We tried an ARM-powered ThinkPad, so you don't have to! - Lenovo ThinkPad X13 vs. X13s Review

Grey, well-made, excellent keyboards and the famous red dot in the middle of the keyboard.
Lenovo's #thinkpads are almost iconic, and this time around, the X13s breaks with tradition and is the first ThinkPad to come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3.
If the ARM architecture is ready for prime-time on a windows business notebook and if the CPU has a fighting chance against Intel's latest Alder-Lake U competition, we will tell you in our review.
Please enjoy our video, and for more in-depth information, please follow the links below to our written reviews:
English Review X13:
www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-...
English Review X13s:
www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-...
German Review X13:
www.notebookcheck.com/Lenovo-...
German Review X13s:
www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Le...
Time Stamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:25 - Chassis/Design
2:30 - Ports, Wifi, Cameras
3:40 - Keyboard + Touchpad, Internals
4:38 - Display
5:00 - CPU - Performance
5:35 - System Performance
6:18 - GPU - Performance
6:35 - Fan Noise
7:28 - Battery Life
8:10 - Summary
Please consider subscribing for future review videos of laptops, desktop hardware, smartphones, tablets, and general tech content.
Head over to www.notebookcheck.com/ to stay up to date on all things tech!
SHOP for the #X13 on amazon.com (affiliate link):
www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPa...
Follow us!
INSTAGRAM: / notebookcheck_net
FACEBOOK: / notebookchecknet
#notebookcheckreview #laptop #notebookcheck #notebookcheckreviews #lenovo #lenovothinkpad #thinkpad #businesslaptop #thinkpadintel #bestbusinesslaptop #laptopreview #notebookreview #techreview #intel #qualcomm #qualcommsnapdragon #qualcommthinkpad #armpc #armnotebook

[@VideogamesAsArt]

Interesting, I am actually surprised that it ran on Windows at all! ARM is getting closer by the day

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Yes, we think so too. If you do not need a ton of CPU power, it is the better machine in some ways. Let us see what happens with ARM on windows this year.

[@bigsean6045]

I'd say their arm is about 5 years behind apple's arm.

[@EnochGitongaKimathi]

​@@NotebookcheckReviewsthe Snapdragon X Elite has delivered on performance efficiency. I can't wait for a comparison next year.

[@piterkristianto5647]

thank you for the review

[@tutacat]

The hardware is way up there. Yes it will get closer in those synthetic benchmarks later, but software support is much more important.

[@hzoltan13]

Hi! Could you tell me in the video when we see the display 4:46 how much is the screen resolution? Scale is 100% or more? Thank you!

[@breacher7252]

In the battery life section you say the some x86_64 laptops beat the ARM one, but didn't show them on charts. Was their battery life higher than this one (848 mins)? 7:32

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Yes, both the Dell XPS 13 with the Intel 1230U and the Z13 with the smaller AMD 6650U can outlast the x13S. Not by a crazy long time, but still. If you scroll down to the battery test in the written review you can compare different modesl: www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X13s-G1-Laptop-Das-Debuet-des-Qualcomm-Snapdragon-8cx-Gen-3.647185.0.html#toc-7

[@jurissadornas9489]

Seems the AMD system remains the winner if you are after performance AND battery life.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

For sure! AMD is in a great spot right now with their CPUs, offering quite the sweetspot between performance AND efficiency.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

The problem with AMD right now is they can't deliver the quantity of CPUs that Intel or Qualcomm can. Which is probably why the X-series doesn't offer AMD options and why all top end gaming laptops are shipping with Intel this year despite AMD having better performance and battery life.

[@alpzepta]

It’s seem like 4nm process helped with performance and battery life. Intel suck

[@svenasmussen8745]

If you want performance and batterylife at the moment macbooks really are the best Option. The performance gap is so big that windows runs faster in a vm on mac than it does on the fastest comparable windows laptops. And the battery life is like twice as long, literally

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

@@alpzepta It's not 4nm. It's N4. The smallest feature on an N4 transistor is still approximately 9nm. I think TSMC and Intel changed their branding because they were worried about legal consequences for false advertising. It seems that a lot of the more surface level tech reviewers are doing the false advertising for them.

[@smorrow]

Does it work with inline controls (on the headphones)? Things that are "devices" tend to, proper computers never do; this one seems like it could go either way.

[@cars12h72]

Is this laptop more than enough for Vimbox? Please answer

[@raghuramabhat]

Would you please post a review solely to cover advantages and disadvantages of SW in this X13s. How well it runs Microsoft 365 suite ? what are the available 3rd party applcations for ARM like adobe reader, Chrome etc? how fast those apps run in X13s compared to X86 ?

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Unfortunately, we do not have these samples anymore. But we will keep it in mind for future windows on ARM reviews!

[@user-hq1oe6qo1d]

Late to the party on this one. Question: to install MS Office on an ARM X13S laptop, do you need a specific “ARM” version of Office? Or can you simply use the conventional “MS Office for Windows”. Thanks.

[@ericespino7361]

Why are the Geekbench results so different in comparison to yours?

[@grinsk3ks]

Would be nice to see it with an OS more optimised for arm. Did you try slapping fedora or arch on there?

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

No, we did not. We usually test the laptops we get for a review the same way a customer would get them. It sounds like an interesting experiment, tho.

[@ps5hasnogames55]

Linux doesn't properly support these yet. Drivers aren't there.

[@StopTheDictator]

The biggest problem with x13s, that Lenovo doesn't give us linux support! Qualcomm makes great cpu's, much powerful than Rockchip (like new rk3588 that is pretty good), but we need linux support!

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Is that a Qualcomm or Lenovo limitation?

[@kendambrosio3714]

Support is coming... slowly. I honestly don't know why Lenovo bothered releasing the unit *without* Linux support, but that was apparently a decision made away from the Linux folks. The good news is that there have been many kernel updates for the X13s, and even Ubuntu has lately been making comments (if you dig deeply enough) about the X13s getting support in the installer. When it first came out, there was a huge surge of interest, and people trying to get it working with (basically) RasPi stuff. And it worked -- technically. But no sound, no accelerated video, no Bluetooth, spotty WiFi... just Not Very Good. But now that stuff is being written _for_ it? I expect Ubuntu 23.04 will have marginal support, and I bet by the time 23.10 rolls around, it'll be in good shape. NOTE: this is quite possibly with the exception of the webcam, which many Thinkpads have had issues with lately WRT Linux, due to the new approach that's been taken. Hopefully that gets fixed up... soonishish? Maybe? Bringing my X13s to Italy for an extended business trip in March; hoping I can get a beta of 23.04 installed during that time.

[@ramseyrodriguez8515]

The biggest problem is that Qualcomm seems working not as hard with their CX series yet. Gen 3 is the first featuring cortex X cores, launched in 2020; while competing in price with Intel and AMD bests designs from 2022. If they have launched this in 2020, would have been a beast. The long delayed Nuvia cores will keep backfiring if they don’t come up to their full game.

[@khaledmahmoud4812]

@@NotebookcheckReviews it's lenovo. Linux 5.20 To Support The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 but how about the other hardware components from lenovo. You can't boot Linux.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

@@khaledmahmoud4812 There was no Linux 5.20. It went from 5.19 to 6.0. And 6.0 came out in August 2022, the 8cx Gen3 was announced in December 2021, but wasn't available in any actual products until October 2022. Maybe you're right, maybe Qualcomm contributed to kernel support before it launched, I'm just saying the dates don't really add up.

[@tutacat]

I wouldn't be surprised if most all Arm laptops will use direct IO camera for high quality.

[@Sbato]

Do you think that a Windows ARM laptop (in my case, it would be a snadpragon 850) would perform worse than the standard dual core i3 (10th-11th gen)? This is the question to me, since i find these kind of products to be in the same price range.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Which device are you talking about? I am not sure if we have tested the 850 yet ...

[@Sbato]

@@NotebookcheckReviews in my case it would have been a Thomson Neo Z3

[@Simon-kz4dv]

Good video! Will you be able to get the T14P which just released in China and make a review video?

[@Nuri_91]

Is the Snapdragon one suited for heavy Excel and InDesign use or would the Intel/AMD route be better suited for that? I'm mainly interested in the Snapdragon model because it has no annoying fan and with that no dust build up, which I really like.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

Snapdragon is just as good as an i5 for Excel. I have never used InDesign, but being an Adobe product, it probably runs like crap if at all on Snapdragon. If anything Adobe is in your workflow your best options are as follows (best to worst): Mac, Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU, AMD integrated graphics, AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU, Intel integrated graphics, iPad, AMD GPU, Snapdragon. All of these are excellent products, but Adobe just doesn't support AMD GPUs very well or Windows on ARM at all.

[@abusalem411]

Than go for a Macbook air😂 (seriously tho) As of now, Windows on ARM is nothing more than proof of work, but far from ready. This s model is ok for browsing and some light office use.

[@Nuri_91]

@@abusalem411 nah, fuck mac. can't stand the os. otherwise arm macs are great machines tho.

[@Otts287]

This guy is so charming, I subscribed. 😅 The video was very informative overall. Thank you very much!! 😊

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Thanks for the sub!

[@Otts287]

@@NotebookcheckReviews Sure. Please keep making more videos. 😊

[@gelotress479]

Design wise, I like the X13s better (yes the subtle differences). But seeing how it is supposed to be like a subvariant of the regular X13 confuses me. I was expecting them to be the same design, but maybe a tad bitter smaller from the regular one. It's as if the 's' prefix now denotes a different product line it feels.. But hey, maybe I'm just being too picky...

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

It does look and feel quite a bit more modern than the regular X13, I agree. Unfortunately, you do loose quite a bit of practicability with it too ...

[@smorrow]

-s was always a different line. For example the early T4s (up to T430s, I think) were basically big X3's rather than slim T4's (ULV cores, chamfered edges in all the same places as the X3 series, ports in about the same layout as the X3 series, VGA port on a flying lead same as the X3 series).

[@therealcthulhu9813]

I wonder what it would be like to run an arm version of linux on it?

[@bsdpowa]

same as on Raspberry Pi, ARM is not an exotic, it's actually well supported by both Windows and Linux

[@microlinux]

I would like to see what suite you used to measure the gpu performance...

[@jamice4u]

It would be nice to see arm CPUs in 15 and 17 in laptops with larger batteries.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Interesting idea.

[@cubicspider5295]

i anticipate the day we finally get consumer PCs powered by ARM(apple doesnt count)

[@allergictobs9751]

can u do thiis review again after installing arm linus distros

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Unfortunately we do not have the review sample on hand anymore!

[@brennyfeliz2692]

Hey man, thank you for all of your reviews. I have a personal question I would like to ask you guys in terms of buying one of the products you review? Would it be acceptable to message you?

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

What would you like to ask?

[@brennyfeliz2692]

@@NotebookcheckReviews Are you going to be doing a review on the new MSI Titan G77 HX 13V? Honestly, I want to purchase a Laptop that is high quality and will last for at least five-seven years without any problems on the inside and outside and won’t require constant maintenance if I buy it brand new. I have been stuck between buying either Alienware X17 R2 and MSI Titan G77 12UHS. However, I read from your site that MSI was releasing an improved version of MSI Titan G77-the MSI Titan G77 HX 13V-and I got interested in it if it may be worth the buy. May I ask for your thoughts on what would be best to buy? Should I wait for the new MSI Titan? I would be grateful to hear back from you.

[@brennyfeliz3231]

@@NotebookcheckReviews was it too long of a question? Or are you not comfortable answering.

[@slavauukraini]

Arm v9 is must for pc future

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

I am sure we will see more ARM powered PCs in the future.

[@AgentZeroNine1]

@@NotebookcheckReviews I'm betting that Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs will invalidate Windows on ARM come 2024 when it releases and Qualcomm's new and very hyped NUVIA ARM CPU release.

[@alfreezer4134]

X Elite releases this week... It would be interesting to see a test of Apple Silicon under Windows, when Microsoft allows the use of any chips on their OS. For now, there is an exclusive contract with Qualcomm until 2025

[@zizlog_sound]

It’s about time that RISC systems gain momentum in computers. Not considering Apple’s closed up and everything soldered on sh$t. It’s unfortunate that Lenovo did solder the RAM in the X13s as well.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

I guess that is the byproduct of ever-thinner devices. Manufacturers seem to think thats what we all want. Or maybe most users simply do not care if something is upgradable or repairable anyway... ?!

[@smorrow]

You speak as if RISC has some tendency to be modular. If anything, RISC is where you always HAVE had soldered-down parts (think Raspberry Pi for example).

[@Dragon_1206]

I use a Surface Pro X SQ2 with Visual Studio and am thrilled with the performance. It runs much faster than on an Intel I5. I will no longer buy an X86. Hopefully, there will soon be Microsoft's own processors.

[@booby163]

What about visual studio code and docker??

[@ericjohnson5990]

Has anyone tried VS code or Visual Studio on the X13s?

[@NeoBlueBearZchannel]

i wanna know this as well

[@ironrobin]

Yeah both have arm native support.

[@SebastianSipos]

can't believe the comparison is made on browsing the web and office suite

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

What are you missing?

[@blender_tom]

6:33 which game is that? Looks like Minecraft, but I haven't see a bottom bar like that in Minecraft

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

That would Minecraft Dungeons!

[@samus4799]

Just bought this. I’ve used a Samsung with ARM for the past 5 years. Will be a very simple transition for me.

[@yogaaltariz9991]

It is compatible with Windows Copilot?

[@autohmae]

Not so worried about software on ARM if you want to run Linux on it..

[@yuvrajsingh099]

Comparison with Linux on Arm will be appreciated.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

I will keep it in mind for future videos! :)

[@mystery2plays629]

As a German I gotta say: This German Accent is killing me. 😂

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Nothing I can do about it 🤷‍♂️😅

[@sdprsavu]

Hahaha finde ich auch 😂...ich sehe mich wieder

[@ENT_PRESTIGIOUS]

if only we could get bigger sizes and better performance

[@Jbrimbelibap]

Experimenting with windows on arm is way more fun when you get a android 13 windows 11 dual boot on your phone

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

How is that going for you? :D

[@Jbrimbelibap]

@@NotebookcheckReviews It's working surprisingly well, my phone might actually be one the only 120hz windows arm devices so it is smooth as well. S1 sleep works so my phone loses less power than my laptop on sleep mode 😅

[@jond4634]

Why didnt you compare ARM with AMD?

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Unfortunately, we only had samples for these two at our disposal. But I included benchmark numbers from the AMD-powered ThinkPad Z13. That should put things into perspective, doesn't it?

[@sdfjsd]

7:42 It doesn't make sense. The Thinkpad z13 has worse battery life according to your chart than the X13s, but you said the opposite.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

The one on the chart has a different CPU than the one he's speaking about. Ryzen 5 outlasts the X13s, Ryzen 7 isn't as good.

[@LaFamilia90731]

No touch screen?

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Nope

[@KingDStefan]

Imagine next cpu 8cx g4 with nanographene batteries. Battery life will last for days!

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Let us hope so!

[@froschfreak1699]

X86 is dead. Since I do most of my work on a Silicon Mac I can’t imagine going back to x86. It feels absolutely outdated. Sometimes I need to work on my Lenovo to package UE5 apps on Windows. No fun at all to work on the PC laptop. May take a while until the transition is done on Windows but x86 just reached it’s limits.

[@inamulbhuyan]

Qualcomm snapdragon 8cx gen 4 beat m2

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

We will have to wait and see. A powerful CPU is one thing, software/developer support another ... But let us hope so, competition is, in the end, good for consumers.

[@justiziero]

Are the tests made in x86 emulation on arm? If is this, the comparison is not fair. You should run test natively. I have always thought Microsoft should change their planning and develop everything for ARM, because it is supposed to be a less powerful architecture, it would make more sense to emulate ARM in x86 than the opposite.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Most of the tests have been emulated since there weren't available natively at the time of testing.

[@justiziero]

@@NotebookcheckReviews Hey hi!Thanks for the answer! Oh nice to know it! Maybe you should say it on the videos to know these results are with emulation and not natively, so we can hope for better results running natively! BTW: I love your videos!

[@mediamass1404]

2 usba is terrible

[@RK-um9tu]

Who keeps their screen on at 100% brightness while on battery? Apple fansboys who don't report if battery saver was on, if bluetooth was on, if all background apps were closed, if Edge or Chrome was used, etc. Bet the Apple laptop was using Safari and the Windows laptop wasn't using Microsoft Edge.

[@corsinivideos]

I dont understand how qualcomm and microsoft are so far behind aple when it comes to ARM cpu and OS support, its completely insane.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Apple still has the advantage of everything being designed under the same roof. For PCs, its the OS, the CPU and the hardware from different manufacturers.

[@ArtemUA94]

apple also sold billions of phones and tablets with similar chips

[@zchen27]

Apple is a closed ecosystem of hardware and software, not to mention plenty of experience to draw on from making mobile devices.

[@corsinivideos]

@@NotebookcheckReviews Yes but qualcomm has been making ARM cpus for decades and microsoft have been working on windows for ARM with qualcomm as one of their primary chip suppliers for 12+ years , the fact they are so far behind apple after all these years is still ridiculous to me. Shouldn't take 12+ years to port one operating system to one system architecture.

[@ZENECKADMER]

It's not ridiculous. It's because of the position of Intel and AMD on the PC chip market.

[@SDRIFTERAbdlmounaim]

i don't even see the point of an Arm laptop yet unless it equals or surpasses it's x86 counterpart... in my opinion arm should stay in tablets only

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Well, if you are doing something that does not need much horsepower. For example, if you are only using this for web stuff and writing reports, who cares if the CPU is faster in Cinebench?! Wouldn't you instead take a silent system with longer battery life?

[@SDRIFTERAbdlmounaim]

@@NotebookcheckReviews makes sense

[@zchen27]

I'm curious to see if Nvidia's data center combined Arm/Ada SoCs would see some kind of spread into the PC market.

[@Silver_o]

But the Apple M series chips for the Macbook is ARM based and it peforms well. Even better than intel, and has phenomenal battery life. I think a lot of refinement needs to be done, and a purpose built chip for windows can be designed that will be very powerful and even more energy efficient.

[@ramseyrodriguez8515]

@@Silver_o yes they can, but the 2021 released 8cx features a 2020 released Cortex X1 core design. For some reason (my guess, the much delayed Nuvia cores) Qualcomm has not deployed the latest Gen Cortex-X series cores in their processors for laptops. The 8cx Gen 3 could have outperformed 11th Gen Intel chips, and X3s could match 13th Gen Intel while on battery.

[@VigilanceTech]

From my perspective there's NO reason to run windows on an ARM platform. In fact, the main reason to run ARM is to get AWAY from Windows and its legacy x86 instruction code base, which is FAR less efficient, which means increased need for cooling and reduced battery life. I'd like to see this review with the x13s running Linux with properly ported/configured power management.

[@salvadorfonseca165]

Yeah, this is obviously irrelevant. You're putting up an ARM processor against a I5. Trying to compare processors from two totally different classes doesn't make any sense. Anyway if you're only getting about 10 hours of use out of the X13s, obviously you're doing something wrong because I have to charge mine every 3 or 4 days. On days where I really stream videos for very long periods. I can get all day use with usually 15% to 25% of battery life still left.

[@godnyx117]

Almost 8 months later and I checked this laptop out, and it costs 2000€. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nice joke Lenovo, nice joke!

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

So you do not think thats worth it?

[@godnyx117]

@@NotebookcheckReviews What? Hell, nah! I could buy a car with that money...

[@ufukpolat3480]

This might be a bit of a conspiracy theory here but it's not without precedent. All these manufacturers seem to be confining their designs to slower arm chips, making arm look as the inferior/budget architecture. AMD used to face a similar problem until the late Ryzen era where their CPUs were always paired with horrible cheap designs. This had the effect of consumers associating AMD with low quality. To this date, despite all the evidence to the contrary accumulated over the last half decade, I see idiots claiming AMD CPUs are unstable and run hot. It's more than possible to cram a highly efficient and powerful ARM chip in a laptop, as Apple proved, however that might put smaller and less influential companies to get on Intel's bad side. Alder Lake is a decent desktop platform but on the mobile side, it's too inefficient.

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

It's a different situation. Intel (and Nvidia) have way more brand recognition, so the average consumer will likely buy a laptop with those two names. So even if Qualcomm or AMD, for that matter, come out with a "better" chip, it will be a significant risk for a manufacturer to stuff those chips into their high-end/premium offerings. And as we have seen with AMD, it may take some time, but there are a handful of high-end alternatives with Team Reds chips. It's just a slow process, and manufacturers have to see if consumers will put their money where their mouth is and buy thise alternative products.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

The 8cx Gen3 in this laptop is the fastest ARM CPU not made by Apple. Lenovo put the best chip they could in it.

[@ivand5699]

The Apple desktop ARM is not just the iPhone CPU, from my understanding is a derivative with bigger die size due to Rosetta 2 x86 emulation ISA extension. The Snapdragon chip lacks those advantages, plus Snapdragon chips have smaller caches, less memory bandwith and less transistor count due to smaller die sizes to achieve lower cost-production and to be sell to companies at competitive prices.

[@evacody1249]

Dude laptops that have AMD or Intel CPUs are going to be fast are better for high end work. Laptops using AMD or Nvidia GPUs are going to be better for high end work and gaming. You are comparing a mobile chip to CPUs and GPUs that can be found in desktops and saying that they are designed to be slower. No that's not the case. There is a reason Apple is not comparing there chips to the full power of a i9 or Ryzen 9 found in a desktop. They would smoke the Apple mobile chip sets.

[@rexbk09]

"so you don't have to!" - Notebookcheckreviews ........ Yeah right! Would love to try out products for testing and reviewing!

[@NotebookcheckReviews]

Its a tough job, but someone has to do it ;)