NEW Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 (2021) By Andrew Marc David

Now last year I reviewed the Lenovo ThinkPad x1 carbon have that 16 Lenovo 9 aspect ratios pretty much the same layout, a few minor changes here and there, but nothing revolutionary, but that all changes here in 2021. Lenovo decided to move to a 16 to 10 aspect ratios. They decided to make a few changes internally, outfitted with 11th gen, intel tiger lake processors, with the integrated BC graphics and give it that legendary ThinkPad treatment in terms of the build quality and that outstanding keyboard. Now I have both the full HD plus model and the UHD plus model in the studio, we're going to take a look at it today to find out what you can expect with the gen 9. , hey everybody. It's Andrew- and this is my unboxing and first look at the Lenovo ThinkPad x1 carbon gen 9 here for 2021 coming up now, while we take a look at the specs in the interest of transparency and full disclosure, I'm not being paid by Lenovo, I'm not being sponsored by Lenovo.

All the opinions you're about to hear are my own Lenovo is not getting copy approval they're. Seeing this video for the first time, just like you now, the model running the core i7 processor, with the UHD plus resolution- is a review unit sent over by Lenovo and once this review is done, I'll be sending it back now. The core i5 version with the full HD plus was purchased with my own money. I did not receive a review unit of that. SKU pricing starts at 16 36.60, but keep your eyes open on the Lenovo site. They run a lot of sales.

I was able to pick up the core i5 model for a little over fourteen hundred dollars with tax, so keep in mind that sale was running for a while. It was over a thousand dollars off the initial asking price, but again keep your eyes open on that website. They do vary the price quite a bit, so you need to be vigilant now again I'll leave a link in the description below for more information and where you can buy one and with specs and pricing. Out of the way, let's find out what you get inside the box, let's open it up. So, within the shipping box there is a smaller box which contains the unit we'll get to that in just a moment, then you also get a 65 watt, USB power adapter, and they also give you the extension cord.

Now I did see one other video that did unbox the gen 9 and didn't have this inner box, which was quite curious, but mine does have if it's the red and black that we've come to know with that inner box, lifting the lid you're greeted by the unit itself, but inside the box you also get some documentation which includes a setup guide as well as some warranty information holding the unit for the first time and once again, you're struck by just how thin and light this x1 carbon is with that magnesium alloy chassis. This thing is super premium, and it's also very rugged with that military standard rating. That means this can take a licking and keep on ticking. Now, if you elect to go with the UHD plus model, that will come with a carbon fiber weave on the outer shell- and here is that woven carbon fiber weave on that UHD plus model, it's really nice and, as you can see, there is a difference between the regular black versus that woven carbon fiber weave. I'm curious to know what you think about the difference between the two.

Let me know in the comment section below and as indicated on, the bottom. This unit is made out of carbon fiber and magnesium. Okay, let's check out the port selection, we'll start off. On the left side, we get two thunderbolt 4 ports, which is great. They do data charge display out.

You can drive multiple 4k monitors or one AK monitor. You get an USA 3.2, gen1 port and a HDMI 2.0 port. Moving over to the right side, you get a 3.5 millimeter headphone microphone, combo jack. You also get a second USB, a 3.2 gen, 1 port and, finally, a Kensington lock port to round out the ports, notably missing, there's no micro, SD card slot and there's no Ethernet port, but otherwise it's a pretty good port selection. Now, if you opt to get the optional 5g on this, then there will be a NATO sim slot, as well now to put its size into perspective here.

It is with a smaller sibling. The x1 NATO that I recently reviewed and, as you can see, the NATO is simply smaller than the x1 carbon, which is pretty svelte in its own right. This is a good indication of the footprint you'd get between the different units, and here it is with its bigger brother, the x1 extreme gen 3 and, as you can see, the x1 extreme gen 3 is noticeably bigger, and here is the NATO on top of that, showing the disparity between all three and just like the x1 NATO. This also sports a 16 to 10 aspect ratios. Now the benefits of the 16 to 10 aspect ratios, as I've mentioned in the past in other videos, is that you get that taller nature of the display.

That means you'll do less scrolling when it comes to web browsing you'll see more on the display and that's good for productivity work, and for those wondering here it is next to the x1 titanium yoga that I recently checked out and, as you can see, the difference between the 16 to 10 and three to two, the three to two a little taller than the 16 to 10. Now, if you want to check out that video, I did on the x1 titanium yoga. I highly encourage you to check it out. The link will be in the description below and the other thing Lenovo's touting here are slimmer, bezels on gen 9 over gen 8 and, as you can see, the difference between the two here, you'll notice that difference, although not quite as substantial as you might think, but you will notice that difference. So we have the 16 to 10 aspect ratios with the slimmer bezels here on gen 9.

Now, when it comes to the display, there are actually four options: you can go with three full HD plus options and one UHD plus option, which is going to be really nice, but of course, you'll pay a premium for that now I have both the full HD plus option, and the UHD plus option, which I received as a review unit from Lenovo. Let's take a look at them now, and I have to say it's a really nice display with some really deep blacks, good white points, good contrast, and it has a pretty low delta escort. Although I'd like to see it below two, it got 2.09 a little lower would have been better now. As far as the coverage of the color gamut, it is good 95, RGB, 71, adobe, RGB, 71 percent of the DCI p3 wide color gamut and 66 NTSC makes this a good choice for content creators to do Lightroom, photoshop and, of course, video editing, and it's also a bright display now Lenovo claims this will get up to 400 nits in terms of brightness they're, pretty accurate. On that I actually measured 402 even better, and, as I mentioned, this has an anti-glare coating.

That means you won't get any unnecessary, glare or reflections, which is always good. I'm more of a fan of these matte display types rather than the shiny, glossy display, which show a lot of reflections and glare and speaking of a glossy display. This is the UHD plus model that Lenovo just sent me, and this has a resolution of 3840 by 2400. As I mentioned, an UHD plus resolution with a 16 to 10 aspect ratios. This is an IPS display.

It's also a HDR display. That means you're going to get a really high dynamic range, especially when you're consuming content. That is optimized for HDR. You can absolutely love it on this display. Now it is a glossy display, as I mentioned, so you will notice some glaring reflections more so than you would on the matte display of that full HD, plus that we just took a look at, but you get some really outstanding black levels, really great white points, excellent contrast and a super low delta e score of 0.63, which is outstanding. That means this is a really color accurate display.

It also covers the color gamut, extremely well: 100 RGB, 90 adobe RGB 95 of the DCI p3 wide color gamut and 86 NTSC, making this an excellent choice for content creators to do Lightroom, photoshop and, of course, video editing, and it has some pretty slim bezels, which gives it a nice sleek. Modern, look, that's not too bad. Although you'll notice, this light chin, it does have on the bottom. So this is the front-facing camera on the all-new ThinkPad x1, carbon gen 9 here for 2021. Now this is a 720p 30 frames per second webcam.

It's a window, hello, webcam, with auto-detection, it'll log you in when you are in front of it and to log you out when you walk away, but I'm curious to know what you think. Let me know in the comment section below what do you think about the video quality? What do you think about the audio quality from the mics? I want to know and, like other think, pads in the line. This also has a think shutter switch. It allows you to turn off the webcam to give you more security and privacy. It's something else.

That's new with gen 9 is the fact that the power button now doubles as a fingerprint scanner. It's located above the keyboard below the display registered my finger each and every time I used it. It worked well. Furthermore, it was fast everything good on that front. Okay, let's talk about user upgradability and I love the fact that Lenovo makes it super easy to get inside.

All you need to do is loosen the captive Phillips head screws pop off the bottom plate, and you're in it's that easy. Now, once inside you'll notice, there is a change from gen8 you'll notice, the dual fans for cooling gen 8 only had a single fan, which was a larger fan, but now they've gone to two smaller fans to employ their thermal solution. Here, we'll talk about thermals in the full review and the other changes you'll notice. It now has a 57 watt hour battery, that's up over the 51 watt hour battery of gen 8. Now as far as what's user upgradeable, while the ram is soldered into the motherboard, you won't be able to upgrade that, but you can configure it with up to 32 gigabytes of lpddr4x ram.

Now the only thing that is user replaceable is the SSD, and you can get this with up to one terabyte of SSD storage. Now my review unit that Lenovo sent over has 512 gigabytes of SSD storage. My own unit running the core i5 has 256 gigabytes of SSD storage. Now this has Wi-Fi six along with Bluetooth 5.1. Now, unfortunately, the Wi-Fi card is soldered into the motherboard.

You won't be able to upgrade that, but you can get this with optional LTE or 5g. LTE on this unit, again, it's a nice option to have, especially if you're a business executive on the go. Now there are some differences in terms of the keyboard layout over gen 8. Now you can see that the speaker grilles are on the side of the keyboard as opposed to the top, and they also move the power button to the top, which also doubles as a fingerprint scanner and for those wondering yes, you can still open the lid with one finger. Now, let's talk about the keyboard now.

This has, of course, the legendary ThinkPad keyboard that we know, and we love. Of course, it's a little shallow this time around, although not a dealbreaker, but I did notice. It wasn't quite as good as the previous generations in terms of that key travel, but you still get that excellent tactile feedback. Your fingers never feel like they're going to bottom out, and it's extremely comfortable to type on for extended periods of time. It's also a multi-stage backlight in terms of that keyboard that allows you to get work done in a dark room or a dimly lit environment.

It's also a spill resistant keyboard and I love that feature since I'm always spilling things such as water and coffee. At least we have a chance to survive a spill with this laptop and the other thing. You'll notice, there's now a bigger touchpad this time around. Now this is a precision touchpad that is really responsive. Two-Finger scrolling is buttery smooth and all the adjusters work, as you'd expect really nice performance.

Here with that touchpad and, of course it has the track point part of the ThinkPad DNA. It's been there many years, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon now, having said that, it is very responsive another way to navigate through the OS and one of the things I love about. The ThinkPads is the fact that you can fold the screen down to 180 degrees flat, as you see here, and that, of course, will allow you to get the perfect viewing angle each and every time I like that option, the x1 carbon gen 9 sports, the Dolby Atmos speaker system with two upward firing speakers, as I mentioned earlier, and two downward firing subwoofers. To give you really pretty rich sound, I have to say not bad filling up a room rather nicely it gets pretty loud and there is a hint of bass. I'll talk more about the sound in the full review, but suffice it to say my initial 24 hours with this unit.

The sound has actually been pretty good. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I purchased the core i5 version with eight gigabytes of ram 256 gigs of SSD storage. I just took delivery from Lenovo the core i7, with 16 gigabytes of ram and 512 gigabytes of SSD storage. That one has the UHD plus display, but unfortunately there is a defect on that review. Unit that Lenovo sent over the fans are not working.

So I can't properly test the performance. A new one is being sent out on Monday, so I should have it early next week in time to do my full review so stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, here are some of the numbers from that core i5 1135 g7, with the integrated iris, Xe graphics performance has been good so far, we'll get into that and more in that full review. Okay, what do I think about the x1 carbon gen 9 here for 20 21? I am absolutely loving this laptop so far. The move to the 16 to 10 aspect ratios is a good move.

In my opinion, I, like that aspect ratio. I love the keyboard on this, although you will notice that the key travel is a bit more shallow than we're used to on the x1 carbon line, but still, nonetheless, still the best keyboard out there. In my opinion, or among the best out there, you can't argue with that. Now it is a spill resistant keyboard which I absolutely love, love the long battery life, I'm seeing especially out of that full HD plus model. I am still testing the UHD plus model, so expect less battery life on that because of the higher resolution, but I will bring you all.

Those numbers in my full review outstanding, build quality, of course, with that military standard grade rating here, dual thunderbolt 4 USB 4 ports on this, the optional 5g on this is fantastic, especially if you are that business executive on the go now the negatives here ram and Wi-Fi are not user upgradeable. But I'm not surprised by that here. In 2021 no SD card reader is a little of a downer, no LAN port either you'll have to use a dongle for that, and it still has a 720p webcam here in 2021, I'm hoping for a move to 1080p. We didn't get it, so that is something you'll need to deal with here in 2021, but no real dealbreakers. So far, ladies and gentlemen, let me put it through its paces and bring you all the numbers in my full review.

I will be testing both the core i5 model and the core i7, and I will bring you the numbers, the thermals, the metrics, everything you expect from my review. That will be coming very soon. So what do you think about the x1 carbon gen 9? So far, so good? Ladies and gentlemen, let me put it through its paces. I got a lot of testing to do now, something to keep in mind the UHD plus model that Lenovo just sent me that I received yesterday or last night rather and that one is actually defective. That's going back on Monday, the fans are not working on it, there's a defect, of course in it, but I spoke with Lenovo already they're, sending me a new one early next week, so stay tuned that will be in the full review.

So that's why I couldn't show the numbers for the core i7 version in this video, but you did see some numbers of the core i5 again. I got a lot more testing to do I'll test the performance battery life, the metrics on both displays. You saw already I'll, bring you even more in the full review, so stay tuned for that that is coming very soon. So please hit the like button. Please subscribe! Please share this.

Video, don't forget to leave a comment in the comment section below. Let me know how I'm doing. Let me know if there's a device or something out there, you think I should review I'll do my best to try to make that happen. Don't forget to check me out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and, of course, my website amdtechreviews. com, so until next time this is Andrew from AMD tech, see ya.

Source : Andrew Marc David