Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th Gen 2018 Review

2

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon series’ appearance design, material and specification reach the top standard in the laptop industry. X1 Carbon’s every update will bring the new element, for example, the control Fx function key on its second-generation product is a prototype of currently OLED touch screen on the MBP key. Maybe ThinkPad leaves a conservative impression to us, but we must admit that the X1 Carbon is always a good choice for most users. Today, we get the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 which is the sixth generation of the X1 carbon series and share the review on it.

Specification

Screen 14.0″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS matte screen
Processor Intel Core i7-8650U (1.9GHz, up to 4.2GHz)
Video Intel UHD Graphics 620
Memory 16GB LPDDR3 2133MHz
Storage 512GB PCIe SSD
Connectivity Intel 3165AC
Ports USB 3.0X2, Thunderbolt3 x 2, a HDMI, Micro SD, SIM card slot
Battery 57Wh
OS Windows 10
Weight 1,126kg, 1.454kg (with AC adapter)
Extras 720p HD Camera

Appearance Design

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 adopts different appearance design with its predecessor. However, the laptop still uses carbon fiber material which brings soft touch feeling. It keeps excellent portability with 15.95mm body thickness and 1.126kg weight (without power adapter).
ThinkPad logo
ThinkPad laptop always adopts black color. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 features black ThinkPad logo and black body design. It is not usual to change logo design, especially for ThinkPad brand.
X1 logo
The conspicuous “X1” logo is placed in the left bottom corner of the top cover, which makes the X1 Carbon even the whole X1 family look more unique.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon list

Lenovo logo is always found on the ThinkPad laptop. However, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 doesn’t remain Lenovo logo on the top cover anymore.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 logo

Except for product information on the bottom, ThinkPad only keeps the Lenovo logo on the right bottom corner of the screen. Such change means that ThinkPad brand becomes more and more independent, which is good news for ThinkPad fans.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 front
It is easy for the user to open or close the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 with a single hand. This is also one of the lightweight laptop manufacturers’ pursuits.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 adopts the camera cover plate design which appears on the ThinkVision display, and ThinkPad calls it ThinkShutter. With such design, the user only needs to gently push to avoid privacy disclosure without using a camera to gather image. For the businessman, it is an important function. If you prefer to use facial recognition to unlock the phone, ThinkPad also provides the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018’s another version with IR camera. But the IR camera version is not compatible with ThinkShutter.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 camera

Screen

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 comes with a 14-inch matte screen which has the same bezel design as its predecessor’s.

We use Data Spyder 5 Elite to test the screen. The result suggests that the screen’s sRGB color gamut covers 95% with 264nit screen brightness, which is not the same as data that official party has anunced-100% sRGB color gamut coverage and 300nit screen brightness.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 screen

Besides, ThinkPad also provides three screen types in Hong Kong: FHD touch screen, 2K 300nit screen, and 2K HDR 500nit which gives consumers more options. But it is still unknown whether the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s Chinese version will provide all these screen options.

Keyboard

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon keyboard still adopts a little red circle button design which has received much popularity among consumers. Long key travel, quick rebound speed, and excellent key cap texture enable the laptop to bring an excellent input experience.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 keyboard

Fingerprint scanning module is placed near the touchpad.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 Fingerprint

Ports

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 has made some improvement in details of port design compared with its predecessor’s.

There are two Thunderbolt 3 ports which both support charging function on the left side of the laptop. The second Thunderbolt 3 port doesn’t adopt standard Type-C port design mainly because it needs to suit ThinkPad’s own ThinkPad Pro Dock. There is a mini-Ethernet interface hidden between the second Thunderbolt 3 port and USB 3.0. Besides, there are an HDMI port and a USB 3.0 port.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 left ports

The right side of the laptop provides a USB 3.0 port and a 3.5mm earphone/ microphone two-in-one port.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 right ports

There are a Micro SD and a Nano SIM card slot on the rear of the laptop.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 SIM card

ThinkPad Pro Dock

There is a slight change in port design between the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 and its predecessor. To be compatible with new docking station, the laptop has done some process in the second Thunderbolt 3 port.

Hardware Specification

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 provides many versions with different specification options. The laptop we get is powered by Intel’s eighth-generation i7 processor and comes with 16GB LPDDR3 2133MHz coupled with 512GB PCIe SSD. Its graphics card is Intel UHD 620.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 CineBench R15

CPU

We get the laptop which is powered by Intel’s Core i7-8650U processor based on Intel KabyLake Refresh design. The i7-8650U processor is built on the 14nm manufacturing process, and its TDP is 15W. The processor has four cores and eight threads with 1.9GHz main frequency. The Intel Core i7-8650U processor’s multi-core score is 664cb, and the single-core score is 168cb on CineBench R15.

Its single core’s MHz reaches 4.19, and multicore MHz reaches around 3.23GHz. The i7-8650U processor has reached the standard that it should have.

SSD

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 comes with Samsung’s PM981 NVMe M.2 SSD. We use the AS SSD to test the PM981 NVMe SSD. The result suggests that the SSD’s final sequential write speed reaches 1831,32MB/s and its sequential read speed reaches 2183.46MB/s as well as exceedingly high random access speed.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 SSD Test

Samsung PM981 adopts TLC storage chips, but it features an SLC cache with capacity of 24GB, which is the main reason for its high performance.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 SSD

Battery Life

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 sports a battery with a capacity of 57Whr. We adjust the screen’s brightness to 80%, volume to 20%, connect Wi-Fi network, close Bluetooth, adjust battery model to suit the best battery, and use Windows 10 built-in player to play a 1080P video for an hour. And the battery consumes 8% in total. Inferred from it, the laptop can work 12.5 hours if playing a video. Its battery life can also reach 15 hours that official party has announced. Besides, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 adopts the RapidCharge technology, and it comes with 65W power adapter. It can charge 80% power within an hour.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon battery life

Heat Dissipation

Use AIDA64 to test laptop’s heat dissipation performance. We find that the keyboard’s highest temperature is 63 and heat mainly gathers in the center of the keyboard. There is large area heat layout at the laptop’s bottom. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 doesn’t have satisfying temperature control.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Heat Dissipation

Although it doesn’t have excellent performance on temperature control, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 has unexpected good noise performance We can’t nearly hear the noise produced by a fan when the fan works under high loads. Remove the back cover, and we find that its heat dissipation module has unique space design. The blade has the intensive design. There are many rubber mats on the fan shell to lower resonance.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 fan

Hardware Upgrade

It is easy to disassemble the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018. Remove five screws from the bottom to take out the back cover. The user can be upgraded NVMe M.2 SSD and wireless network card.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 Hardware upgrade

Summary

Compared with other top lightweight laptop brands, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 nearly has no shortcoming. The laptop has a nearly perfect design, comprehensive port, excellent keyboard texture, long battery life, quick fast charging speed and low noise. In general, the Lenovo X1 Carbon 2018 is the best choice for consumers.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Nice explanation of some points, in this review.
    Thank you.

    Am looking to buy mine – undecided between X1 Carbon and the T480.
    Need lots of RAM (want upgrade-ability too), multiple browser windows and applications open, run a MySQL database, and a couple of VMWare applications or VirtualBoxes.

    What do you recommend?

    • I think the T480 may be more suitable for you because it has two memory slots and an M.2 2242 SSD slot. If you choose not to have an HDD, you will have an M.2 2280 SSD. If that you have two M.2 slots.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

  −  2  =  7