Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017) Review: Optimized Mobility
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Design And User Experience
![ThinkPad X1 Carbon Display 1](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Display-1.jpg)
![ThinkPad X1 Carbon Keyboard](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Keyboard.jpg)
A fabulous keyboard and trackpad...
Those design chops shine brightest with Lenovo's keyboard. You just can't go wrong with a ThinkPad keyboard if you're looking to get any kind of real work done on a laptop. The new X1 Carbon has a more flat, matte finish to the whole keyboard area and key caps that resist smudging a bit better. The key caps are about the same size and contour, but they are packed in a little tighter. The deck and palm rest area feels more rigid and solid too. The track pad with Lenovo's excellent three button control is slightly larger now as well with less wasted space around it. It is also based on Microsoft's Precision Touchpad technology that standardizes touch pad experiences across Windows 10 machines and allows the OS to continually update drivers automatically with new gestures and optimizations as MSFT rolls them out.
Finally, the fingerprint sensor is now based on new "match-in-sensor" technology that isolates fingerprint enrollment, storage and match processing on the sensor module itself. This is reportedly more secure than "match-in-host" implementations that process fingerprints on the host system processor. Kudos for keeping our digits less hackable, Lenovo.
![ThinkPad X1 Carbon Top Left](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Top-Left.jpg)
![ThinkPad X1 Carbon Top Right](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Top-Right.jpg)
![ThinkPad X1 micro SD sim card slot removed](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-micro-SD-sim-card-slot-removed.jpg)
2017 Thinkpad X1 Carbon Display
![ThinkPad X1 Carbon Display Frogs](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Display-Frogs.jpg)
The IPS display of the 2017 ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a solid panel with decent color accuracy and uniformity. Image reproduction is also pretty crisp and does feel like a happy balance of resolution in most apps with 1080p on a 14-inch display. The display offers 100 percent plus of the sRGB color gamut, but lacks a bit of brightness punch comparatively to the likes of Dell's XPS 13 or the Asus ZenBook 3. Brightness levels aren't too much of a drawback here, though you may find yourself reaching for the brightness up button a bit more often depending on the environment. Fortunately, as you'll see in our following battery tests, this doesn't hold back battery life much, if at all. Finally, viewing angles are solid with the panel, but again it all depends on brightness levels.
Think Pad X1 Carbon Audio
![ThinkPad X1 Carbon Bottom](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Bottom.jpg)
Of OS And Bloat, Or Lack Thereof
![ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2017 Desktop](https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2616/content/small_ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2017-Desktop.jpg)
Lastly, Lenovo does an admirable job of minimizing bloat and cruft. In fact, in their marketing materials they're priding themselves on it. We would not disagree that this is as bone stock an Windows 10 Pro installation as we've seen, and that's a thing of beauty. You do get the basic Lenovo Companion maintenance utilities for keeping the machine updated to the latest firmware etc., along with Lenovo Settings for managing Dolby audio settings, the webcam, and display setup, but other than Microsoft's standard Office 365 downloader, that's really about it.