Is the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Worth It? Full Review & Real-World Battery Test

[@gorofujita5767]

11:50 >"The result? A solid 4 hours and 8 minutes which I think is quite respectable" Is this 2010? This is an *objectively terrible* result. For much less money, an M-series Macbook Air will last a solid 16 hours of web browsing and text based work.

[@Decoding_Labs]

well you can’t really compare AMR architecture vs X86 in terms of efficiency, I also talk about this in my conclusion. It’s respectable for Intel laptop not for industry standards

[@BlendingWithHenry]

Thanks for the video. The "video" itself is very good, but this laptop has no innovations. Lenovo continues to make Thinkpads look like standard boring fingerprint magnet office computers. There's no special features about this laptop, honestly, and the battery life being under 5 hours isn't good on Balanced performance mode doing basic tasks and photo editing. It's not even using a power-hungry screen. There's no WOW feature, there's nothing special. Dell and Apple continue to innovate and Lenovo is going to lose this race, *IF* they are trying to target consumers, and not just business offices.

[@anirbanchakraborty1102]

Finally a great video on x1 carbon gen 12 with haptic touchpad, thanks!! I have a couple of queries - 1. I have been using Macbooks since 2009 and recently encountered the need to get a windows machine. I am a bit nit-picky about the keyboard and touchpad on laptops and hence Macbooks have been excellent companions over these years. Coming from a macbook, do you think I might like this haptic touchpad? I am asking this as you also seem to use a mac. How does select and drag work on this, in comparison to a macbook touchpad? I am also considering the surface laptop as it also has a haptic touchpad. 2. You mentioned that the battery life is ~4 hours. Is it really that bad? Can you also do a test with say 50% screen brightness, bluetooth off etc.? Thanks in advance.

[@Decoding_Labs]

1. I think you will like this haptic touchpad a lot. It’s not quite Apple-like yet, but it gets very close in terms of experience. 2. Yes, the battery life isn’t great. It’s still Intel, and it’s still x86 architecture, which isn’t as efficient as ARM64. I can do some further testing, but I’m currently on vacation in Norway, so if you can wait, I will do that when I come back.

[@anirbanchakraborty1102]

@@Decoding_Labs Sure, your opinion on this would surely help. Thanks!!

[@proautoscan]

50% brightness and the full HD display ( not the OLED that he has) should offer easily 8h battery life for a normal everyday use

[@BlendingWithHenry]

@@proautoscan This laptop would not get double the battery life (4 hours to 8 hours) just by lowering the screen brightness to 50%. LOL

[@AreiousX]

One thing that wasn't mentioned is that the haptic trackpad can be configured to have a touchpad button area, basically mimicking the 3 traditional buttons that require higher force to activate and have a different haptic feedback - I think it's a pretty good middle ground. On the note about battery, I have an OLED model with 155H and can get ~3+ hours under heavy use (VMs, media, etc)

[@Burbanana]

is it good for (dev) work though? I heard its very limited in power.. and how warm does it get? Im currently looking at this, the T14s or the new Zenbook S 16 with Ryzen AI which is very efficient.. (im scared of arm for doing hobby dev projects lol)

[@AreiousX]

​@@Burbanana I'm not a dev so I can't say in terms of compiling speed etc, but I do work in cybersecurty and it can handle multiple virtual machines on top of other programs/scripts, so good enough for me. There's a performance mode if I needed more power, it does get pretty toasty at the bottom but it's not a problem using it on a desk. It's perfect for my use case to have something very thin and light and still good enough for most things, but I'd say if speed is important then you might want to look elsewhere.

[@Burbanana]

@@AreiousX thanks! You think it would be bad for lap use then since it gets warm?

[@AreiousX]

@@Burbanana it would definitely be uncomfortable, especially if you're wearing shorts

[@Burbanana]

@@AreiousX thanks bud! The new Pavilion Plus with ultra 7 and the vivobook S 16 with ryzen AI look decent but I think their build is flimsy compared to the more premium stuff.. Which leaves the 60hz mediocre battery T14s OLED and the Zenbook S 16 for me.. I think Im going to try the Zenbook soon.. The 14 is out in a couple weeks but is priced higher with intel core ultra 200.. Cant make sense of any of it.

[@dedarahamad408]

Awesome Video

[@Decoding_Labs]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@tybrassington1614]

I've see on the new cheaper models such as the P14s, they have changed the keyboard to become stiffer and clickier than previous generations of Lenovo keyboards. Is this the case for the X1 Carbon?

[@Deejay-e2f]

Thank You for reviewing this Lenovo laptop because I just had mine delivered an hour ago.

[@itsathejoey]

How does battery life compare to the macbook pro?

[@Decoding_Labs]

You cannot really compare ARM64 on Mac and X86 on ThinkPad and it also depends wether you want to compare to 16" or 14" MacBook Pro but you can check MBP battery life here: www.apple.com/macbook-pro/compare/

[@mrlang125]

wow you have the exact one i am looking for! great review! thank you!

[@Decoding_Labs]

Glad it was helpful!

[@king3380]

Is this laptop's cooling system able to handle high performance games?

[@Decoding_Labs]

No, it’s not a gaming laptop in the first place.

[@margaretreneau7379]

Are there enough ports to connect a monitor, mouse usb, key board usb and ethernet usb (3 usb ports?)

[@Decoding_Labs]

it depends on your peripherals, I use thunderbolt 4 port to connect X1 to my dual monitor setup and for mouse and headset I simply use Bluetooth. There are 2 USB Type-A ports, 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports and 1 HDM 2.1 port

[@TH-wr1dv]

also at yooga it was one of most anoying things that power switch is at side. It is just too easy hit with it to stuff at table.

[@Decoding_Labs]

hah with that I totally agree

[@cezarras]

Where are the big indestructible thinkpad which could, compare with laptops like legion i9 or razor blade