COMMEMORATING 30 YEARS
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 laptop celebrates the milestone with retro design and sustainable packaging
The ThinkPad is an iconic brand trusted by business professionals for decades. The X-series are its flagship models that deliver performance, reliability, versatility and portability. Like all great products, many of the ThinkPad design elements made their way to other manufacturers’ products.
To commemorate the 30 years of legacy, this ThinkPad X1 30th Anniversary Limited Edition design is produced, which incidentally is X1’s 10th generation.
The ThinkPad X1 represents the epitome of portability and performance, and NXT has seen how the model matures over the 10 years. The 30th Anniversary X1 Carbon is largely based on the Gen 10 model’s hardware specs with minor cosmetic design changes, like the retro logo featuring IBM Tri-colour, silk print lettering, as well as laser-etched numbered edition of 6000 units worldwide. The retail packaging is made entirely of rapidly renewable materials that are 100 per cent compostable.
It is wrapped with a paper band detailing the history of ThinkPad and includes commemorative stickers, three Trackpoint caps in the respective iconic colours, and a collector’s booklet.
The review unit features a top-of-the-range Intel Core i7 processor with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD storage. Generous connectivity is available on both sides of the laptop, including a full-sized HDMI port, a 3.5mm audio port, USB Type-A, and two future-proof Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports which double as the charging port. It is odd though that the Thunderbolt port could not detect the video signal of the LG Libero monitor while other peripherals in the monitor are detected.
The top of the X1 full display sits the FHD webcam with a lens shutter and an IR camera for facial recognition. This camera was covered when shipped while the webcam was exposed, which gave the impression that there was only a single lens. You have to remove the protection sticker or else Windows Hello will not work.
Similarly, the power button which doubles as the fingerprint sensor has a protection sticker which should be removed before use. It is a bonus to have two biometric authentication methods on the X1 Carbon Gen 10 to allow the user to log in using either method. In addition, the FHD and IR cameras detect proximity, and shoulder surfing, so that the display can blur out when users look away.
The 14-inch OLED display not only offers outstanding visuals, but the anti-reflective glass coating is also one of the better ones in the market which mitigates glare. The keyboard is, as always, excellent, and I appreciate that the [Fn] and [Ctrl] keys on the bottom left can be re-assigned depending on individual preference. If I were to nitpick, the bottom right arrow keys are too small and the unit gets hot quickly which makes it impossible to rest on my lap. The battery life is also just average, lasting about 4 hours of active usage, but the rapid charging ensures minimal disruption to productivity.
Rating 4.5/5
We say:This commemorative edition design is made for fans and collectors with few technical extras compared to the standard version.
From S$3,688
www.lenovo.com/sg
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Processor Intel vPro with 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1270P 2.2GHz processor Operating System Windows 11 Pro
Display 14-inch 2.8K 16:10 (2880×1800) OLED 400 nits, anti-glare, anti-reflection, anti-smudge
Camera FHD RGB f/2.0 & IR Camera with ThinkShutter
Memory 16GB Soldered LPDDR5 6400MHz
Storage 512GB SSD M.2.2280 PCIe Gen 4
Connectivity 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB 3.2 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x Audio,
1x Nano-SIM, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6E
Dimensions 315.6 x 222.5 x 15.36 mm
Weight 1.12 kg
