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ThinkPad X1 Carbon

www3.lenovo.com

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Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#181

Post by schmichael »

Ubuntu on a ThinkPad X1 Carbon is my workstation. As a Go developer I only need Chrome, a terminal, and Go itself (which I install from the official tarball binaries).

Now that I have Google Fi I'm kicking myself for not getting the cell radio builtin as Google will send you a data only SIM for free! I would never have to deal with another terrible airport or hotel captive portal again!

My coworkers are all Macbook Pro users and ask why I don't get one too. I just don't see the point. I think MBP's build quality is nicer but otherwise I get twice the machine for the same price and get to develop on the same OS as my project primarily targets (Linux).

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#182

Post by flamedoge »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #160
old-gregg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we got accepted into YCombinator back in 2011 (Mailgun), I remember PG looking at our Thinkpads running Linux and asking something along the lines of "what's wrong with you?" , with almost [1] all YC teams using Macbooks. I wonder if it's the Valley culture? There is no way a Macbook can compete with a proper Thinkpad [2] for programmer productivity: the keyboard, the UltraNav, the swappable batteries (you can f…

I don't understand it either, the thing that always gets me is most developers setting up vagrant on their Mac just to get a working environment. Cut the bullshit and just run Linux on the bare metal, your program will run faster, and your laptop battery life won't be halved. You will have to claw my x201 out of my cold dead hands, I've not found a single notebook (even the newer ThinkPads) that are as comfortable to…

> not watching cat videos.

yea. ok

edit: Why not watch cat videos?

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#183

Post by rayiner »

old-gregg wrote: post #155
josteink wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're always some sort of plastic, feel flimsy and bendy The Carbon X1 is made from carbon fiber. It super-robust and light-weight at the same time. It feels light years ahead of the super-heavy aluminium-nonsense Apple is trying to peddle. Count me happy my laptop doesn't double as a bench-press.

When we got accepted into YCombinator back in 2011 (Mailgun), I remember PG looking at our Thinkpads running Linux and asking something along the lines of "what's wrong with you?" , with almost [1] all YC teams using Macbooks. I wonder if it's the Valley culture? There is no way a Macbook can compete with a proper Thinkpad [2] for programmer productivity: the keyboard, the UltraNav, the swappable batteries (you can f…

> There is no way a Macbook can compete with a proper Thinkpad [2] for programmer productivity: the keyboard, the UltraNav, the swappable batteries (you can fly around the world with a x260 + spare battery), a nice docking station

Keyboard and UltraNav are more taste than anything else. I have a T450s for work and a 15" rMBP and vastly prefer the keyboard/touchpad on the latter. It doesn't help that Lenovo's QA is shit. My T450s keyboard is bulging in the bottom right of the keyboard deck, and several of the keys stick for a millisecond on the way down. As if they're not quite seated properly and hitting the key causes something to click into place. I suspect it's temperature related, because it goes away after typing for awhile, but comes back after a bit of non-use.

> upgradeable storage/memory

Programmers are expensive. No reason not to buy a maxed-out machine to begin with.

Also, it's hard to get over Lenovo's penchant for shit displays if your job is to stare at text all day.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#184

Post by joatmon-snoo »

snupples wrote: post #107
soperj wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the apple keyboards, and only use the trackpoint(mouse nipple) and disable my trackpad immediately. So to each their own.

Yeah Lenovo actually removed the trackpoint in one generation (t440?) and had to bring it back due to demand. Maybe it's an acquired taste.

They never took it away, they tried to switch the touchpad to an integrated unit in the *40 gen (240, 440, 540) (like how Apple does it) and had to revert it because (1) they did such a godawful job of the sensitivity and (2) integrated touchpad buttons don't make sense in conjunction with the trackpoint.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#185

Post by schmichael »

josteink wrote: post #140
Waterluvian wrote: post #22

I want to be excited by a good non-Apple laptop. But they're all just so terribly designed. They're always some sort of plastic, feel flimsy and bendy, have grills and screw holes and uneven surfaces and stickers everywhere. I had a T530 for a few years at my first job and just hated it. It had fantastic specs but it felt awful and unreliable and like I had to babysit it. I got a 2015 MBP to replace it after IT damag…

> They're always some sort of plastic, feel flimsy and bendy The Carbon X1 is made from carbon fiber. It super-robust and light-weight at the same time. It feels light years ahead of the super-heavy aluminium-nonsense Apple is trying to peddle. Count me happy my laptop doesn't double as a bench-press.

I have a 4th gen Carbon X1, and I have to admit it feels flimsier than the last MBP I've used (I haven't used the latest generation MBP).

There's still some give when I pick it up one handed. I'd happily trade some weight and thickness for a more durable feel, but I might be in the minority.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#187

Post by techwizrd »

Waterluvian wrote: post #22

I want to be excited by a good non-Apple laptop. But they're all just so terribly designed. They're always some sort of plastic, feel flimsy and bendy, have grills and screw holes and uneven surfaces and stickers everywhere. I had a T530 for a few years at my first job and just hated it. It had fantastic specs but it felt awful and unreliable and like I had to babysit it. I got a 2015 MBP to replace it after IT damag…

The Dell XPS 13 is great. It runs Linux very well. The WiFi is excellent. It's got an aluminum chassis. The part where your hands rest is carbon-fiber composite so it isn't cold in the morning. The HiDPI touch screen is incredible, and the performance is pretty amazing. There is a single hinge stretching across most of the laptop for the screen (like the Macbook), unlike the flimsy set of two hinges on most laptops. Most laptops I've seen have broken at the hinge. I customized mine by maxing out the processor, screen, 16 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD. The unboxing experience was very well-designed and it really felt premium.

In short, this is the good non-Apple laptop that you're looking for.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#189

Post by fencepost »

farresito wrote: post #118
user5994461 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinkpads T have a huge range of specs. For any reference, there are hundreds of sub-references with different combinations of hardware.

Yes. I was referring to the relationship price-specs. Unless things have changed, a 1000$ thinkpad T won't probably buy you more than 8gb, an i5, possibly still a HDD (hopefully not anymore). I suppose people that are used to Macs won't see a problem with this, since Macs tend to be quite expensive, but it's still a bit of money, although I would rather spend this than buy a laptop that doesn't work well, like plenty…

Lenovo's prices for a lot of upgrades (RAM, SSD) tend to be high. My recommendation there is to upgrade the things that aren't reasonable to do yourself/later (screen, WiFi adapter if you have choices between 2x2 and 3x3, backlit keyboard, fingerprint reader). RAM and HD upgrades on Thinkpads tend to be pretty easy (though I don't know about the X1 never having looked at one), so for those it may be better to get the cheapest option then upgrade on your own.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#190

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

piker wrote: post #16

Has anyone installed Linux on this machine? If so, how has your experience been with respect to driver support, etc.? Thanks in advance.

I'm dual-booting Fedora 17 (with the KDE desktop) on my second generation X1 Carbon.

I don't remember having any serious trouble with any of the hardware, including the wifi (which can be a pain point). Connecting an external monitor also worked fine- I think that's another common pain point.

I couldn't find a clickpad driver that would support gestures as well as the proprietary Synaptics driver on Windows (but I tend not to use gestures anyway), and the battery seemed to drain faster on Linux than on Windows, but that's about it.

If memory serves (I've had this machine for a while) the only complain I had was that booting into grub2 was noticeably slower than booting into the Windows boot manager.

I also got the fourth generation model a couple of months ago but haven't yet installed Linux on it, mostly because I can find so little to grumble about. Either Windows is getting better or I'm getting old :)

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