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ThinkPad X1 Carbon

www3.lenovo.com

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Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#231

Post by extrapickles »

_JamesA_ wrote: post #214
extrapickles wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Razer Blade has similar unibody metal chassis as Apple laptops and is not coated in stickers. I have the Blade Stealth and its just as sturdy and sleek as the Apple equivalent.

I never hear anyone mention the Razer Blade's and yet they seem to be the best looking and spec'd non-Apple notebooks by far. They are almost too good to be true. What's the catch? Have you had any issues running Linux on them?

I run Linux as a VM on mine, which works fine for my use cases. I've heard the Wifi/GPU/Webcam can give you trouble in some cases depending on exact laptop model and Linux distro used.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#232

Post by ergo14 »

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…

My "plastic" dell latitude laptop feels more solid than my macbook pro 13. Plus is has way more comfortable keyboard compared to mac (at least for me).

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#233

Post by faebser »

vacri wrote: post #153

I have an X1 gen 3, and it has a dongle for the ethernet port. Given the thickness of it, I don't see how this new gen machine can hold a 'native rj45'. Perhaps it's one of those hinged ones that opens out?

That is a really good question and I don't fully understand what 'native' means in this context. did you manage to find out more about it?

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#234

Post by mst »

abecedarius wrote: post #202
krisdol wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're in a thread responding to someone (who I happen to agree with as well) that disagrees with you on "There is no way a Macbook can compete with a proper Thinkpad". It's a bit a of a bold claim. I disagree with you on the keyboard and the navigation. The solid aluminum construction of the MBP is one of the best aspects of it, next to the display. I've dropped the thing probably 20 times without issue. I will admi…

Curious: my 2012 X1 Carbon still runs about as long as ever from battery. (It never got 5 hours, more like 4.)

My X61s (with extended battery) went from ~12h to 9-10h over the four years or so I was using it.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#235

Post by muro »

copperx wrote: post #172
djsumdog wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of developers love their Macs and I don't get it. For me OSX 10.6 was the last decent one. Mission Control is garbage compared to Expose. I got so frustrated with it that I started running Linux in a VM on my Mac as my primary system. I also got into tiling window managers, which killed every going back to Mac/Windows. Today's Dell and Lenovo laptops are good Linux dev machines. I've never had a problem with pu…

Decent machines indeed as long as you are close to a wall socket. Linux power management has a lot of growing up to do.

Agreed. Lenovo claims "up to" 9 hours for the 3rd gen X1 carbon, I get at most 5 under linux.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#236

Post by rifung »

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 have a 4th gen X1 Carbon with Ubuntu and everything has worked fine. Even the functional buttons like screen brightness and volume work for me.

On the other hand, the palm detection does not work or is just terrible because I find myself constantly randomly tapping or moving the cursor when typing. Indeed it's moving around as I type this.

I ended up just disabling tap to click which I actually love using, but besides that it's great. I definitely long for the day when Linux touchpad support will match OS X's. Still, I really like the keyboard and the little nub thing is pretty awesome too, although I haven't really gotten used to using it.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#237

Post by muro »

schmichael wrote: post #185
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.

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.

I use the 3rd gen - agree it's possible to slightly bend it. I can only do so when open, with either screen or very slightly with base. When it's closed, I would probably need to step on it. A MBP 15 feels a bit more solid.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#239

Post by xanderstrike »

j7ake wrote: post #162
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…

You hinted at it in the end: MacBooks have good software that works. No troubles connecting to peripherals like printers and projectors. No worries about laptop sucking battery when I close the lid and forget to sleep. And MacBooks have the best touchpad of all laptops.

> MacBooks have good software that works

I just spent my entire workday struggling to figure out why `kernal_task` was constantly using 16gb of RAM. Whenever people say macOS "just works" I assume they do nothing but web browse. It's great at that.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#240

Post by muro »

j7ake wrote: post #162
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…

You hinted at it in the end: MacBooks have good software that works. No troubles connecting to peripherals like printers and projectors. No worries about laptop sucking battery when I close the lid and forget to sleep. And MacBooks have the best touchpad of all laptops.

The only software I miss is "Preview" on Mac OS. It's amazing for editing pdfs - merge, split etc.
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