Lenovo ThinkPad X260 Review: A Sleek, Tough, All-Business Ultrabook

Aside from the ThinkPad X260’s excellent battery test times, the benchmark scores that most impressed us were from the ultrabook’s romp through PCMark 8. The ThinkPad X260 is clearly a solid business system, and while its scores in graphics tests weren’t all that impressive, they were will within the range of what we’d expect from this class of hardware. 


The ThinkPad x260 is tougher than the typical notebook too, without being truly ruggedized, which is ideal for a system meant to endure the rigors of long travel and still look the part in a boardroom. It’s also meant to be dependable. The dual-battery setup means you can get through the day without ever plugging in your notebook (or even powering it off temporarily, for that matter). If battery life is a major selling point for you, you’re probably already sold.

Although we were comfortable with the 12.5-inch display, it may prove to be too small for some users. If you have been using a 17-inch notebook, moving to 12.5 inches will be a dramatic change. If your last notebook was a 14-inch system, the ThinkPad X260 will probably seem just fine. In our experience, we found that we could put an Excel spreadsheet next to a browser window and work with both programs without feeling too crowded, but we won’t pretend that we didn't occasionally miss the extra screen real estate of larger notebooks.

As we tested the ThinkPad X260, the word that kept coming to mind was “comfort,” which isn't really what you expect when reviewing a business system. This ultrabook is so small and light that we had no problem picking it up with one hand, even when it was open. It added very little weight to our bag when we were on-the-go. The keyboard was comfortable and a pleasure to type with, which is something we rarely say about ultrabook keyboards. And having the TrackPoint right next to our fingers saved us a lot of movement between the keyboard and trackpad.

The ThinkPad X260 is an ultrabook that gets far more right than it gets wrong, especially at such an affordable starting price point (under $800), and it’s worthy of a spot on any business traveler’s shortlist of potential notebooks.  We wish that certain features (like keyboard backlighting) were standard, rather than optional, but that’s a minor nit-pick. In the end, the Lenovo X260 is a durable, well-designed ultrabook.