Review on X1 Carbon Gen-4

[Roland]

Dear Thinkpadders,

I fall in love with the latest X1 (released 1st of June 2016 in Germany, 4th gen.) and I'm courios about a review of someone of you. My concerns about this latest model are that there are usual problems with poor performance if heating up by time (DPTF-problem of Yoga machines, 2nd & 3rd gen), unreliable keyboard connection to tablet, microSD-slot which does no completely cover the microSD card etc.

I was a user of very early ThinkPads starting 1994 with a TP 750c, later 760c, 600e, 770e, A21 & A31. These machines have been real IBM notebooks with an absolute perfect design for that time. After reading so much about serious design flaws of Lenovos machines I'm pretty unsure if I could still get a fair value for my money from Lenovo.

I hope you like to help me in deciding about my next machine...

Roland in Berlin.

[w0qj]

I have the X1 Carbon 3rd Generation (announced Jan 2015), [20BS-CTO1WW], and it is a joy to use.
(I also have/had other Thinkpad models X250, X230, T410, T42, 560).

X1 Carbon 3rd Generation (X1C3) has:
~Maximum 8 GB RAM
~Maximum 512 GB SSD
~Only 2 USB3 ports

X1 Carbon 4th Generation (X1C4) can POTENTIALLY have:
~Maximum 16 GB RAM (available now)
~Maximum 1 TB SSD (BUT maximum you can order for is 512 GB SSD)
~You get 3 USB3 ports
~Disadvantage: some users feel the X1C4 LCD hinge slightly wobbles a bit more than that of X1C3


So the X1 Carbon 4th Generation is basically an incremental improvement over X1 3rd Generation.


As I personally do not own the X1 Carbon 4th Generation, I can only report my experience of using the X1 Carbon 3rd Generation as my daily office workhorse:
1. LCD bright enough to use even outdoors in the sun.

2. "Chiclet" style keyboard: keyboard needs some getting used to, coming from an old-school T42/T410 heavy touch-type keyboard user. But you will get use to it! (By the way, I've heard that the T-series T460/T450 Chicklet keyboard has slightly more key travel than the X1C4/X1C3, which may be slightly better).

3. X1C3 never overheats, even under heavy work loads.
(A few days ago, I did CPU intensive file conversions *.tif>>*.pdf and machine only was warm. Definitely no X1C3 overheating issues here, good!)

4. X1C3 battery is so good that I'll just toss it into my backpack, and never worry about running of power if I plan to use 3-4 hours with no power outlets.
In fact, I never bring the power brick with my anymore when bringing X1C3 to work in the field for an afternoon.
(Compare to T410, where I must bring power brick, as always worry about running of power for my older T410 model).

5. X1C3 power cord placement is slightly better IMHO (beside the [ESC] key).
My pet peeve on the X1C4 is that the power cord placement is halfway over the [Tab] Key. So if you want to do actual work and place books/paper to the left of your X1C4, you will find that the power cord is in the way!

6. X1C3 RAM usage under Win7 Pro 64-bit: I have 20+ browser tabs open, large Excel worksheet open, Email program, and X1 Desktop Search program (www.x1.com) running in the background... and I find that all 8 GB of my RAM had been used up!! I definitely need "16 GB RAM", but my X1C3 does not offer this option.

7. I personally recommend X1C3, and I would imagine that the X1C4 is even better (especially that max 16 GB RAM for X1C4).

As feedback from someone who daily uses the X1C3, hope this would help in your decision making for X1 4th Generation!

[JohnD.]

Dear w0qj,

Thank you for the review on the X1 Carbon 3. I do want to let you know that maybe back in March/April of this year, you could custom order a X1 Carbon 3 with 16 GB of RAM from Lenovo's US web site. I know since I had checked the price on a custom configuration that I put together.

Thank you,
John

[Roland]

w0qj: thank you, that is a very comprehensive in depths experience feedback!

About heat development I have some concerns that the X1 4th gen. isn't so well designed. At least I've read in a german computer magazine that it isn't really worth to invest the money for the m7 processor unit because it clocks down already after a few minutes (< 5 minutes to be more precise) the frequency that finally the X1 unit with the m5-processor has a comparable performance...

However, I'm quite sure I'll buy the latest gen X1 when I'm in the US (Denver) in 2 weeks.

Roland in Berlin

[w0qj]

Roland: Wishing you fun deciding which particular Thinkpad X1 Carbon Generation 4 model to get !

JohnD.: Many thanks for your advice, but when I visited HK, Lenovo used the X1C3 (X1 Carbon Generation 3) as a low price budget bait to get folks interested.
ie: Shortly after X1C4 came out in Feb 2016, the X1C3 were neutered with only low specs (low memory, low CPU, smaller SSD).

I love my X1C3 so much that I am willing to pay for *another* X1C3 with 16 GB RAM if it is available!!

[w0qj]

Just a heads up, Samsung may be shipping its SM961 (NVMe) 1 TB SSD for M.2 shortly.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsun ... 32117.html

This SM961 (NVMe) should be compatable with X1 Carbon Generation 4.

***BUT the X1 Carbon Generation 3 *CANNOT* use this SM961 (NVMe), since X1C3 is stuck with the ACHI SSD interface and cannot use NVMe SSD.

[jdhurst]

I just purchased the X1 Carbon 4th generation machine and am very happy with it.

i7 with 16 GB memory
1 TB Samsung PCI-e SSD drive (faster than SATA)
Standard 1920x1080 resolution screen.
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (which I had been using for over a year on my ThinkPad X230)

[Sleep Machine]

Just received X1 Carbon 4th Gen listed below.
Love it.
Eighth TP since 2000 (most of which I upgraded to max for respective models) (had Toshibas with Trackpoint before then)
X1 Carbon 4th Gen is what I wanted my T-21 to be in 2000.
Had to get heavier and hotter machines over the years to get the oomph.
Now I can have a very nice "fairly" high power machine that weighs less than half of the W530.
Granted, I don't do CAD or anything that would require a P70.
Decided I didn't need a tablet.
Have an iPhone and an iPad Pro 9.7.
X1 fits nicely in a thin briefcase with the other two digital instruments.

First Idea: Surface Pro 4 i7-6600U, 16GB, 1TB SSD <-- Touch Screen with Pen, but no Trackpoint
Second Idea: X1 Yoga i7-6600U, 16GB, 1TB SSD, OLED <-- Ordered but gave up on shipping delay
Final Idea: X1 Carbon 4th Gen listed below

Next Idea? E470?

[TP_guy]

For what it's worth, I just got an X1 Carbon 4th generation. It is the 16GB model with the 2k display and fingerprint reader and EM7455 WWAN. I had it provisioned with Windows 7 from the factory.

Overall, it's an OK machine, but there have been problems from the start. The two biggest problems are:

• EM7455 refuses to work after the machine resumed from hibernate mode. NEVER ever. Originally, EM7455 would simply disappear from the device when the driver would fail to start (error 10). With the new drivers, it just refuses to speak with the SIM card after the resume from hibernating. I guess that's an improvement, but not much of one. I still need to reboot to get the device to work again.
• Often the fingerprint reader doesn't talk to the OS after sleep or hibernate. The X1C already had the latest drivers but I reinstalled them. Of course, I can just login normally, but what's the point of having the fingerprint reader if it doesn't work.

Aside from that, the X1C is above average. The chiclet keyboards are not as nice as the older Thinkpads, but it is light and thin. The high-resolution screen is great with nice color, but it is a bit dim when compared to comparable displays on other laptops. Battery life is not as advertised (as if anyone could ever achieve a manufacturer's lofty numbers) but I am sure the 2k screen is putting a dent in the battery capacity. The fan doesn't come on too often (even with some CAD work), but when it does it can be quite loud. I do miss the HDD light that other laptops still have. I suppose the engineers at Lenovo weighed the benefits of having a very swank box (that elevates the laptop when you open it up) against having an HDD staus LED. (They went with the swank box.)

If Lenovo could fix the problems with the EM7455 WWAN and fingerprint reader I would be quite happy with the X1C, but right now, I feel that it's not ready for prime time.

[w0qj]

Hi TP_guy,

Our X1 Carbon Generation 4 machine just went live this week, and we love it!
Caveats as below:

1) I believe we have also procured the exact same model as yours:
***Windows 7 Pro 64-bit English custom install
(This machine came natively with Win10 Pro 64-bit)
***EM7455 Mobile Broadband (WWAN)
***Fingerprint Reader (Our X1C4 ex-factory date was Nov-2016)
~1 TB NVMe SSD (Samsung SM961)
~16 GB RAM, 2k display
~i7-6600U Intel CPU

2) We procured our X1C4 from Lenovo authorized dealer, who did a custom Product Recovery DVD set with Win7 Pro 64-bit on it, apparently with the 1 TB SSD NVMe driver which was manually put into the DVD ISO image.

3) Even so, dealer *cannot* get the fingerprint reader to work under Win7 64-bit.
Therefore dealer actually offered a full refund.
We decided to use this machine without the fingerprint reader.

***Dealer said that "all X1 Carbon Generation 4 made in the second half of 2016 had a new fingerprint reader, for which there is no Win7 support thus far."***

4. As for your EM7455 Mobile Broadband issue, our dealer got it working under Win7.
[Edit: our X1C4 successfully used Access Connections to use our EM7455 Mobile Broadband]
There were minor stability issues (5% of the time after waking up from sleep, X1C4 does not "see" the EM7455 for something like 10 seconds).
But overall we are very satisfied with the EM7455 Mobile Broadband, and cannot wait until we get to test it out under real field work conditions!


In summary, we are very satisfied with our X1 Carbon Generation 4. The fingerprint reader did not work under Win7 64-bit, which we chose to ignore in this case.

Hope this helps to shed light into your situation!

[Puppy]

EM7455 refuses to work after the machine resumed from hibernate mode. NEVER ever. Originally, EM7455 would simply disappear from the device when the driver would fail to start (error 10). With the new drivers, it just refuses to speak with the SIM card after the resume from hibernating. I guess that's an improvement, but not much of one. I still need to reboot to get the device to work again.

It is terrible. I thought this issue is specific to the older EM7345 model because of "experimental" Intel chipset design but it looks like the all EM series is spoiled. EM7455 use Qualcomm chipset.

There are no specific drivers in Windows 8.1 and 10 for this device, it is generic MBIM interface. The root cause is buggy firmware of the WWAN device. I spent over one year with Lenovo firmware updates to get the EM7345 work in ThinkPad 8 tablet and these issues you are describing sounds familiar If there is USB Selective Suspend feature enabled in the driver options try to disable it.

EDIT I noticed you use Windows 7, it is probably out of luck since vendor specific MBIM driver is required there. Very few users use this combination so I wouldn't expect any fixes or development there. It is outdated so it is hard to diagnose whether these issues are caused by the firmware or the MBIM driver. The easiest way would be to put the WWAN module into a Windows 10 system and check whether these issues persists.

[comnme]

Hey, guys

Regarding the fingerprint issue (to attention of TP_guy, w0qj):
there might be conflict between Synaptics drivers for FPR and OS built-in biometric drivers that causes FPR behaviour, up to the complete laptop hang during FPR logging.

So, just disable SynaCP.dll in the system boot up list (autoruns), do not remove the rest Synaptics entries. This workaround will avoide the drivers conflict, FPR and its logging features will work fine. TP P50 station has the same FPR device and drivers, works w/out FPR problems with this trik.

[TP_guy]

Hey, guys

Regarding the fingerprint issue (to attention of TP_guy, w0qj):
there might be conflict between Synaptics drivers for FPR and OS built-in biometric drivers that causes FPR behaviour, up to the complete laptop hang during FPR logging.

So, just disable SynaCP.dll in the system boot up list (autoruns), do not remove the rest Synaptics entries. This workaround will avoide the drivers conflict, FPR and its logging features will work fine. TP P50 station has the same FPR device and drivers, works w/out FPR problems with this trik.

I cannot wait to try this. I have had some mysterious lockups that would occur. I would swear that it they happened whenever I would touch the Touchpoint or the Touchpad.

[TP_guy]

EM7455 refuses to work after the machine resumed from hibernate mode. NEVER ever. Originally, EM7455 would simply disappear from the device when the driver would fail to start (error 10). With the new drivers, it just refuses to speak with the SIM card after the resume from hibernating. I guess that's an improvement, but not much of one. I still need to reboot to get the device to work again.

It is terrible. I thought this issue is specific to the older EM7345 model because of "experimental" Intel chipset design but it looks like the all EM series is spoiled. EM7455 use Qualcomm chipset.

There are no specific drivers in Windows 8.1 and 10 for this device, it is generic MBIM interface. The root cause is buggy firmware of the WWAN device. I spent over one year with Lenovo firmware updates to get the EM7345 work in ThinkPad 8 tablet and these issues you are describing sounds familiar If there is USB Selective Suspend feature enabled in the driver options try to disable it.

EDIT I noticed you use Windows 7, it is probably out of luck since vendor specific MBIM driver is required there. Very few users use this combination so I wouldn't expect any fixes or development there. It is outdated so it is hard to diagnose whether these issues are caused by the firmware or the MBIM driver. The easiest way would be to put the WWAN module into a Windows 10 system and check whether these issues persists.

Yeah, I am not holding my breath for a driver fix. I have been around and around with Lenovo with this since I had the laptop. Unfortunately, using Windows 10 is not in the cards, but I may put the card in another windows 10 Thinkpad to see if the problem persists.

[TP_guy]

Hey, guys

Regarding the fingerprint issue (to attention of TP_guy, w0qj):
there might be conflict between Synaptics drivers for FPR and OS built-in biometric drivers that causes FPR behaviour, up to the complete laptop hang during FPR logging.

So, just disable SynaCP.dll in the system boot up list (autoruns), do not remove the rest Synaptics entries. This workaround will avoide the drivers conflict, FPR and its logging features will work fine. TP P50 station has the same FPR device and drivers, works w/out FPR problems with this trik.

I cannot wait to try this. I have had some mysterious lockups that would occur. I would swear that it they happened whenever I would touch the Touchpoint or the Touchpad.

There did not seem to be the same problem with the Synaptics driver, but I did look at the dump files. This lead me to a hotfix (Microsoft KB2780102). While the description of the hotfix in no way seems to apply to me, the stop error code was the same. So, I installed the hotfix and my X1C is much more stable---no more mysterious BSOD or lockup of the Synaptics and the fingerprint reader is more reliable (i.e. it's the norm for it to work when booting, resuming, etc.---and even if it does not, when I click on the change user button, the fingerprint logon appears). The hotfix also seems to have somewhat improved the reliability of the EM7455 card. Now, rather than crashing and offering an error 10 almost always I may be able to go a day or so without the driver crashing. Definitely and improvement, but the bar was already very low.