Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 review: best ThinkPad yet?

There are only two configurations of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13, which is somewhat unusual for the lineup. More configurations might arrive at some point, but for now, the base model is $2,519 for an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and a 14.0-inch 2.8K OLED display. For $2,719, you get a 2TB SSD. That’s my review unit.

The keyboard is the old-school ThinkPad standard, with large sculpted keycaps and a bunch of key spacing. The switches are deep, and I’ve used versions that were a bit too stiff for my taste. That’s not the case here. There’s plenty of travel, and yet the switched remain light and snappy enough for long-term comfort. I found the keyboard incredibly comfortable while I was typing this review, and I would be fine with it over my usual favorite, the Apple Magic Keyboard. Most people will love this keyboard.

The touchpad isn’t quite as good. To begin with, while the TrackPoint nubbin in the middle of the keyboard is great for people who like using it, it requires a set of buttons that take space away from the touchpad. In addition, the touchpad is mechanical, and while it has quiet, confident button clicks, a haptic touchpad would be a lot better at these prices.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 uses Intel’s Lunar Lake chipset, which is aimed at efficiency over sheer performance. It’s a 17-watt lineup that replaces the previous-generation Meteor Lake 15-watt Core Ultra S-series. All Lunar Lake chipsets are 8-core/8-thread parts running at various clock speeds, and they all use the latest Intel Arc integrated graphics. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon uses the Core Ultra 7 258V with Intel Arc 140v integrated graphics that falls somewhere between the previous generation and entry-level discrete GPUs.

In our benchmarks, the ThinkPad is fast enough for productivity users but relatively slow for its class. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chipsets are faster while also being designed for efficiency. Apple’s M3 chipset, soon to be replaced by the faster M4 in the MacBook Air in early 2025, comes in the middle. Of these chipsets, the M3’s GPU cores are the fastest. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13’s Intel Arc 140V performance is the worst.

If you’re a gamer or creator, you’ll want to look elsewhere. But productivity users will find the ThinkPad X1 Carbon to be fast enough.

As mentioned above, Intel’s Lunar Lake chipsets are aimed at efficiency over performance. While they perform well enough, they’re slower than both the Qualcomm and Apple chipsets they’re competing against. In most of our reviews so far, Lunar Lake laptops still haven’t been generally as efficient overall as Apple’s MacBook lineup, but they’re still much longer-lasting than previous generation Windows laptops.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 has a 57 watt-hour battery, which is a little small for a 14-inch laptop, and it also has a hi-res OLED display running at 120Hz. It’s not as strong a performer as some other Lunar Lake laptops with IPS displays or larger batteries. It falls well behind many of its competitors, including the strongest performer, the MacBook Air M3.

You’ll get most of a full day’s work on a charge. But there are other, longer-lasting laptops available.

I’d reviewed several laptops with IPS displays before unboxing the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13, and I was immediately struck by the colors and inky blacks displayed by its 14-inch 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED display. Those IPS displays weren’t bad, but OLED really is excellent technology.

My colorimeter agreed. The display was very bright at 421 nits, and blacks were near-perfect with an extremely high contrast ratio of 29,400:1. Colors were wide at 100% of sRGB, 98% of AdobeRGB, and 99% of DCI-P3, and they were incredibly accurate at a DeltaE of 0.73 (less than 1.0 is indistinguishable to the human eye).

This laptops isn’t fast enough for creative work, but its display is more than good enough. And it makes for a great streaming media platform, with great high dynamic range (HDR) video. Audio was just OK with speakers hidden beneath the keyboard. Volume was fine and mids and highs were clear, but bass was lacking.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 is a very good laptop — and will be for just about anyone. It’s incredibly thin, light, and well-built. Meanwhile, its performance is more than fast enough for demanding productivity users, and while its battery life isn’t the best by contemporary standards, it’s much longer than previous generations of Windows laptops.

But it’s also very expensive. That includes a spectacular OLED display, but other, less expensive laptops offer the same. Ultimately, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 should be on anyone’s list, but the price will mean that ultimately it’s ThinkPad fans who will appreciate it the most.