Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

I've had a X1 since 2017. The CPU is pretty weak, but it's still solid overall. Still on the original battery too (yes the capacity has gone down from 57 Wh to 25 Wh). I've gotten other computers through work since, but the X1 is still my favourite laptop! In fact I'm typing on it now.

That webcam bump is horrendous, probably the worst possible feature to take from smartphone design. I always loved how my 2016 is so sleek, sure the lid has stress fractures near the hinge after 8 years, but it hasn't actually broken yet.

The ThinkPad X1 line is of great quality. I've been using it with Linux for the past 8 years and never really had any issues. Unlike Apple, Lenovo also has very cheap quality laptops, so when you hear people say that their Lenovo laptop is bad, make sure to figure out which one.

Switching (back) from om Mac to Linux, I can definitely say that the painful experience was with the Mac, I just got used to it along the years. The Plasma desktop is now a breeze (literally ;-)). Battery is surprisingly long lasting, too (7 year old Thinkpad X1, easily 7-8h of battery). It just works.

The Thinkpad X1 Carbon and MacBook Air are likely the most resilient laptops, except for rugged models. However, there is one notable difference: the Thinkpad is water-resistant, whereas the MacBook Air is not. Once, I inadvertently left my Thinkpad near an open window, and it was rained on overnight. The next morning, the keyboard was wet, and the touch screen was unresponsive, causing me to assume it had died. After shutting it off and leaving it in a bowl of rice for a few hours, it functioned normally again. My X1 Carbon gen 6, served me more than 6 years, during which it fell maybe once every several weeks. Eventually it screen cracked after it fell from the table, it's still working with an external display. On another occasion, I spilled some coffee on my MacBook Air's keyboard while working on a train. While most of the laptop remained operational, certain keys, including the Power button, did not function. As a result, I had to wait for the battery to run out to power off the device since the Power button was not a dedicated button but a standard keyboard key. Even with an external keyboard, I was unable to use the Power button to turn it off/reboot.

I have a 4 year old ThinkPad X1 extreme (1st gen) and I've been running Pop OS since almost day 1. I did run astray somewhere in the middle (Zorin, Manjaro, Windows) but found myself most comfortable with Pop. Things just work: nvidia drivers, firmware updates, bluetooth, multiple screens, switching keyboards (bt to usb and vice versa), games (steam, heroic launcher), keyboard backlight (it's a pain on other distros for some reason), those little led indicators on fn buttons, the fn buttons! The laptop overall is quieter (fans running slow), cooler, snappier - all with an amazing battery life. This is compared to Windows - something that apparently Intel spent time testing this particular model of laptop with. (one of my relatives works there) The tiling window manager is a productivity enhancer (feels better than i3wm to me, ymmv). I recently had the privilege of connecting to a 2K display using the thunderbolt port. This thing somehow felt faster (a couple 100ms, but it was noticeable). I have reached a point where Mac feels slow and Windows is just unusable. I'm having a great time with this OS. Only 1 thing doesn't work: Intel WiFi display. But I guess that technology doesn't have enough market proliferation anyway. So. That.

Lenovo X1 Carbon. I've been using Linux on it for over 4 years now, with zero complaints. When doing consulting engagements, I also ask my clients to issue a Carbon to me, and without fail they do. Usable keyboard, the "nub", high density screen, long battery life, small size, and light weight. I struggle to see what could be improved about it. When the one I'm typing this on (my personal workhorse) kicks the bucket, it will be replaced by another X1 Carbon. The only caveat is, the 15" "Extreme" model has an NVIDIA GPU, and that's a PITA in Linux, since GPU switching is still an esoteric feature, so your options are either to not use the discrete GPU, or to spend hours following obscure readmes to set it up. And in the latter case it still won't be anywhere near as good as Windows GPU switching, let alone macOS, and will likely break after a software update a few months down the road. But that's easy to avoid: just don't buy the 15" model.

Sounds like you got a lemon. I also have an X1 carbon, and it's been a great upgrade for me. My biggest complaint is the eraser isn't as easy to use as my old toshiba. The eraser is important to me -- my hand gets numb using a trackpad.

From work, I have a Thinkpad X1 gen 13 and it's awesome. Super lightweight, and great power. But, when I tried Linux a few months ago its hardware was still too bleeding edge. Things may be better with kernel v7 on the way. I like the Gram as a personal device so may I know what model Gram you have?

Because our IT dept. is both incompetent and paranoid, which is an annoying combination. I keep my own X1 Carbon with Fedora in my backpack, because it's easier than arguing with them.

I had the T431s for over a decade as well. Replaced the keyboard (orange juice spillage), screen (upgraded to a higher resolution panel), hdd (to an SSD of course), RAM, Wifi adapter (Wifi 6) as well as the battery. I now use an X1 Nano and while it's nice (and very light!) I am sad that the upgradability is nowhere near as good.

Desktop CPUs have a lot more punch than their equivalent mobile parts. My current dev machine is an X1 carbon from 2019. Compiling go code is slower than I’d like, some JavaScript-heavy websites like Jira take a couple extra seconds to load, and the GPU can drive a 4k monitor but it isn’t snappy. Still, the form factor is perfect, and my next upgrade will be exactly the same machine but more powerful and with a brighter display with the same 2.5k resolution.

Typing this on a X1 gen 6 on my home; paid $230 for it a couple months ago. My impression is that it's a modern, perfectly adequate notebook, if a bit unexciting. But maybe that's because I'm an spoiled child, because I haven't thought for _one second_ how is it that they've made a multicore processor, several gigabytes of random access memory, a fairly decent well-lit keyboard and such a nice matte screen fit into this light, rather elegant device. I mean, for a laptop. I understand Lenovo, those greedy bastards, are the ones who assembled it in interest of achieving their own quarter projections, but now that I think of it, I'm sure there _several_ soulless corporations involved on it running the way it does! Intel is inside, that's for certain, but just ponder about the conditions, and for what financial purpose was tht wireless chip manufactured? What about that screen, huh! How was the lithium in the battery mined? Where? By whom? They weren't doing it _for me_, that I can acknowledge, and yet here I am. Typing on it. Hot garbage. Actually kind of liking it? Is it because I feel more at home here, in Void Linux, than on the Mac OS, even if it's so absolutely unnatural for mammal to "feel" such things in regard to, uh, process supervision and package management? Look, I'm not going to go full-on zen and start rambling about "you" being no more than a mundane abstract construct, but insofar as we agree on our individuation I can very much assure you that this Thinkpad, rig…

I've found the X1s to be very easy to service as well. Maybe it's a Thinkpad thing.

I bought a thinkpad X1 carbon refurbished for about ~$300. I wanted to travel abroad with a laptop I wouldn't mind getting stolen if it happened. During the installation of Win11 it asked me to create a microsoft account, fuck that. I installed linux mint. Very nice experience overall, so nice to not get assaulted by ads in the start menu. Pleased to see the nightlight functionality (I googled f.lux for linux and that's how I discovered it) is built-in, and with flatpack I installed vlc, qbittorrent and obsidian. Firefox setup was straightforward. And that was it. This is a laptop for youtube and movies, I used the pre-installed libre office calc for small budget things and list making. It just worked for me. The things that bother me about this laptop are primarily hardware related coming from using a mac laptop (which is the laptop I would mind getting stolen). Trackpad on X1 carbon is definitely not as good, battery life not as good. And opening the lid momentarily reveals what you were on before the lock screen comes on. This last one tastes more like a software issue. I had another issue with the hdmi port being finicky, but that's hardware again. Overall very happy with this setup, linux mint is in great shape. I do wish there were fewer distro choices for people considering making the switch. It does introduce choice paralysis. I had to set aside my ego and pipe dream aspirations of being a "hacker" and went with a distro that seemed to be simple and straightforward to…

ThinkPads run the gamut. Their flagship line is nice. In most regards, I enjoy my first gen X1 Nano — good keyboard, screen (even if it annoyingly requires fractional UI scaling), body feels solid despite being lightweight, soft touch plastic makes it feel nice to hold. Trackpad is just ok but the trackpoint makes for that. It likes to spin up its fan doing the most insignificant things though (even plugging in a pedestrian 1x scaling external monitor can while idle can do it) and its battery life is somewhat abysmal. Standby time is also quite poor. Some of these things are in theory improved by a newer CPU (Lunar Lake in particular looks decent) but sadly they discontinued the Nano. The Carbon isn’t that much bigger, but the size difference is noticeable in some circumstances.

I’ve worked on a Lenovo Carbon X1 and was impressed with the whole thing. The keyboard is legit superior to Mac.