I need to come right out and confess a bias for Thinkpads. My first laptop was a Thinkpad 380 and there are design elements on Thinkpads that I think are just wonderful. As a writer, I find the Trackpoint mouse solution perfect for never having to take my hands off the keys and they make the best laptop keyboards in the business.
I’ve long loved the X series of Thinkpads in specific. I used an X30 way past the “long in the tooth” stage (ah, memories of a boy’s first Hackintosh), and I always admired how light they were. In recent years, Lenovo has upped the light and thin X line in a sort of “arms race” with the folks at Apple, and we the users get to reap the results. The most recent of which would be the X1. I recently had a chance to play with one and it’s everything I love about Lenovo.
It’s 16mm thick, which is basically the size of my thumb. I don’t know if it’s a mental thing, but it felt almost as light as some of the tablets I tried that night at Pepcom. Where it’s not light is on power or features. A second gen Core i7 2.7 chip powers the device. I don’t know how much DDR3 RAM was in the review unit, but it was enough to make it absolutely blaze. There was a great selection of ports, including a USB 3.0 port and an HDMI port. The backlit keyboard was a nice touch – I prefer backlighting to the keyboard lights we used to see on the T and R series laptops. There was also Dolby Surround Sound, but due to the noise at the venue, I didn’t get to try it out. For the paranoid, there’s a fingerprint reader with a neat Lenovo feature – swipe it on with your finger and it will log you right into your account. Humming the theme to “Mission Impossible” when doing this is not necessary, but I recommend it anyway.
Lenovo has also added what they call RapidCharge – a special solution they claim gets your battery up to 80% in 30 minutes. If you’ve ever sat there waiting for your laptop to get enough charge to last your flight or commute, then this may appeal to you.
The X1 is solid too. The screen is Gorilla glass, which really does seem to be everywhere these days. The drive is in a roll cage to protect against drops. They keyboard is nice and spill resistant, and actually looks good at the same time.
The only thing the X1 lacks in any way is a media drive. This is becoming more and more typical of thin and lights, so it’s hardly a deal breaker. Be sure to add an external DVD drive to your shopping cart if you decide to get this.
With that said, this was only a hands-on and not a full review, so I cannot say “go get this”. What I can say, however, is that if you are in the market for a powerful, lightweight, well-designed laptop then you would be missing out if you didn’t give this a look.
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