Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ThinkPad X1 Carbon

www3.lenovo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 540 posts

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#211

Post by farresito »

fencepost wrote: post #189
farresito wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, I actually did that with my SSD and memory. One of the things I miss of Thinkpads is the GPU. It seems like in the past two or three years it's been increasingly hard to find a Thinkpad T with GPU. I'm aware that the W have them, but those are beasts. I read somewhere that you could buy them through other countries, like Japan, but didn't look much into it.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#212

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

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…

>> 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.

Is this really a serious reason to buy a laptop, or not, the design? You buy a computer because of its performance, not its appearance- which is something completely subjective in the first place.

I agree about the toughness requirement, but, like others said below the X1 Carbon is called "Carbon" as in "carbon fiber", which it's made of (although the fourth gen model has a lid that's a mix of carbon fiber and plastic).

I've stepped on my second gen. Carbon a good few times and I've dropped my fourth gen on its lid from a coffee table, and they're both hale and hearty.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#213

Post by floatboth »

joecool1029 wrote: post #158

A large chunk of the Thinkpad user community is pretty fed up with the ultrabook spec that Lenovo is shipping on its flagship models, namely the inability to effectively customize and modify to use. I keep an X201 alongside my late 2013 rMBP simply because I can use expresscard and a dock and ethernet without carrying around a stupid dongle. I understand they are trying to chase Apple's market, but expect them to fal…

X240/X250: dock, Ethernet, VGA, SD, optionally smartcard and mobile modem. No dongles required. In X260 they replaced VGA with HDMI, but everything else is still there.

The X62 looks nice though :D

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#214

Post by _JamesA_ »

extrapickles wrote: post #85
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 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?

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#216

Post by ericd »

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.

Ubuntu 16.04 installed and runs without a hitch on a 4th gen (this announcement is of the 5th gen), with the exception of the LTE (needed to install a few libraries from 16.10), and the fingerprint scanner (which is apparently at the complete mercy of the hardware manufacturer Synaptics, no ETA there afaict). One thing to be aware of, though, is that support for Hidpi screens isn't quite as good as on OS X, so sometimes you're greeted by tiny text. Steam is a notable example of an app that doesn't scale properly.

It looks like they included a different LTE chipset this time, though, so maybe compatibility is better there.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#217

Post by walrus01 »

Love the Thinkpad hardware. Hate Windows 10.

If something like the current generation Thinkpad hardware (T or X series) could run OSX, it would be what the Macbook Pro used to be... Remember the first generation Intel macbook pro in 2006 which had a full complement of ports? Everything relevant and needed except RS232.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#218

Post by masklinn »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #212
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…

>> 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. Is this really a serious reason to buy a laptop, or not, the design? You buy a computer because of its performance, not its appearance- which is something completely subjective in the first pl…

> Is this really a serious reason to buy a laptop, or not, the design?

Yes.

> You buy a computer because of its performance, not its appearance

For a desktop/workstation maybe, and even that is debatable (I would not buy a desktop computer with plexiglas panels and LEDs all over).

For a laptop though, the design is part of the function and has an impact on it. Design is part and parcel of a laptop's usability and usage, and impacts its effective lifespan (you can get mileage out of a laptop while it's falling to pieces but that's not an enjoyable experience).

And of course a laptop is not stashed away in a corner of the desk (or under it hidden from you), it's usually right in front of your face and right under your fingers, liking how it looks is a pretty good idea.

> which is something completely subjective in the first place.

That just means the design you want is different from the design I want. Maybe you like the Surface Book and I don't (I do, but bear with me).

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#219

Post by marcelluspye »

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.

My experience with linux power management has been alright, or at least better than my expectations. I have an asus laptop that gets f*-all battery life under windows (either 8 or 10, though it seems to be worse now) but I can usually get at least 90 minutes more out of it under linux. It took some tweaking to get to that point, and I have no macbooks to compare it to, but I think the situation isn't as grim as I see a lot of people say it is.

Re: ThinkPad X1 Carbon

#220

Post by anuragsoni »

chetanahuja wrote: post #192
rll wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a T460s with a Google Fi SIM card in it running Debian. It works really well and Google lets you get up to 10 free data sims so you don't need another account.

"Google lets you get up to 10 free data sims" Tell me more. What exactly do you mean by "up to 10 free data sims" ?

If you are a project fi account holder, you can get an additional data sim cards (up to 9) to put in devices like iPad, other tablets, or in this case the laptop. It will be linked to your main account and share the data budget of your main phone, at the same rate of $10/GB.
Post reply on HN