Lenovo, I have a plea; Please stop! I only have so much money!
For the last year or so I’ve had two laptops for my personal use. My P43s, which I love. It has been a great machine for my needs. It has the horsepower I need to edit videos and work remotely, but it is not all that light and the battery doesn’t last all that long. So I also have one of these, lenovo’s most budget of systems, an Ideapad 1 (this one with the amd 3050e). It fills that gap, it is super light, super thin with a super long battery life, but it’s use is limited to watching streaming video and checking email. But having two laptops is kind of a pain, and so I’m always on the lookout for a new solution, and I went on the internet and I found this:
In full disclosure, Lenovo is awesome, and has graced me with the opportunity to review this, A thinkpad x1 nano, so I did not buy it with my own money. And while not a perfect laptop, it comes dang close.
The specs are all there. An 11th gen core i7, 16 gigs of ram, xe graphics, 13” 16:10 aspect ratio, super bright 2k touch screen, beautiful carbon fiber body.
The keyboard is fantastic. It is slightly smaller and slightly different from my p43s, the key travel is shorter, and it has a bit more resistance. But that isn’t a detriment. It gives a great feel, and if you like thinkpad keyboards, you’ll be up to your standard typing speed and accuracy in just a few minutes. The extra resistance makes up for the lack of travel, giving a similar amount of effort for key presses. It is far better than the ideapads/legions I have reviewed, better than any dell or HP keyboard I have reviewed. Thinkpad Keyboards are one of the biggest reasons I keep going back to the brand.
One of my favorite things is that it is nearly silent, and runs cool. Typical tasks don’t stress the system so it generates little to no heat, and even when running benchmarks, it still stays lap comfortable even when being pushed to the max. The fan noise is nearly non-existent, with just the slightest whoosh of air.
That 16:10 aspect ratio makes 13” a usable size. I have tested a number of 13” laptops, and have never really liked them. I feel like the drop from 14 to 13 you lose too much usability without gaining any benefits of much smaller 11 and 12” screen laptops.. But due to the aspect ratio, it makes it taller and narrower, and so you get most of the vertical height of a 14”, but it also makes the system physically smaller and lighter. I really hope this trend continues on laptops. It’s not quite going back to the 4:3 days, but it’s absolutely a step in the right direction.
Battery life is excellent, while using this laptop I was getting well over 7+ hours on a charge. And that’s without it dropping to battery saver or reducing screen brightness. Your mileage will vary of course, based on usage.
Weight, this laptop is under a kilo… the touch screen model just over 2lbs, non touch just under. I couldn’t find anything. The performance without the weight? Yes please.
Compared to my P43s with dedicated graphics it performs so much better with integrated graphics.
CPU: 4000 points better
GPU:500 points better
Is it a gaming laptop? No, but will it run your 3d printer software? A a VM or two? Absolutely.
Where is it lacking? I said it’s not perfect. To be this thin and light, have a touch screen, sacrifices had to be made. It has a gloss screen. I much prefer a mat screen. Working in offices with fluorescent lighting, or sometimes having to work outside, I find the mat screens just easier on my eyes. I personally would skip the touch screen, and get the available mat screen, BUT you then lose the attractive carbon fiber top, and get just a black case. You also only get two thunderbolt ports. It’s all about that dongle life ‘yo. I will say that 3 years ago, for me personally that would be unacceptable. But today? I’ve had a few laptops that charge from usb-c, so I have spare power cords. I’ve had to pick up a few usb-c docs, I have had to get a bluetooth mouse, I’ve upgraded my home wifi, so it is not the punishment it used to be. In a larger laptop it is still not acceptable to make these port sacrifices, but for something this small, this light, it’s acceptable. Now comes the big pill to swallow, The laptop MSRP is pushing $3000… BUT Lenovo being Lenovo almost always has some sort of sale going on. And right now the top spec one goes for $1500, but that could change in the next few days.