Thinkpads Forum

My T61 is still chuggin' away but is getting long in the tooth. And I have my T30 for a back-up, but am looking at something newer. I was considering the W530 but don't think I need that much power. The primary usage would be editing audio with Reaper or Adobe Audition, & video with Sony Vegas. Plus I might want to watch a movie from time to time, and I figure the X1C would be more than adequate for that. The other machine I was considering was the Mac Book Pro, but want to have the ability to swap out drives and do other upgrades & changes.... It looks like the X1C has more than enough power for my needs, the ability to add memory and SSD drives, and is tough and portable.
How do the folks who have the X1C like it???
John

Or maybe the T430u when it comes out...

I have a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, and I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with it. That is not to say that it's not a machine with a lot of utility, but there are a few things you should be aware of:

- The X1C is not build by Lenovo (like, for example, the X230 is). Instead, it is build by Acer on Lenovo specifications. This has clearly resulted in compromises in build quality. For example, the beezle around the screen is taped onto the screen in such a way that it has noticable gabs (flex is good, gabs are bad).
- The display, despite having a nice resolution, has bad viewing angles and a visible screen door effect, which just makes the screen seem cheap (some people seem to be able to live with the screen door effect, for me it is a source of constant annoyance). Colors are acceptable.
- The fan makes a very annoying, high pitched noise when performing tasks above plain texting and web-surfing.
- The computer is very portable, but the charger is a brick.
- People complain about serious quality control issues (letters falling of the keyboard, faulty and loose touchpads) when recieving their machines.
- This could perhaps just be me who is sensitive... But the machine simply does not seem as rugged and tough as a Thinkpad is suppose to seem. It seems like machines like the Macbook Air and even the Zenbook Prime would be able to withstand more beating.

There are also a lot of good things to be said about the X1C:

- Fast and quick machine (Ivy Bridge + SSD makes a super combo)
- Acceptable battery life (about 5 hours of real use)
- Bright display
- Nice keyboard
- Acceptable touchpad
- Cool, carbon design
- Good speakers for a computer this size
- Seems to run cool (some people have different experiences I've heard though)



Cheers!

Perhaps I got lucky, but I'm not seeing some of these build quality issues - my screen doesn't have any gaps and feels very solid compared to other ultrabooks I've used. The hinge on the macbook air is not as nice in my opinion.
The viewing angle is not great to be sure, but the screen, overall, is pleasant and sharp. Very good color reproduction, adjustable to great.
The keyboard is far nicer to me than every other ultrabook I've gotten my hands on, and I prefer the feel of the X1C touchpad as well; I'm a light-touch user and I can get the settings to almost perfect for sensitivity.
Fan has multiple speeds - the highest speed makes noticeable sound but not annoying to me, your mileage may vary. However, I only get that speed when running full-screen 3D apps, such as games. Video encoding or the like might also trigger it, but it cools off fast and the fan spools down quickly. Under heavy business use (full office suite running multiple documents each, 20+ browser tabs, a few Win8 apps running) I rarely get the fan above its minimum setting.
I might be confused about the power brick - it's only a little bigger than my netbook's adapter is and it's significantly smaller than my last 15" laptop's adapter is. Maybe the standard is smaller than I've seen. I'm not sure how you'd power a high-end i7 with anything much smaller.

After further review I'm pretty sure I'll go with the W530. If portability was a bigger issue the X1C would be my choice, and who knows, if I can afford it I may get both
John

MADAB wrote:The X1C is not build by Lenovo (like, for example, the X230 is). Instead, it is build by Acer on Lenovo specifications. This has clearly resulted in compromises in build quality.

Interesting. Where did you read about this?
Was the original ThinPad X1 built by Acer too?

mandrakkio wrote:
Interesting. Where did you read about this?
Was the original ThinPad X1 built by Acer too?

I'd be interested to read more about this, since I was under the impression that the X230 was not built by Lenovo themselves either. I thought that the X series were typically built by Wistron.

The owners of the X1 Carbon are also saying that their machines are build by Winstron: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thinkpa ... ost8914667 I believe Acer does not build anything for Lenovo, because they are direct concurrents.

My wife's new X1 Carbon was delivered yesterday afternoon. It is a beautiful machine; very light, clear and bright screen, classic design, and extremely rigid despite being so thin. She opted for a 250GB SSD which did whack up the cost. It's for her business so we can put it down as a legitimate business expense.

From looking at it I'm unable to hazard a guess at who built it.

Ibthink wrote:The owners of the X1 Carbon are also saying that their machines are build by Winstron: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thinkpa ... ost8914667 I believe Acer does not build anything for Lenovo, because they are direct concurrents.

Yep. Pretty much what I expected.

That said, I seem to recall that there *were* ThinkPads manufactured by Acer, namely some (all?) of the ill-fated "i" series.