Juice bar
Lenovo claims five hours for the X1's four-cell internal battery. It registered 1hr 45mins in Reg Hardware's aggressive battery rundown test; looping PCMark continuously. With more typical usage – with the screen brightness turned to max – the X1 managed around 2hrs 20mins. This improved by up to an hour, with the display set to medium brightness, but it’s markedly inferior to recent models.
You can tack on an extra battery if you need more juice, but it'll cost ya
Not surprisingly, this review model comes equipped with the “39+”, 36Wh battery slice, an investment that at £200 that adds 600g to the ThinkPad. This six-cell booster buys a some extra time, but if this was a slice of cake, you’d be asking for more. Mitigating this a little, the RapidCharge tech can revive a battery from expired to 80 per cent in around half an hour.
If this sounds repetitively carping, there are valuable parts of the ThinkPad legacy which have survived intact. Most importantly the magnesium alloy matte case and the roll cage, which instantly elevates it the X1 above the less robust competition. Indeed, it’s solid and uncluttered with demoware junk, yet retains the excellent ThinkVantage utilities.
Built to last, but is it worth the extra?
The Lenovo X1 doesn't try and compete with the ultra-thin, but slower premium devices such as Apple's 13in MacBook Air and Samsung's 9 series, but it has far greater selection of expandability and I/O options. Here, Lenovo has offered some of the rich features of the old ThinkPad X301, but at a lower price point. But if you need some extra speed, another £167 will buy you the quad-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M CPU build-to-order option. Going from 4GB to the 8GB of Ram that was installed on the review model will add yet another £324 though.
Verdict
Despite the less than glorious screen resolution, in practice, I found the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 was really a pleasure to use. I’m simply a veteran ThinkPad user, there’s always been (at least) one in my Apple household, and I’m the sort of user who disables the TouchPad in the BIOS, preferring to use the TrackPoint. Because, as you know, TouchPads are for wimps. ®
More Notebook Reviews |
||||
 Dell
Vostro V131 |
 Acer
Timeline X 5830T |
 Sony
Vaio SB |
 Apple
MacBook Air 13in |
 Lenovo
ThinkPad Edge E420s |
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 13.3in Core i5 notebook
COMMENTS
Damn right on the TouchPad comment
I'm similarly stuck with ThinkPads because of the TrackPoint; why has everyone else stopped doing them? Is there anyone else still doing them?
That flap on the side would like about 30 seconds if I bought one.
non-removable battery on a thinkpad? really?
I'm all for going with the times, but thinkpads are meant to be workhorses, not show horses.
There is much to be said for the convenience of having a thick extended battery (or two) in the backpack, thereby having extra juice for 10-15 straight hours.
The low resolution is worrying too. Means less text and icons on screen, more cramped workspace and more scrolling. If I only wanted to watch movies there are cheaper alternatives out there, not to mention tablets.
Useless Battery
Non-removable battery, but power doesn't last anywhere near the length of a transatlantic flight plus check-in, let alone LHR-HKG or SIN-SYD? Yet supposedly this is a thinkpad for business? Utter fail.
If you can't change the motherboard in 45 mins using one screwdriver...
... it's not a ThinkPad.
It's a thinkpad
You are paying for the armour-plating and 50 year lifespan :)
