Last year, ThinkPad made a "leap-forward" change to 20 17 X 1 carbon: a narrower frame was designed on the basis of the original classic design, which made the already thin body "slim" again, and the addition of the silver color matching model was also a bold attempt. If there is anything wrong with 20 17 X 1 carbon, it is probably the performance of the processor.
At the beginning of this year, the highly anticipated flagship ThinkPad x 1 Carbon2018 was officially launched, which is the sixth generation notebook of X1Carbon series and one of the first eight core models of ThinkPad. It can be said that the 20 18 model has solved the biggest shortcomings of previous generations because it is equipped with the eight-generation Core processor whose performance is more than 30% higher than that of the previous generation. Not only the performance, ThinkPad has made further improvements in other details of the machine. Let's take a look today.
Stable and progressive design
Last year, ThinkPad created the "Little Silver" model. The brand-new silver color scheme is more in line with the aesthetic needs of young business people nowadays. This is the first attempt of ThinkPad in more than 20 years. After all, for ThinkPad, the "little black" shape has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts.
Judging from the appearance of this new 20 18 silver machine in our hands, except that there is an X 1 logo on the corner of the A side of the notebook, and the brand-new ThinkPad logo and "Lenovo”logo disappear, the new machine seems to have not changed much from the previous generation.
ThinkPad X 1 Carbon uses lighter and tougher carbon fiber as the fuselage material, which also makes it easy for us to understand how the word "carbon" in ThinkPad X 1 Carbon came from.
Although we can't see the trace of carbon fiber from the appearance, we can really feel its existence from its lightness and firmness. Of course, carbon fiber costs a lot. X 1 For many years, carbon fiber has been used only on the fragile A side (that is, the back of the screen), which not only protects the key parts, but also makes the price more affordable. In addition, the surface of the whole machine shell is covered with a layer of skin-like paint, which feels great, light, strong and dry.
What materials are used for other surfaces? The answer is thin and strong alloy material, which can better dissipate heat for notebooks, and is the best choice for thin and light notebooks.
It is worth mentioning that the reliability of stable operation is very important for X 1 carbon to become a leader in thin and light books. 20 18 X 12 carbon has been strictly controlled and tested by 12, and it is not afraid of various harsh environmental tests, which is also one of the essences of ThinkPad.
According to the measured weight, the bare metal weight of 1. 12kg is about the weight of 3 cans of cola. If you happen to have coke around you, you can feel it. As a high-performance lightweight notebook, 1. 12kg is also very light. After all, the weight of many notebooks of the same type in the past was almost above 2kg.
In addition, the travel weight with power adapter is 1.47kg, which is almost 4 cans of coke. Commuting and traveling, with four cans of coke in your bag, you certainly won't feel heavy at all, will you? Moreover, according to its office life of at least 8 hours, it will be easier to travel if it is a short-distance and one-day office, even without power supply.
The screen quality has been improved.
The concept of "14in 13" has been the main theme since the first generation of X 1 carbon. By 20 18, the notebook with "unknown address frame" was completely out of control. Since last year's 20 17 X 1 carbon, ThinkPad has increased the screen ratio to a new high, and the upper and lower borders have been further reduced, so that the original screen size of 14 inch can be smaller and more portable, almost comparable to the traditional 12 inch notebook computer. Although 20 18 X 1 carbon did not further increase the screen ratio, the screen quality was better.
In addition to the regular 1080P screen, we can also choose a 2K high-resolution screen. Like the X/KOOC-0/CO20/KOOC-0/8 in our hand, the official publicity is that it is equipped with an IPS fog screen with a maximum brightness of 500 nits, a resolution of 2560 */KOOC-0/440, and an Adobe RGB color gamut of/KOOC-0/00%. Judging from the above screen parameters, this year's 2K resolution version of X 1 Carbon has been able to meet the retouching and drawing needs of most professional photographers and designers.
Judging from the actual effect of looking at the screen, this notebook screen is rich in color but not too bright. It looks very attractive to you, but you won't feel tired after watching it for a long time. The matte screen can also ensure effective anti-glare and scratch protection in the outdoor environment with complicated light, which is quite practical for mobile office.
As a high-end business book, the hinge can naturally be 180, so that we can share the content with all the friends present at any time. In addition, the damping of the rotating shaft is smooth and moderate, so that the notebook can be opened and closed with one hand, and the screen will not shake easily at ordinary times.
The design of ThinkShutter black valve ensures privacy from the root.
ThinkShutter black valve is an innovative safety design of 20 18. The principle is to set a physical "valve" that can slide left and right in front of the camera, and close the "valve" when we don't use the camera, which fundamentally avoids the risk of video being peeped when we forget to close it.
Comfortable keyboard is also one of the characteristics of high-end ThinkPad products. ThinkPad X 1 Carbon continues the classic six-row curved keyboard design and is still equipped with two adjustable keyboard backlights. However, the key stroke of keyboard keys is as high as 1.8mm, and there will be a deep feedback when pressed. You can feel a strong and soft rebound every time you hit a key, and you won't feel tired when typing for a long time.
The C-plane is still the iconic TrackPoint little red riding hood and three-button design of ThinkPad, and the combination of the two can be said to be the essence of ThinkPad. When we don't have room for mouse operation or forget to bring a mouse, little red dot's accurate and smooth operation experience can never be replaced by the touchpad. Of course, the new touchpad also supports Microsoft's Windows Precision standard, and more than ten touch modes can perfectly replace the mouse.
Safe and efficient fingerprint identification
Since last year's X 1 Carbon, ThinkPad has been equipped with a push-type fingerprint reader that is as sensitive as a mobile phone, which is a very favorable design for business people in the information age.
After all, for business people, it is inevitable that business secrets will often be involved, and privacy security is particularly important. Fingerprint reader can completely replace password login system, which increases efficiency, and is safer than password and is not easy to be cracked.
Double thunder and lightning 3+USB3.0 interface is complete.
As a business notebook, interface integration can't be vague at all. The optimization of X 1C won my heart. The square charging port in the past was abandoned and replaced by two two Type-C thunderbolt 3 interfaces, which greatly improved the expansibility of future interfaces. In addition, commonly used USB 3.0, HDMI, mini Ethernet card interfaces are also readily available.
However, some people once thought that setting the cooling air outlet on the right side would have the phenomenon of "hand blowing", which would make the hands uncomfortable if used for a long time. According to my test, if the notebook is not allowed to run with high power for a long time (high performance mode of power management), there will be basically no excess heat discharged from the air outlet, so don't worry too much about what will happen to this design.
Whenever we replace a new computer, we probably have to consider what system to install and what office software to install, and ThinkPad has long considered this issue for users. 2018 ThinkPad x1carbon comes with genuine Win 10 professional operating system and Office 20 16 office suite, so it is very comfortable to work directly after buying it.
Basic performance testing: great improvement
As a model equipped with the new eight-generation Core low-voltage processor, the comprehensive performance of ThinkPad X 1 Carbon has improved by more than 30% compared with the previous generation notebook, even surpassing some i5 standard processors. However, different manufacturers have different optimizations for notebook molds, and the same processors also have gaps. The ThinkPad X1Caron2018 in our hands can be said to be the "warrior" among the eight generations of U notebooks this year.
In terms of configuration, 20 18 X 1 carbon is equipped with eight generations of i7/i5 processors, and the maximum memory is 16GB LPDDR3, 1TB SSD. Some models can also be equipped with Windows Hello infrared lens and 4G full netcom module.
According to the information read by CPU-Z, the CPU used in our ThinkPad X1Carbon2018 is i7-8550U, with Kaby Lake Refresh architecture, 14nm+ technology, 4 cores and 8 threads, with the main frequency of 1.8GHz and the highest core frequency of 4GHz.
According to the cbR 15 test of CPU, when other manufacturers' i7 8550U notebooks can only run above 500 CB, the multithreading performance of i7-8550U processor ThinkPad X 1 Carbon has reached 622cb, which is nearly 20% higher than that of ordinary notebooks of the same generation, thanks to its exquisite internal circuit and heat dissipation design.
Moreover, we should know that the single/multi-threaded performance of the previous generation i5-7200U is about 120 and 320, and the improvement from 2 cores and 4 threads to 4 cores and 8 threads is also quite obvious, and the multi-core performance doubles.
In terms of GPU graphics card, only the core graphics card UHD620. In fact, this graphics card is exactly the same as the previous generation HD620, but the frequency is slightly improved. It can support the editing, transcoding and playback of 4K video, and there is no pressure to play LOL.
Our X 1 Carbon is equipped with a 256G PCIE hard drive. According to the running results of CrystalDiskMark, it can run a reading speed of 3392 MB/s and a writing speed of 2005 MB/s, and it will be very smooth when it is turned on and off, running office applications such as Word and Excel, and sending and receiving emails.
We started the high performance mode of X 1 carbon to copy the machine. To my surprise, during the 20-minute copying process, although the original CPU has the limit of 15W TPD, in fact, X 1C has been able to exceed the limit, reaching a high-power and full-blood running state of 22W, during which the computer has remained in a stable running state, with no crash or frequency reduction, which shows that its internal process design is very good.
It can guarantee the endurance of office use in one day.
In the battery life part, we test the working mode of PCMark 8, and calculate the battery life of the notebook by running a fixed program.
According to the endurance test of PCMark 8 Work, the endurance time of X 1 carbon is 7 hours. Compared with the previous generation notebooks we tested before, the battery life of X 18 has been improved by 2 hours. It's really hard for Bian Xiao to understand how to significantly improve the battery life and performance while maintaining the same area and thickness.
In fact, this result of PCMark8 is generally low, because the notebook will retain 20% of the power after the test. If you count it, it is conservatively estimated that this notebook will be stress-free for 8 hours, which means it can fully meet the office use demand of 1 day.
As for charging, X 1 Carbon is equipped with a 65W Type-C high-power power supply. We tested it, and it only takes about 1.5 hours to charge from 8% to 100% at startup, which is basically consistent with the official description of 1 hour charging of 80%. This kind of high-power fast charging gives us business people a kind of safety guarantee.
Summary:
Generally speaking, as the sixth generation product of the flagship X 1 series, the performance of the eighth generation Core processor has been greatly improved. On the other hand, the processing performance of X 1 has reached the original high-performance level, and the power consumption, heat dissipation and battery life are also at a good level. On the other hand, ThinkPad X 1 Carbon has made steady progress, and made bold innovations while giving full play to classic elements such as little red dot, three-key design and long-key keyboard: it added the design of ThinkShutter black valve which can improve security, and most obviously further weakened the "Lenovo”logo and brand-new" ThinkPad "and" x/kloc-0 ".