Ask HN: Is Thinkpad X1 Carbon an Alternative to MacBook Pro?
I haven&#x27;t made the shift from a Mac to a Windows laptop. I&#x27;ve been a Windows&#x2F;Linux user since forever but most of my workplace uses the newer MacBook with the touch bar, so I had the time to make a fair comparison. Here&#x27;s my take:<p>- If you haven&#x27;t used Windows before, that&#x27;s going to be the biggest hit. Bigger than the hardware itself. But if you&#x27;re okay with it, then you&#x27;re good to go. Windows 10 in its current version is the best I have used; I haven&#x27;t seen any security issues and the updates are a breeze and do not take a noticeable time to install. If you want a bash or a full Linux env, you can just run a VM or use WSL which is close (but not exactly Linux). WSL2 should close that loophole too and you&#x27;ll get a decent integration with Windows user-space as well.<p>- The MacBook looks better than most laptops out there. But I wouldn&#x27;t dismiss X1 Carbon so soon. I&#x27;ve got a Silver X1 Carbon Gen 6. This was a happy accident; I didn&#x27;t realize there are other colors available beside Black while I was ordering. But the metallic look and color are fantastic along with the small red dot light on the back of the screen. The ThinkPad logo on the back of the screen looks dated though, probably due to the font.<p>- One thing you’ll note instantly is that the laptop is much lighter than the MacBook. However, it still feels durable. You can easily hold it up with one hand while giving an in-person demo&#x2F;presentation to someone. This is the lightest laptop I have used, and it has increased my portability in the office.<p>- X1 Carbon uses the ThinkPad’s legendary keyboard; it has the perfect key travel distance and key spacing. The overall experience is just perfect and makes you feel that you&#x27;re using a product that&#x27;s been perfected over a long period of time. Plus, it has got real physical keys for the function keys with all the cool shortcuts to sound and settings that you need. All of this is a stark contract to MacBook’s keyboard which so many have already written about to be the worst keyboard MacBook has ever had. Overall, you&#x27;ll get used to the keyboard and will never look back after that.<p>- One point I should note is that MacBook’s keyboard has better backlighting compared to X1 Carbon&#x27;s which leaks around the keys a lot. I rarely ever need backlighting so it&#x27;s not a concern for me. There&#x27;s also the unique TrackPoint in the middle of the keyboard but it never gets in the way of using the keyboard.<p>- One of the very few downsides to the X1 Carbon is its smaller trackpad compared to the MacBook. It is accurate and sensitive. You can tap (not press) to register a click. There are three physical buttons on the top for the left, right and the middle click. And the bottom of the trackpad can be pressed for the left and the right clicks as well. Overall, a larger trackpad would have been nicer and the physical keys on top of the trackpad just feels like legacy and is the only ugly part of the laptop when it&#x27;s open.<p>- There&#x27;s a fingerprint scanner right beside the trackpad. I&#x27;ve gotten used to playing nice with it. Otherwise, it misses recognition frequently, perhaps due to its small size.<p>- MacBook have arguably the best screens out there. X1 Carbon&#x27;s screen is close though; I can&#x27;t tell the  difference between mine and my colleague&#x27;s screen. X1 Carbon supports HDR mode so that&#x27;s a big plus if you stream HDR content from Netflix. I avoided the more expensive 4k Dolby screen option and went for a full-HD one to save battery during work. The verdict is a pretty close one on this and I couldn&#x27;t decide.<p>- Ports on this laptop are much better than the new MacBook: two USB Type-A (3.1), two USB-C Lightening and a full-sized HDMI port. I&#x27;ve never needed an additional USB hub or connector but if you have that, you&#x27;ll be able to connect two external screens to your X1 Carbon. One USB-C port is used for charging as well. There&#x27;s a propriety port as well for connecting a ThinkPad dock as well (yes, they&#x27;re cool but pricey). You can use this to add an ethernet port through an addon. The ports are again a sharp contract to the MacBook; every dev at my company has a USB hub attached to the side of their MacBook when they’re working which is a shame.<p>- Dual-array mic are pretty good and noise cancellation is stellar. But the speakers on the other side are quite bad. They&#x27;re placed below the laptop, just underneath the trackpad. These have been moved to the sides of the laptop in Gen 7 but I am not familiar with the sound quality of Gen 7. Dolby Atmos comes preinstalled; if you attach a headphone to the headphone jack (yup, there&#x27;s one), Atmos kicks in and improves the sound quality of whatever you&#x27;re playing. There&#x27;s an Atmos app that comes preinstalled and it allows some level of control over the enhancement.<p>- Battery life is stellar; a 100% charge lasts throughout a day of development work (about 7-10 hours). There&#x27;s a feature you can use to limit max charging level to 70-80% if you frequently work with the charger plugged in. This improves your battery life. Also, charging is fast for the first 50% so that&#x27;s a bonus if you like your portability and like to avoid carrying a charger.<p>- There&#x27;s no audible noise from the CPU fan during normal usage. It&#x27;s pretty tough to write about the heat dissipation of the laptop; I&#x27;m from a hot country so laptop heat dissipation for most laptops is fairly lacking for me. The metal body and the fan on the side are supposed to keep the laptop cool and it should work okay if you don&#x27;t live in Pakistan :)<p>Overall, I&#x27;d say the X1 Carbon Gen 6 is one of the best laptops out there. They beat MacBook at making you feel productive (precondition being that you&#x27;re comfortable with Windows or Linux). With the X1 Carbon Gen 7 already available with the latest Intel processors, I would recommend a buy.