Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition Review: Featherweight Elegance

Thermals, Acoustics, Battery Life And Our Final Thoughts

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 does a good job of managing heat. While the keyboard deck gets toasty, it remains localized toward the center. The keys and trackpad don't feel unusually warm during use. The bottom remains a little cooler thanks to the presence of two large vents behind the hinges. You can see that region is the warmest on the laptop by far.


Quiet operation is part of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13's DNA. These machines are never loud, and the Aura Edition optimizations help make that even more true. Even under load, this laptop barely hits 50 dB. And the kind of work you're likely to do on a ThinkPad won't push fans to high levels anyway. This machine puts out barely a whisper during productivity work.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13: Battery Life

Battery life is critically important for a business PC. Working on the go could mean long stretches away from outlets. The machine needs to last through endless hours of work that could mean e-mails and time spent poring over spreadsheets, not to mention long runs of content consumption like Netflix binging.

Here we've calibrated laptop displays to a fixed brightness, in an effort to minimize that aspect of power draw, though lots of other variables come into play, like battery capacity, for example.


The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 gets acceptable battery life, running in the middle of the pack among laptops we have recently reviewed. You'll have no trouble making it through a workday with this machine, but you won't have as much leeway as some bulkier laptops or those with lower-resolution displays can offer. The 57Whr battery is on the small side for a 14-inch laptop, but batteries are heavy. It's understandable that Lenovo had to be conservative, here and the machine's higher resolution 1800p 2K display also has an impact. Note: we tested this laptop in its default 60Hz mode, but switching to 120Hz will invariably reduce the battery life.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13: Review Conclusion

If heavy, clunky laptops are getting you down, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition will be a breath of fresh air. Its clean, no-nonsense design is great, and we love the keyboard and OLED display. The continued inclusion of trackpoint is also a plus, even if Lenovo is moving away from it. This is also a fantastic laptop to take on the road. It's so compact and light, and really just a joy to carry around that we can forgive some of its shortcomings.


Battery life and performance are solid with this machine, but this ThinkPad did lag behind other similarly priced laptops at times. For the full $2000+ MSRP, you could get a laptop with higher specs for sure. However, that machine won't be as thin, light and refined as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition. It's all about priorities—if you prioritize portability and reliability, this Lenovo laptop will be hard to beat.

If you've gotten to this point of our review and hyped up to buy a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, its pricing may still give you pause. The MSRP of this machine is high perhaps because business customers will purchase them in bulk at a lower rate. However, Lenovo does have periodic sales that can drop hundreds of dollars from its laptop prices, so it might be wise to wait for this machine to drop in price before taking the plunge. If you do go the way of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition, you may be permanently spoiled with its clean, light minimalist luxury.