When IBM brought out its ThinkPad line of laptops 20 years ago, it ushered in a new age of portable computing.
The machines – aimed at people who used their computers for work and who traveled – were built like tanks and extremely reliable. And on the rare occasions when they didn't work right, or when you had questions, IBM's legendary service people around the world were ready and able to help.
It all came at a price: the top ThinkPads and service plans were never cheap, but they were a no-brainer for me and a lot of other folks who valued reliability, service, solid construction and, assuming you liked the understated black design, a certain kind of style.
So much has changed, not least IBM's sale of its personal-computer division to China's Lenovo but also Apple's ascendance in the best-of-breed laptop market.
The Macbook Air and Pro lines are superbly made and increasingly visible even in airline frequent flier clubs where ThinkPads once seemed to dominate. But Lenovo has soldiered on, selling well-made machines and maintaining a reputation for customer support that, while not as sterling as the old IBM, equals or exceeds its competition in the Windows market. Having dropped Apple as my main computer (for a variety of reasons I'll explain in another column), it was a no-brainer to return to the ThinkPad, which I'd ditched for Apple more than a decade ago.
Which is why I was pleased to try out a pre-production unit of the new flagship of the Lenovo line: the X1 Carbon. It's what chipmaker Intel has dubbed an "ultrabook", a slim yet capable genre aimed at the Macbook Air crowd. The ultrabook market has barely begun to take off, largely because the Windows PC ecosystem has been slow to innovate.
The X1 Carbon is absolutely gorgeous, with a sleek, tapered design that turned more than one head when I worked with it in a coffee shop. It weighs three pounds (not including the too-bulky power adapter), and its carbon-fiber reinforcement, which Lenovo says is sturdier than aluminum, gives it a feel that is the opposite of flimsy.
Lenovo has put a 14-inch screen – with a non-reflective matte screen, thank goodness, instead of the glossy ones that Apple has sold by default in recent models – in a body that's about the same dimensions as the Macbook Air 13-inch model. The display resolution could be better, but at 1600 by 900 pixels, it's more than good enough. If it was a bit brighter I'd also be happier.
Lenovo sells the machine in several configurations of central processor and SSD disk. The one I tested was in the middle: an Intel Core i5 chip and 128GB drive. The chip and its accompanying Intel graphics were fine for all but processor-intensive games (this is not the machine for serious gamers), but the capacity of the SSD drive was way too low for my taste, and the cost of the top-of-the-line model, with a 256GB drive, would turn off most people who'd be buying for themselves, if not corporate purchasers.
The X1 Carbon has just two USB ports, one with the older 2.0 standard and the other the much faster recent 3.0 specification. The only video output is a mini-Displayport; no HDMI or VGA (the latter means users have to buy an adapter for use with the majority of projectors). There's no built-in Ethernet networking port, either, but Lenovo includes a USB-to-Ethernet adapter in the box.
As a recent convert to the Linux operating system, specifically the Ubuntu variant, I was interested to see how the device would work. Linux is often balky with the newest hardware, but I didn't hit any showstopper problems.
As always with ThinkPads, the keyboard is superlative. IBM nailed this two decades ago, and Lenovo hasn't let ThinkPad users down since then. The keys are the newer "island" style, but their spacing and clickability took me zero time to get used to. I'm less enamored of the glass touchpad. It's large, but Lenovo removed the mouse buttons at the bottom, a mistake given the still somewhat flaky performance of Windows touchpads. There are mouse buttons above the touchpad, and above those, in the middle of the keyboard, the ThinkPad's signature feature: a little eraser-like nub, called the TrackPoint, that serves as a pointing device. I've become more of a touchpad user because I've come to rely on two-finger scrolling.
One of Lenovo's smartest moves with the X1 Carbon is a module that will let users connect to a variety of high speed mobile networks around the world. I couldn't test this, as I didn't have a SIM card, but Lenovo plans to offer pay-as-you-go service in dozens of countries at what sound like very affordable rates when they're not near a Wi-Fi network. This will be a selling point for corporate users, in particular.
But I'm just me, buying for myself, and one major issue stopped me from ordering an X1 Carbon. Like Apple with its Air line, Lenovo has all but eliminated users' ability to tweak or upgrade their system hardware. When I bought a ThinkPad x220 model last year, I added memory and swapped out the hard disk for a solid-state drive; this was easy to do given the x220's deliberately modular design, which encourages such upgrades.
With the X1 Carbon, the way you buy it is pretty much the way it'll be, period. Given the unreasonable premium Lenovo charges for memory and storage space (also channeling Apple), this was a deal-klller for me. A Lenovo spokesman assures me that the company isn't going in this direction with all of its ThinkPads (and I've ordered for daily use one of its slightly heavier but, for me, upgradeable and more useful T430s models), but unless Lenovo sharply lowers its standard pricing the X1 Carbon - at least the model I'd want, equipped the way I'd prefer - has moved out of my comfort zone.
But I predict it'll be right in the corporate zone. ThinkPads have been favorites there for a long time, for good reasons. Laptops may be giving way to tablets in some cases, but as long as people need full-powered computers, models like the X1 Carbon will thrive. Right now, this is the ultrabook to beat.