 The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the suit of laptops, with its thin tailored bezels and stark black back with a logo pocket square accent. Bringing it out of your bag says, you don't have time for someone to be late, and that the meeting notes you take will be both somehow exceptionally thorough and concise. But is the X1 just a suit, or is there more substance behind it? Like the substance bringing you this video, Zotac's Mech-1 gaming PC. It's ultra slim and features a sleek robotic style design. Check it out at the link below to learn more. That's not really a substance, is it? It's more of a product. The build quality of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is exceptional, with a very stiff chassis, especially considering how light it is. And it's got plastics that feel soft and good on the hands. The overall feel of it is more like a tool or a piece of equipment, which might not appeal to folks who grab their laptop and say, you're the kind of person who wants a thin and light, but also still wants to plug stuff into it. And that's what we've got. A shmattering of Type-A and Type-C USBs, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, and a USB-C port. And that's what we've got. A shmattering of Type-A and Type-C USBs, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, and a USB-C port. A shmattering of Type-A and Type-C USBs, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, and Ethernet with pass-through to their proprietary dock. A very important feature for accessing your corporate network when you are docked. Performance-wise, you've got the pick of the litter with 8th Gen Intel U-Series processors from a Core i5 all the way up to the Core i7-8650U. Although it should be noted that Lenovo tuned the CPU in their top config to 15 watts. So Dell's XPS 13 actually performs better with a lower tier processor. Though not by much. Over a half hour stress test, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon reached around 90 degrees, which is a little on the hot side, but wasn't enough for it to thermal throttle, putting it ahead in performance of basically every other thin and light that we've tested. And the keyboard, that's another strong point. With its long 18mm key travel and super satisfying tactile bump, it's a solid contender for best notebook keyboard on the market. Compared to say the MacBook Pro, I don't think I can actually hit the same peak speed for short, bursty messages, but if I had to type for hours, I would much rather use the X1. Which I can easily do with its over 6 hours of battery life. And while we're praising the keyboard, isn't it about time that somebody put snipping tool on the print screen button? Now the trackpad, this is also good, but maybe not as excellent. The tracking and feel is solid and satisfying, but pulling out the MacBook Pro for comparison reminded me how nice it would be if I could click on the whole thing and how small it is. Like, I realized that the options are either a small trackpad or a mouse nipple. So, it's not a simple choice, but I'm personally not a trackpoint guy, so nah, sorry, sorry everyone. But I would actually like to see that vertical space used another way. Now there are two screen options that really stick out with the X1, with the most interesting being the new 2560x1440 glossy finish with HDR. Look at them side by side even. Dang, this thing is nice to look at. At this size, you really don't need 4K, but the extra sharpness at 1440p is more than welcome. Then the colors, brightness, and black levels all blew me away, which is all fine and good if you're buying a laptop for watching movies, but given how, how do I put this gently? Bad. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for, bad. The speaker sound, movies are probably not what you want this for. You want it to use between 9 and 5, so actually out of the two displays we tried, the 1080p with touch is the one that got the most use. Its matte finish is great when you have to work under fluorescent lights, and I'm never going to turn down the opportunity to navigate using my screen. Unfortunately, I do really like unlocking my computer with my face, and facial recognition sign-in is only available on the higher res model, forcing me to use the fingerprint reader to the right of the trackpad, which, by the way, is the wrong place. Anywhere but the power button these days is the wrong place. Though, to Lenovo's credit, while their reader isn't as fast as the Dell XPS or the LG Gram, it uses match-on-chip technology for an additional layer of security, so I won't be docking any points. What I will be docking points for, though, is the webcam. I do like the additional security of being able to just flip it shut so that no one can be spying on me in the event that my computer is compromised, but when it isn't disabled, quite frankly, it is just not good enough for a webcam in 2018, especially on a business skew that is presumably going to be used for conference calls. Taking apart the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is pretty easy, but doesn't give you access to a whole lot of upgrade options. The storage is upgradable, which is nice, but the RAM is not, so make sure you grab enough when you're buying, though, now that I think about it, should you buy one of these? The pricing makes a clear recommendation here actually kind of difficult. At regular price, it is a big, fat, no, but Lenovo was really cagey about whether the promotional prices on their website were actually promos or if they were just attempts to make you feel like you're getting a special deal every day, so if the price you pay is closer to what was on the site when we were shooting this, it's $13.50 to start, that is still more than an XPS, but for business use, the SIM slot could massively improve productivity in the field, and then back in the office, the X1 will make the IT department happy as a clam too. When it's connected to the dock, Mac address pass-through, PXE boot, and wake on LAN, along with all of the additional security features, and withstanding, will allow your company to be productive during the day and sleep well at night. Speaking of being productive during the day, Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes in design, business, technology, and more. 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