Lenovo's lead ThinkPad X1 Carbon gets a littler form and longer-enduring battery life
Last week Lenovo said that it was modernizing its heavy-duty ThinkPad laptops
in a variety of ways. Turns out some of those improvements are coming
to its ThinkPad X1 Carbon, X1 Yoga, and X1 Tablet computers as well,
which fall into Lenovo’s "ultraportable" business line.
The new, fifth-generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop looks
a lot like the previous model but is actually smaller, weighing less
than 2.5 pounds (compared with the earlier 2.7-pound model) and cramming
a full HD, 14-inch diagonal display into a 13-inch carbon fiber body.
It runs on a new Kaby Lake processor and has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X7
LTE modem.
The new ThinkPad X1 Carbon also boasts a whopping 15.5 hours of battery life; reviews of the previous model
had it maxed out at around 10 hours. And it supports Microsoft’s
Precision Trackpad, which the other newer ThinkPads now have as well. In
terms of ports, it still doesn’t have an SD card slot, but it does have
two USB Type-C ports, two USB-A ports and an HDMI port.
It starts shipping in February for $1,349 and up. It’s
hard to say without testing it first whether the 2017 ThinkPad X1 Carbon
lives up to all of Lenovo’s claims, but after getting a first look
earlier today, it looks like this one could again be the ThinkPad to
beat.
The ThinkPad X1 Yoga laptop, which bears the name of
Lenovo’s "bendy" or multi-mode laptops, is also getting some updates.
The new, $1500 model will also have a new processor and a Microsoft
Precision Trackpad, will be available in both silver and black, and will
have a fully retractable keyboard. The previous model had a retractable
keyboard tray as well, but now the keys are designed to lie flat
individually when the laptop is folded, rather than having a sunken
tray. And finally, the $949 ThinkPad X1 Tablet is being updated with
longer battery life.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad line is the company’s biggest money
maker, with the overwhelming majority of ThinkPads being sold to large
businesses. But because of the portability of the X1 Carbon and the
multi-mode X1 Yoga, these models have appeal for business-focused
consumers, as well, and Lenovo says it sells a fair number of ThinkPad
X1 laptops directly to consumers.
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