My new laptop setup - Lenovo Carbon X1

 

Back in February, I placed an order for my new work laptop – Lenovo Carbon X1 and I also got the USB 3.0 Dock. It took over a month before I received it, but I did get it and finally got everything configured and working nicely on it. I thought I would just share my experience so far with my new machine. I am going to section off my comments into three sections – Overall thoughts, What I like and What I wish were better.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, I am very happy with this new laptop. I am happy with the power of the laptop and how it performs when running my applications. The ability to have four monitors while working at home (with docking station) is a HUGE plus. Since I have a Core i7 with 8 GB of RAM, I am able to run Client Hyper-V with no problems for some of my basic testing and demoing. Having used a Lenovo T61p and W510 for the last 5+ years (3 for W510), I totally DON’T miss the weight in my backpack. In fact, I think the fancy travel adapter (with all the cords) for the Carbon X1 weighs almost as much as the laptop itself.

I do miss the 15.6” screen on my T61p, but am getting used to the 14” with the multi monitor abilities while working at home. I am bummed that I can’t just easily plug in my eSATA hard drive since there is no built in adapter like I have on my W510. I have also gotten used to having a large hard drive with a secondary drive in the multi purpose bay from my T61p and W510, but have really started using SkyDrive Pro a lot more to compensate for that. That is actually a nice benefit when moving between machines so it’s a good thing. Plus, I am now forced to clean up more.

I would definitely recommend this laptop as a very solid corporate laptop (has TPM)!

What I Like

• Light weight
• Thin
• Long battery life
• Capable of Client Hyper-V
• Touch screen
• Supports 4 screens with no problems using laptop screen, dock and video out (See screenshot below)
• Has the eraser head mouse stick (I like this feature)
• Boot time (True cold boot) is super fast – from initial Lenovo Post to logged into Start screen / desktop in 30 seconds
• Small USB dock that I can actually take with me for long road trips (has 5 USB 3 ports and 2 DVI ports) – See screenshot below

 

What I wish were Better

• SSD hard drive is only 240 GB. Wish it were 500 GB
• Had more USB ports (comes with 2)
• Missing an eSATA port. Would be fine if the dock had it, but it doesn’t either
• Larger screen (had a 15.6” and now working with 14”)
• Display is not HD (but still good)
• Graphics could be better (See Windows Experience Index screenshot below)
• Would be nice to have an included Video adapter that also supports HDMI (comes with VGA)

 

Screenshots

4 Monitor configuration

 

Windows Experience Index

 

 

Thinkpad USB 3.0 Dock

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  December 27, 2013
  Pingback from My new laptop setup - Lenovo Carbon X1 by michael douglas smith