Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Broadwell Version
by Jarred Walton on January 4, 2015 10:13 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Lenovo
- ThinkPad
- Trade Shows
- Ultrabook
- CES 2015
- Broadwell-U
Lenovo has a whole slew of announcements coming out over the next few days, but let’s start at the top with the updated X1 Carbon. The latest iteration upgrades the CPU to Intel’s latest 5th Generation Core processors, with support for up to Core i7. This is the Broadwell-U line of CPUs, which means we can’t disclose specifications just yet, but it should be comparable to the Haswell-U processors – we’d expect a 5-10% performance increase in most workloads. Lenovo also rates the latest X1 Carbon at up to 10.9 hours of battery life with a 50Wh battery, compared to the previous version’s 8.6 hours.
Most of the remaining design elements are similar to last year’s X1. The LCD is a 2560x1440 IPS touchscreen display (there may still be a lower resolution option), it ships with up to 8GB RAM, and the dimensions are the same 331mm x 226.5mm x 17.7mm (13.0” x 8.9” x 0.7”) with a starting weight of 1.31kg (2.88 lbs). Storage has also received an update to M.2 PCIe with up to 512GB, and WiFi is again 2x2 802.11ac.
There’s nothing particularly surprising with the update, but then there weren’t any major issues with the old X1 Carbon. Battery life is better, performance is better, and storage is better; everything else basically stays the same. There are some differences in the keyboard and touchpad that warrant mention, however: dedicated function keys are back (the adaptive touch panel is gone), and the clickpad now has dedicated buttons above it once more (for use with the TrackPoint). Pricing and availability have not yet been announced, but the new model should take over from the previous generation when it launches.
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adiposity - Tuesday, January 6, 2015 - link
Back in the day, there were two sets of buttons, one for trackpoint, one for trackpad. In the last generation, the number dropped to zero. Now we are back to one. You are wrong that it only matters for trackpoint, though, because now that there are no dedicated buttons for the trackpad, I use the trackpoint ones as my dedicated buttons (God I hate tapping or trying to click a trackpad).Penti - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Apparently the clickpad was quite bad on these models. Going back to a better one is an enhancement. The trackpad manufacturers tries to push a lot of really bad clickpads with bad drivers. If they where decent with good drivers then it might not be a big deal.WaitingForNehalem - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
I hope this launches with Windows 10.DanNeely - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
I don't. Win10 is currently scheduled for a back to schoolish release date; broadwell U is scheduled for 2015q1; so waiting for win10 would be about half a year of extra delay.DanNeely - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
Anandtech might be under NDA and not permitted to disclose Broadwell-U specs yet; but via a leak somewhere they've been added to wikipedia under the i3/i5/i7 processor lists. For 15W models I3's will be 2.0/2.1 ghz vs 1.7-2.0 for haswell; i5's will be 1.8-2.3/2-7-2.9 (turbo) vs 1.6-2.0/2.6-3.0; i7's 2.0-2.6/3.0-3.2 vs 1.5-2.1/3.0-3.3. The i7's seem to be the biggest winners; but all 3 families are seeing some jump in non-turbo speeds. The upper half of the haswell speeds are all from haswell-refresh chips that came out about a year after the 1st generation. Assuming Intel is still planning on a truncated broadwell lifespan to keep skylake's launch on time, we probably won't see a faster refresh for broadwell.JarredWalton - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
No comment. ;)Also: really poor Internet speeds make it a pain to fact check before posting. Grrr.... These were all supposed to post at 7PM, but connection issues meant about 15-20 minutes for each posting to finish uploading. Gotta love CES and Vegas....
recurrence - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
Really needs more ram. Put 16GB in it and I'll buy it on the spot.tuxRoller - Monday, January 5, 2015 - link
Needs bigger battery.Make the pc a bit bigger, but allow it have a actual usage time of 12-15 hours, like the air.
ybitz - Monday, January 5, 2015 - link
Does it have a SD card slot? Is the M.2 storage user replace-able?joexu - Monday, January 5, 2015 - link
Still no SD card slot, I'll wait for Skylake refresh