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The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 has a lackluster grayish-black color all over, which makes it an ideal fir around boardrooms and conference tables. The laptop’s screen lid has a smooth but tough rubber coating.
Like previous X-series ultra portables, the X1 is quite rugged and built like a tank. It survived three drops from heights ranging from 3-4 feet, with lid closed, without smashing its innards, thanks to a reinforced metal roll cage designed chassis and metal hinges. It would resume its session instantaneously within seconds of picking it up – no scratches on screen or loose hinges.
The ThinkPad X1 is 0.65 inches thin and weights 1.72 kg. Considering its 13-inch form factor, it’s an ultraportable laptop to rival the likes of the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air and the recently reviewed Sony VAIOs. It may not be thinner or lighter compared to the two, but the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is definitely the most rugged and solidly built laptop of them all.
The X1 comes equipped with an edge-to-edge Corning Gorilla Glass display screen, and it does work – we tried scratching the ThinkPad X1’s surface with coins and keys and it was impervious to damage. However, the ThinkPad X1’s 13.3-inch LED backlit LCD display is glossy, which may not go down too well with ThinkPad loyalists. We’re also miffed by the fact that the X1 only has a 1366x768 resolution screen compared to the X300/X301’s 1440x900 pixel screen.
The glossy screen of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is very bright – 350 nits, brighter than the Sony VAIOs – and displays sharp and crisp text and video. Its 2MP webcam works well with Skype and we like its web conferencing control panel which lets you exert fine control over the mic and camera.
The laptop has one of the best keyboards we’ve seen on a laptop. The island-styled, isolated keys have a slight dip or scooped/scalloped design helping your fingers nestle on top of the keys perfectly while typing on them. It has an Intel Core i5-2520M 2.5-Ghz processor with a turbo boost speed of 2.93 GHz. it also has vPro support for advanced IT management. There’s also 4 GB of DDR3 RAM, 320GB hard drive and Intel HD 3000 graphics to complete its core hardware components – quite good for an ultraportable business notebook. Needless to say, the ThinkPad X1 packs a lot more firepower than its predecessors and can match the performance of most current-gen 14 or 15-inch mainstream laptops.
Despite being touted primarily as premium business ultraportable laptop, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is quite the performance machine. In our synthetic benchmarks – including PC Mark Vantage – the X1 scored pretty high, better than average in fact. Its high-speed turbo boost enabled processor and 4GB of fast paced Ram paid rich dividends, letting of apps simultaneously without feeling any performance bottlenecks. The laptops handled tasks like video encoding and file transfer pretty well. With the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, you can be sure that you can do a lot more than just work with spreadsheets and presentation slideshows.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 falls short in one department – battery life. Its battery lasted just over an hour in our synthetic test which is below average; definitely less compared to the MacBook Air and Sony VAIO S. On a conservative power plan, you can barely reach three hours. If you can overlook the ThinkPad X1’s underwhelming battery performance, it’s exactly the kind of business ultraportable for frequently flying executives-slim, sturdy and easy to tuck away.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Screen: 13.3-inch Gorilla Glass display;
Resolution: 1366x768;
Camera: 2MP webcam;
Connectivity: USB 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth, SD Card reader, mini Display port, HDMI, eSATA, 3G SIM card slot;
Misc: Fingerprint sensor
CONTACT:
Lenovo India
Phone: 080-30533000
Web site: www.lenovo.com/in
Price: Rs 85,000