The Register reviews Lenovo's new laptop:
Lenovo's X1 Carbon ThinkPad is the company's flagship business laptop and has just been refreshed for 2017. But the new model may frustrate.
The Reg got its claws on the new model for a couple of weeks, equipped with a core i5-7200 at 2.5GHz, 8GB of RAM, Windows 10 Pro build 1607 and a 256GB solid state disk that said it has 237GB capacity. Your correspondent schlepped it around to conferences and to the office for much of the last two weeks and found a lot to like.
The battery stood out, as I found it possible to get through a day's intermittent work without needing a recharge. Lenovo claims the X1 can run for 15-and-a-half hours on battery alone, and for once that may not be just an ambitious claim.
On one day at a conference I used the X1 for several periods of 30-45 minutes taking notes during conference sessions, a dash to somewhere quiet to work, more note-taking and writing, time in the Reg content management system, and a spot of recreational surfing. Through that day the PC sometimes claimed it had 15 hours of juice. After after five-and-a-half hours of use through the day, all of it on WiFi, I ended the day with the X1 claiming it could go another four hours.
The workload matters, though: later, I used it to stream a 90-minute movie and found that feat drained the battery by nearly 30 per cent, suggesting my day at the conference may have been kind to the battery. Recharging was pleasingly rapid, even when I found an old USB battery pack in my bag and plugged it in to the USB-C port.
The reviewer also had some complaints, such as misinterpreting a single-finger slide as a right-click, even after said feature was turned off. Also, fit-and-finish was suspect with a large gap between the machine's base and sides. Further, the machine seized up on occasion under heavy load for up to 30 seconds. Resume from sleep was similarly slow, as well.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:04PM (3 children)
But does it run Linux?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:37PM (1 child)
Of course. Thinkpads have always been Linux friendly, and my company X1C is running Ubuntu.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @02:53AM
Thinkpads have always been Linux friendly
Found the guy who started using Thinkpads within the past 5 years.
You weren't around when Lenovo took over and basically told Linux users to go fuck themselves. It wasn't until 2010 or so when Red Hat started bulk procuring laptops from down the street at Lenovo HQs that the situation got any better (both are headquartered in RTP). And that's really only because Red Hat is the upstream for everything Linux, so their Thinkpad drivers propagate down to the other distributions.
Of course, by then Lenovo had completely fucked up the Thinkpad line. But that's another story that you can Google yourself.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday April 10 2017, @07:21PM
And does it do so without proprietary device drivers?
(Score: 0, Troll) by BK on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:54PM (11 children)
Nice advert disguised as a story.
Things I want in a laptop:
1: Docks to a real docking station (so I can run 2+ large monitors when I'm not mobile). If it doesn't have a power switch to turn on a docked computer, it's not a real docking station. None of that USB trash.
2: Touch Screen - preferably 14" - Suck it Steve Jobs. It eats power but it's addictive once you have it. And don't tell me about 'touch bars'. It's 2017 - this should be standard. I know how to turn it off when I need to save power.
3: Big Battery - Yes, it adds weight but better that then searching for a place to plug in. 60+ watt-hours is a good place to be.
As near as I can tell, the x1 carbon fails on all of these. I conclude that the x1 carbon probably also causes cancer [lenovo.com]. And I suspect that the x1 carbon is likely the popular choice for pedophiles [lenovo.com].
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @11:18PM (2 children)
Things I want in a laptop:
1. a red, rubber nipple
X1 Carbon FTW!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday April 10 2017, @12:36AM (1 child)
2. Ability to easily downgrade to Win 7
Because what good is all that new hardware if the OS runs slow as shit? Hell, I have similar specs in my own laptop and with Win 8 it's sluggish as fuck, even with Classic Shell. There's nothing more infuriating than having to use an "app" (calculator, for example) that commandeers the whole screen and with less functionality than the original calculator.
Yeah, for anything Linux can run without needing the equivalent of another full-time job just to fiddle with shit to get it to work.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 10 2017, @03:12AM
Unless you need heavy 3D graphics (and if you do, you can still make this work provided your CPU had VT-d or AMD's iommu and you turn Optimus off...) you can just pop Windows Whatever into a VM and you're good to go.
Doesn't take long; you can even shrink your old OS partition down, dd your old hard drive up to the end of your new partition size into a file on your new one, and use Virtualbox's built-in tool to convert it to a .vdi image. Et voila. Mount that sumbitch on the virtual SATA controller, boot it, install the guest utils, and you're set. And yes, I've done this before; I actually saved a local kennel owner's business when his ancient XP machine that was running all his software died of motherboard failure this way. He has a tiny MiniITX Linux box with, essentially, the soul of his old beige tower happily purring away inside Virtualbox.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Monday April 10 2017, @01:37AM (2 children)
I didn't bother to read the article (The Register is behind Cloudflare) but the part quoted in the summary says "the new model may frustrate." Perhaps I'm not cynical enough, but I don't think advertisers usually say that sort of thing about their products. Part of the disguise, right?
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday April 10 2017, @02:15AM
All publicity is good publicity. Or this. [quora.com]
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Monday April 10 2017, @07:11AM
Lenovo have been doing this to their X1's for years. I'm still on the Gen1 (typing this on it right now) because ever year Lenovo decide to "improve" it and every year they fsck it up royally. Why can't they just take the Gen1 and update the CPU, RAM, and SSD? Then it'd be the perfect laptop.
In fact I'm actually quite happy with the Gen1 as it is, there's nothing I need it for that it doesn't handle nicely, but I realise people are going to whine about it not having the latest, hippest CPU and whatnot. Having said that, the one The Reg reviewed is actually lower-specced than my Gen1.
Oh yeah, and the performance issues the reviewer mentions are purely Win10 related, never experienced any of that with 7.
To use a quote that unfortunately applies to way too much other tech, the Gen1 is a considerable improvement over any of its successors.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday April 10 2017, @02:09PM (1 child)
If I could add a number four:
4. This should never fucking happen. Unfuck your god damned touchpad. I've seriously seen maybe three non-Apple laptop models that have ever had not crapass touch pads, and one of them is the current edition Latitude models, of all the things. Seriously Lenovo, if Dell's finally got their touchpads usable for basic tasks, why the hell can't you get your shit together?
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @12:28AM
It's a Thinkpad, so you've got the Trackpoint which is superior to any touchpad. All I really care about is whether they'll allow me to turn the touchpad into giant 2D scrollwheel like I can do with my current Thinkpad.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Monday April 10 2017, @02:48PM (2 children)
Your complaint has nothing to do with USB; it has to do with crappy docking stations. The USB-C docking stations I've used all have power buttons and the ability to run multiple monitors. My USB-C docking station at work drives three 1920x1200 monitors via Thunderbolt.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday April 10 2017, @04:28PM (1 child)
Feel free to share a product link.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Monday April 10 2017, @04:58PM
This is the one I have at work: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/dell-thunderbolt-dock-tb15 [dell.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 10 2017, @02:56AM
Does it pass the Louis Rossmann design scrutiny [youtube.com] ..? :P
Lenovo [youtube.com] botches the design..
Lenovo [youtube.com] clusterfucks the trackpad..
Lenovo [youtube.com] a piece of crap.. (bad sound)
Volume buttons?
Anti microbiological keyboard?
Function keys?
Proper trackpoint?
Intelligent layout?
Seems at least the battery is decent. And battery time is usually specified for office work like word processing and browsing, not movie playing from WiFi. The latter is usually a serious power drain.
(Battery is a 3-cell at 57 Wh - 205 kJ)
I expect a Microsoft Windows 7 option btw.
Nice low weight, 1.14 kg.
Now enjoy your new batch of NSA-BIOS, spychips, we-own-you-drm-tpm, system management backdoor and over WiFi open for all. ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @04:54AM
I like thinkpad because it has the tit. The tit is the key.