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Here we will comapre the two very best laptops from Lenovo ThinkPad series. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Gen 2 and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 7.

Model	Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme	Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon
Generation	2nd	7th
	BUY NOW	BUY NOW

Technical Specification

Detailed Review:

Design:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

This is a very well build laptop and they are using softtouch paint on the laptop. This laptop is made of matte black carbon fibre. Here, we have got the Thinkpad logo on the top-left corner and X1 logo on the bottom-right which looks really amazing and with the matte finishing it looks really sweet. Overall this laptop has got really good design.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

The Lenovo Thinkpad x1 carbon feels really very premium and luxurious. It also has the carbon fibre weave to the lid just so that the X1 carbon looks like it has got a new design. But, however you can only get it on the UHD model. However, more important than the appearance of the laptop is the material of the laptop that inspired it. This laptop has got the extremely light carbon fiber chassis which is covered in gorgeous but a little bit sensitive soft touch coating. It’s sturdy enough to absorb a fall from your arms but in my one week of the use of this laptop it already looks a little scuffed up from general use.

Keyboard & Touchpad:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

The keyboard feels really nice and might be the best keyboard I have ever used on the laptop. The keys have a decent amount of travel and have a very slight amount of clickiness.

The touchpad is not as nice as the keyboard however, the texture glass feels relly nice and there is a satisfying clunk when you press down on it but it was also somewhat awkward in general I like the feel of this trackpad better than Macbook but the windows implementation of gestures isn’t as elegant.

However, if you don’t like the trackpad you can also use the trackpoint.Over the years the use of the trackpoint has reduced has the touchpad have steadily improved but using it today is still a pleasure and it feels really nice every time I use. However it might not be as good as the touchpad but I happy we have got this option.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Thinkpad consistently have great keyboards and X1 carbon also get’s it right most of it, anyway. I love the deep travel and comfort of the keys and typing of this laptop feels like a luxury compared to some of the other the laptops. But I don’t like some of the button placements on the X1 carbon like, I hate the placement of the left control button. It makes sense to those who uses Macbook pro, but as a PC person it messed up my flow while using the shortcuts and it’s also a little bit frustrating.

As usual on the thinkpad it also has a red pointing stick sitting in the middle of the keyboard. Now, next to the trackpad we have got a fingerprint sensor for quickly logging in. And it “should” be easy to use the Windows Hello Enabled webcam above the display but according to my testing it failed to recognize me about almost 30% of the times.

Display:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

This is a 15.6 inch and 16:9 display. This is one of the best displays and here I have got a 4K display and it also adobe vision HDR. The brightness of this display maxes out at 400 nits and its still a very bright display. This display is also supremely color accurate its 100% sRGB and we haven’t seen that before but its also 100% Adobe RGB and 97% NTSE. So this is one of the best color accurate display you can get in the market by the time I am writing this article and So if you are looking for something color accurate than this is definitely going to be a great choice.

The bezels of this display are evenly designed but its not the best but its still really good display. Overall this is one of the best displays that you can get in the market.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

I generally enjoyed watching Netflix or YouTube videos and the details were always crisp and colors were also vibrant if a little on the pink side

But however I have a little problem when using the keyboard buttons to toggle the brightness. The increase between the each stepup is uneven like, for levels 1 to 9 the display gets slowly brighter by almost the same amount each time but, from 9 to 10 the difference is huge and Lenovo told me that it’s normal for the X1. It might not be a huge issue but I was why the screen was so dime until I pushed the brightness ti the maximum of 500 nits. However, you can get more specific level of brightness by using the on-screen slider in settings.

Speakers:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

Here, this laptop has got the speakers on the bottom side of the laptop. These speakers are not that great they are “OK” but they Adobe speakers but these speakers are not best on any laptops. For Lenovo it’s better than usual speakers but if you really want great audio quality than these speakers are really not that great.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Here, this laptop has got quad speakers Dolby Atmos system but then also the sound was bit hollow which has been a consistent problem for the X1 series for a while now. In short these are not the best speakers I have tested till date.

Performance:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

This laptop has got some very powerful components, in our unit we have got core i7 8850H CPU with 32 GB of RAM and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU with 4 GB of video RAM. In short this laptop has more power than most people probably need but I appreciate all this processing power until recently I have been relying on old Macbook Air and that 2014 X1 carbon. So it’s refreshing that changing rooms in slack doesn’t bring my computer to crawl.

Now, my workload isn’t enough to task the X1 Extreme even after opening dozens of chrome tabs, slack, evernote, spotify, todoist and photoshop all running simultaneously and then also it didn’t even cause the system to lag even a bit.

Now I also did 3D rendering/ video editing which I mostly don’t but I did my best to push the laptop to its limit. To do this I used HitFilm express and did a lot of 3D effects and filters on a two minute video and it did a great work with ease.

You can also do some light gaming on this laptop which is perfectly doable but the 1050 Ti would not be able to handle 4K gaming and you might have to turn down details on some particularly demanding games. However, it is not the best laptop to buy primarily for gaming only. There are dedicated gaming laptops for gaming like the Razor Blade which are much better suited.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Here, this laptop has got 8^th Generation Intel Core i7 processor has managed to handle my daily workload without any problems. Some hactic task like editing photos or spreadsheets were done smoothly but playing games like overcooked was a real challenge and it a significant lag on the UHD model while I was using. I don’t think that Intel UHD 620 graphics here can really handle serious gaming. This device almost got me through a workday without needing a charge

Battery:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

This laptop has got 80 Wh battery and I would recommend you to use the 135 watt adapter that comes out of the box instead of USB Type-C because the adapter can charge the battery upto 80% in just about an hour. However, over USB C it took several minutes to add a single percentage point so I expect it could take over two hours to charge completely. Lenovo claims it can get upto 15 hours of battery life but I don’t think it is possible unless you have chosen the lowest spec model turn screen brightness all the way down and left it sitting in corner untouched.

In our battery test video play back at 60% battery until laptop shuts it just lasted 6 hours.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

This laptop has got 51 Wh battery and Lenovo claims that it can lasts upto 18 hours in single charge. In our battery test this device at lower resolution lasted for 14 hours which is really nice.

Port Selection:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

Here, we have got two USB C port with thunderbolt 3 support, two USB 3.1 port, a headphone jack, a HDMI port and SD card slot. There is also Lenovo’s proprietary charging adapter that comes in the box.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Here, we have got two USB 3.1 Type-C thunderbolt, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, HDMI 1.4, Ethernet port, headphone/micro phone port with charging port.

Weight & Dimensions:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

 The weight of this laptop is 3.76 lbs/ 1.7 Kg and the dimensions of the laptop are 14.2” length X 9.7” width X 0.7” height.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

The weight of this laptop is 2.40 lbs / 1.08 kg and the dimensions of this laptop are 12.71” length X 8.54” width X 0.58” height.

WHICH ONE YOU SHOULD BUY?

According to me X1 extreme is the laptop I wolud go with as it has better display, better keyboard, better speakers as well. The battery life might be a little but rapid charging makes the balance here. So for me X1 extreme is my choice to buy.

Jignesh

I'm Jignesh Prajapati, a passionate tech enthusiast from Ahmedabad, India. In 2016, I took a bold leap, leaving my job to embark on a blogging journey. Despite exploring various niches, my heart found its true calling in technology. Today, I am the proud Founder and CEO of my tech blog - The World's Best and Worst