Don’t rock the boat. That’s Lenovo’s plan for the 12th iteration of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Instead of messing with a winning formula, the company applied small tweaks to the entire laptop, delivering a system that is thinner and lighter than its predecessor. The keyboard has a few updates with a larger touchpad.
However, the biggest changes are under the hood where the X1 Carbon is rocking the latest 14th Gen Intel processors and integrated graphics. The notebook also offers extended display options. Changes, in short, are growing exponentially. But sometimes a few tweaks and adjustments are all it takes to get the job done.
ThinkPad X1 Carbon design
The 12th-gen X1 Carbon looks very similar to its predecessor. It has a dark finish which makes me very uncomfortable for fingerprints. If you’re familiar with the line, you know the laptop is made of carbon fiber, but this time there’s recycled aluminum and magnesium in the mix as well as other aftermarket materials. Honestly, the biggest design change you’ll notice is the brushed aluminum console on top of the lid that houses the infrared (IR) camera with visible shutter.
Lenovo
The 12th-gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the latest in Lenovo’s best laptops, and it’s as solid as expected, though it needs some tweaking.
- Lightweight, durable design
- Excellent battery life
- Comfortable keyboard and trackpad
- Performance is a mixed bag
- The power button is located on the side of the laptop
$2,400 at Amazon
Weighing in at 2.4 pounds with a 0.6-inch profile, the X1 is thinner and lighter than previous models, which for a 14-inch system is always a good thing. The 2.6-pound ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED is just 0.58 inches lighter. And despite its small form factor, the X1 Carbon is durable, resistant to drops, spills, dust and extreme temperatures as designated by its MIL-STD-810H certification.
Another good thing is the 14-inch display. The 1,920 x 1,200, 16:10 panel is a matte touchscreen, so unlike its chassis, it’s actually fingerprint-resistant. The finish virtually eliminates any glare and doesn’t burnish the color like I’ve seen on other similar displays. Is the color as bright as it can get on a glossy screen? It’s not, but it’s far from a deal breaker.
Lenovo made the trackpad bigger, increasing the size of the glass touchpad to 4.7 inches. Aside from a few tweaks to the anti-spill keyboard, this is your standard Lenovo Chiclet keyboard that comes with a bright red pointing stick. I’m not a big fan of Lenovo moving the power key to the right of the keyboard. It makes sense for a 2-in-1, but it’s not necessary for a regular clamshell, and I’d prefer one of the company’s Yoga series notebooks.
While we’re talking about the sides of the X1, there’s a healthy number of ports here, including two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, two Thunderbolt 4, an HDMI 2.1 port, a headset jack and a Kensington lock slot.
Sitting above the display, the ThinkPad X1’s 1080p webcam takes solid photos and will perform well during video conferencing sessions. It brought really clear pictures to the Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls I took, so much so that I got a few compliments on my new hair color and style. As expected, things became very clear when I was sitting in my yard one morning. But I was surprised at how well the camera adapts to low-light environments, maintaining good color contrast and detail.
The two speakers cleverly hidden under the keyboard did a good job of conveying the voices of my colleagues. You’ll want to grab the headphones if you’re listening to music or watching a movie, though, as the low end isn’t very strong despite the pre-installed Dolby Access software.
It is used
Next-generation laptops mean next-generation chips. In the 12th-gen X1 Carbon, that chip is a 14th-gen Intel Core Ultra 7 165U processor with 12 cores and 14 threads. According to Intel, it is faster than last year’s silicon. In action, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is very fast and powerful. I threw my usual load at it, which means about 70 Google Chrome tabs open with a mix of G-Suite apps, social media, news and tech sites with a few YouTube videos for good measure. I even edited a video and played a few rounds Hades IIbut the notebook did not come down.
The Lenovo notebook did not perform well against similarly specced laptops. My review unit, with its Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, bested the Zenbook OLED 14 and XPS 14 in the PCMark 10 benchmark, but couldn’t topple this year’s 14-inch HP model Specter x360 or Surface Laptop. 6. The forecast wasn’t quite as good in the Cinebench R23 test, however, which saw the X1 Carbon fall short on all systems.
The integrated Intel X1 Carbon GPU isn’t really made for gaming, but if you can find old or indie games that don’t charge like the current AAA titles, you can squeeze in some gaming time. For example, I got 30 frames per second while playing Hades IIwhich is a smooth enough scale to launch most titles.
The X1 Carbon’s score of 3,777 on 3DMark Wild Life Extreme is unmatched by any competing systems. Remember that those laptops have powerful chips under the hood with XPS 14, Zenbook OLED 14, and Surface Laptop 6 with Intel Arc Graphics. The XPS 14 also has a discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU on board.
Like most laptops this year, the X1 Carbon has an integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) that is there to take the load off your CPU and GPU when it comes to AI applications and tasks. For example, Windows Studio Effects during my video calls easily blurred my background, keeping me in frame and making sure it looked like I was making eye contact, all without distraction.
When it comes to keyboards, Lenovo ThinkPads are the gold standard, delivering a solid, responsive response. The 12th-gen X1 Carbon continues the tradition. I spent many hours using this very comfortable keyboard and in all that time, my fingers never retreated. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the new touch gestures on some keys (Fn, F, H, Enter, down arrow, Enter and volume down/up) acting as a guide. And of course, there’s a Copilot button if you want to try Microsoft AI. The white backlight is bright enough to be used in dark places, like when I use it in bed while my boyfriend sleeps.
The trackpad, which is 9.1 percent larger than last year’s, has excellent palm rejection and didn’t send the cursor launch into the stratosphere. The glass surface was responsive and smooth to the touch, with close results whether I was scrolling through a web page or pinching a photo.
The best thing about the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is its battery life. The laptop lasted 13 hours and 2 minutes on the PCMark Modern Office battery test. That time was more than enough to outshine the Zenbook OLED 14 (12:43). During my typical use, I squeezed about 10 hours out of the X1 Carbon before I needed to plug it in.
Price and competition of ThinkPad X1 Carbon
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 12th starts at $1,449, which is about what you’d expect from a premium business laptop. That configuration gets you an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processor with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and integrated Intel graphics. You’ll need an extra $474 to upgrade to a Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. If you want the same setup in my review model, it will cost you $2,285 since it has Intel’s vPro technology, which is more for IT managers and businesses.
For about $500 cheaper, the ASUS Zenbook OLED 14 outperforms the ThinkPad X1 Carbon in performance, while offering the same battery life and stunning OLED display. But the Zenbook lacks the deep well of security features you’ll find on the business-focused X1 Carbon.
Buyers looking for more power, including a dedicated GPU, should check out the Dell XPS 14. However, the laptop’s starting price is $250 more than the X1 Carbon, and it gets more extreme as you start adding more features like an Nvidia GPU. , vPro, RAM and storage.
Finish it
The 12th-gen Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon continues its reign as the current king of business laptops. But the gap is really narrowing. While there are more powerful alternatives out there, the X1 is one of the few that offers the same level of safety, durability and longevity at a reasonable price.
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