Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 12, 2024) review – All business

There’s a school of thought on the internet that anyone receiving a MacBook upon starting a new job may find their employment a little shaky. If the IT department hands you a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, on the other hand, you’re likely to be employed for as long as you want to be.

There may even be some truth to that. MacBooks tend to be favoured by the stylish, the startup, the move-fast-and-break-things sorts, and those companies occasionally disappear overnight. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon, on the other hand, is a more staid and serious computer for the kind of person who cares about getting the job done as neatly as possible. It takes fewer chances. And, in this case, it’s rather bloody expensive.

Back to the future

Lenovo’s design for this notebook isn’t radically different from older versions of the X1 Carbon. It’s recognisably the same machine that debuted in 2012, all severe lines and the company’s red-and-black livery. The little red nubbin in the centre of the keyboard marks this as one of Lenovo’s higher-end ThinkPads and it also remains a useful addition if you’re finicky about trackpad usage.

If anything, the solid black build is a little darker than we remember from back in the day but the trackpad configuration is identical with a set of physical keys above the pad to supplement the red nub. The major changes are mostly internal, though the adornments up the sides of the X1 Carbon have evolved over the last fourteen years. The right edge hosts the power port, a USB-A, HDMI, and a Kensington lock, as well as a 3.5mm jack. Dual USB-C and a USB-A live on the left, and there’s even space to insert a nanoSIM if that’s how you roll.

There’s little to complain about on a visual level. It’s hardly the most interesting-looking hardware but that’s the point. There are no frivolous bits to distract you from the task at hand. If that’s what you want, look elsewhere. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon doesn’t do bells and whistles.

The price of (some) power

Unless you peer under the hood, there might seem to be remarkably few features available from Lenovo’s X1 Carbon. As mentioned, this is by design. It’s got something special at its heart, though — one of Intel’s Core Ultra 7 processors, the Ultra 7 155U, handles the same workload you do.  It’s speedy enough to keep your spreadsheets and meetings ticking over (and far more besides) and the chipset also contributes to dependable battery life.

Stuff was given a base model Carbon, which includes 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. That’s where things start to sting a little. The price the company mentioned is a substantial R48,000 for the ‘entry-level’ X1 but we’ve only encountered it online at prices exceeding R52,000. A more fully loaded version of the notebook, with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, clocks in at R57,500. If you’re buying this model, the last is the one we’d really recommend. This is despite only using the lesser-specced model, on the basis that more RAM and storage can only be a good thing.

But if the IT department’s budget will only stretch so far, you can’t go wrong with our review model. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s Intel Ultra 7 processor makes short work of any work you can throw at it and the 14in 1,920 x 1,200 OLED screen means you’ll see every OneNote and Excel panel in loving detail. You can get better performance from a Windows machine but it won’t be as compact and lightweight as this 1.08kg ultraportable.

Built for networking

We’ve harped on about the X1 Carbon’s stealthy appearance. It does come across as boring since it looks like a slimmer, narrower version of every other Carbon Lenovo has released. Just like the average board meeting, having everyone in a suit means a bit more delving to see what each entity is like inside. Being built for business means that this setup is set up for connectivity. We’ve already briefly mentioned the nanoSIM, an optional feature that lets executives work in the back of their chauffer-driven Bentley without firing up a WiFi dongle, but there are other connectivity options.

WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 keep users connected to similarly-staid accessories. An excellent webcam means your perfectly-pressed suit shows to its best advantage in online meetings and a privacy shutter means you won’t slip up and broadcast your unshaven mug when you slept at the office yet again. The camera also supports Windows Hello for biometric login but you can opt for fingerprint login. There’s a little fingerprint icon to the left of the arrow keys that hosts the sensor. Your corporate secrets should be safe unless you’re… kidnapped or something.

Users will see around ten hours of use on a charge and away from the wall. How often it’ll be called on to do that is up to you but it’ll manage the task. Usability is, frankly, excellent but that’s because Lenovo has had more than a decade to refine its keyboard and trackpad setup. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is designed for work. At this, it performs exceedingly well.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2024) verdict

But it does so at a price. A R50,000 price tag is a rough ask for any private South African but if you’re the Chief Technology Officer then the IT department has to do what you tell them. That’s how that works, right? Put one on your desk and you’ll a) be secure in your job status, and b) have remarkably few distractions from getting the job done. Intel’s Core Ultra 7 chipset delivers loads of power, though we’d have been happier with the beefier model. That’s just us being greedy, though. The twelfth-generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon, as it appears here, will tackle almost everything a business career can throw up but don’t go expecting it to do much more than that. For once, this is a case of all work, no play.