasonable Price
Design
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 boasts Lenovo's signature raven black and rectangular ThinkPad design. The lightweight chassis is composed of a blend of magnesium and carbon fiber, and the palm grip has a wonderful, soft-touch sensation. There's an optional carbon fiber-weave lid that adds a touch of luxury and a softer feel to the laptop, but it's only available on versions with a 3840 x 2400 display.
From the Gen 8 version of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, there are a few minor yet significant design modifications. The chassis is somewhat longer and slimmer to fit a 16:10 aspect ratio screen rather than the 16:9 panels used before by Carbons. More vertical screen real estate is available for reading web pages or editing documents as a result of this.
The two hinges of Gen 8 have been replaced by a single long, circular hinge that spans the majority of the lid's width. The power button is now located above the right side of the keyboard, where we would expect it to be. Though most laptops have power buttons above the keyboard, Lenovo placed the 8 X1 Carbon Gen 8 button on the side so that customers could simply switch it on even when the lid was closed and the laptop was docked. The button, on the other hand, was little, shabby, and odd at that spot.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 is very thin and light for a laptop, especially one with a 14-inch display, measuring 12.38 x 8.72 x 0.59 inches and weighing 2.5 pounds. The Dell XPS 13 is smaller but heavier, whereas the Asus ZenBook 13 is smaller but weighs the same. The ThinkPad X1 Nano is far more portable, although it only offers a 13-inch display, like Dell and Asus' options. To accommodate its convertible mechanism, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6, which is the 2-in-1 variant of the Carbon, is heavier and bigger at 3 pounds / 12.3 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches.
Whereas many ultrabooks only have USB Type-C / Thunderbolt connectors, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 has all of the essential interfaces that most users require. Two Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C ports, a USB Type-A 3.2 connector, and a full-size HDMI out are located on the left side. A second USB Type-A port and a Kensington lock are located on the right side.
Performance
Our evaluation configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon handled everything we threw at it, thanks to its Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD. I didn't detect any latency even with over 30 tabs open and two movies playing.
The X1 Carbon received a single-core score of 1,563 and a multi-core score of 5,365 on Geekbench 5, a synthetic test that evaluates processing performance. These results are comparable to the Core i7-1160G7-powered X1 Nano and somewhat better than the Core i7-1165G7-powered Dell XPS 13, with the Core i7-1165G7-enabled ThinkPad X1 Yoga doing marginally better than its sibling. The Asus ZenBook 13, on the other hand, blew away the competition in multi-core performance thanks to its 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 5800U CPU.
The 512GB NVMe SSD in the X1 Carbon copied 25GB of files at a fast pace of 523.9 MBps, which is comparable to the X1 Yoga and slightly faster than the X1 Nano. In this area, though, both the XPS 13 and the ZenBook 13 were substantially faster.
Using Handbrake, the X1 Carbon Gen 9 transcoded a 4K movie to 1080p in 13 minutes and 23 seconds. This is a few of minutes faster than the X1 Yoga and several minutes faster than the X1 Nano and XPS 13. The ZenBook 13, on the other hand, finished four minutes faster than the other laptops thanks to its 8 cores.
We performed the Cinebench R23 benchmark 20 times in a succession to observe how the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 performs over time. Lenovo's laptop received an average score of 4,618 over that period, with a peak score of 4,913 on the third run. Scores dropped significantly after that, settling in the 4,600-4,000 area. The CPU had an average clock speed of 2,851 MHz and a temperature of 77.3 degrees Celsius during that period.
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Display
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 comes with four distinct screen configurations, all of which are 16:10 aspect ratios, providing you significantly more vertical space than typical laptops' 16:9 displays. Our testing unit had the 1920 x 1200 touchscreen, but there's also a non-touch 1920 x 1200 display, a 1920 x 1200 display with PrivacyGuard, which limits viewing angles to prevent someone from peering over your shoulder, and a 3840 x 2400 panel with 500 nits of brightness.
Fine elements like Peter Parker's brows and the girders on a bridge were crisp and simple to make out in a trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home. The red in Spider-outfit Man's and the orange in Dr. Strange's spell, on the other hand, were not very bright. It's also worth noticing that the black bars on the top and bottom of the video were larger on the 16:10 screen than they were on a 16:9 laptop display when I watched the identical clip. Images on the matte screen, on the other hand, were brilliant, and viewing angles on the matte screen were robust, with colours scarcely diminishing even when tilted 90 degrees to the left or right.
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon's screen registered 69 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut on our colorimeter, which is comparable to the X1 Yoga and X1 Nano's identical displays. The Dell XPS 13 was far less vibrant, while the ZenBook 13 blew the competition away with its OLED screen, which reproduced 96.5 % of the spectrum.
At 364 nights on our light meter, the X1 Carbon is plenty bright and within a few points of the Asus ZenBook 13 and ThinkPad X1 Yoga. However, both the X1 Nano and XPS 13 were well over 400 nits. If you want a brighter screen, the 1920 x 1200 PrivacyGuard and 3840 x 2400 panels are both listed as providing 500 nits.
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Keyboard and Touchpad
The new ThinkPad X1 Carbon has a fast keyboard with easy-to-target, smile-shaped keys. The soft-touch deck softly cradled my wrists while I typed, and the keys provided excellent feedback. I managed 97 words per minute using the keyboard on the 10FastFingers.com test, which is within my normal range, but with a little higher mistake rate than usual.
The X1 Carbon, like previous ThinkPads, includes two separate pointing devices: a TrackPoint pointing stick and a touchpad. I always prefer the TrackPoint since it allows incredibly precise desktop navigation without requiring me to take my hands off the home row and stop my typing.
The 4.3 x 2.4-inch glass precision touchpad, on the other hand, is more than adequate for individuals who don't like pointing sticks. All of my motions, including pinch-to-zoom, two-finger scroll, and three-finger swipe, were reacted to quickly and precisely.
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Audio Quality
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon's quad speakers generate great audio that is both good for actual music listening and loud enough to fill a medium-sized room. Two top-facing speakers are located on either side of the keyboard, and two bottom-facing speakers are located below the front lip.
The sound was deep and layered when I played AC/"Back DC's in Black," with guitars coming out of the right side of the laptop and drums coming in from the left. When I played Earth, Wind, and Fire's bass-heavy "September," the effects were identical.
You may pick from a variety of Dolby Atmos audio profiles, including those for music, movies, and games, as part of the preinstalled Lenovo Commercial Vantage software. For playing songs, I felt that music sounded best while activating the automated profile selection came close.
Upgradeability
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9's RAM is soldered directly to the motherboard, the same as previous models of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. So, if you can get the back panel off, you can replace out the NVMe SSD, but that's all you can do. I couldn't do it.
You should be able to remove the rear cover by removing the five Philip's head screws and prying it off, according to Lenovo's X1 Carbon Hardware Maintenance Manual. The M.2 SSD should then be able to be unscrewed and replaced with any other 9980-size M.2 NVMe SSD of your choosing.
Unfortunately, removing the bottom cover on my review unit without risking damage to the chassis was difficult. I removed the screws, but after using a variety of spudgers, flat flathead screwdrivers, and fingernails, I was unable to unsnap the bottom cover without risking major chassis damage. When I tried the same thing with a ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 earlier this year, I found it challenging but not impossible to remove the lid. It felt like it was locked on so tightly that if I pressed any harder, the surface would flex or shatter. We strive not to damage the review units because they are loaned to us.
If you purchase the X1 Carbon on your own and are prepared to take a chance, you may be able to safely remove the cover. Instead, I would advise you to hold off on boosting the storage. The difficulty of upgrading is a major drawback for people looking to save money since it would be far less expensive to buy a laptop with a lower-capacity SSD and then replace it with an aftermarket SSD.
Battery Life
Conclusion
From its snappy keyboard to its productivity-friendly screen to its unexpectedly strong audio playback ability, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 has a lot to offer. With a weight of 2.5 pounds and a thickness of 0.6 inches, this is a thin and light laptop with a powerful performance and a battery life that will last you all day and then some.
Consider the 13-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano, which weighs barely 2 pounds but lacks USB Type-A connections, if you want an even lighter laptop with the similar build quality and keyboard. If you can locate one in stock, the Asus ZenBook 13 UM32SA, which features an eye-catching OLED display and an 8-core CPU, is a good option. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 is hard to beat if you're searching for an enterprise ultrabook that lets you get your work done faster and better without weighing you down.