Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X1s include a 3K tablet and the lightest ever 14-inch business laptop

Lenovo has revealed a trio of refreshed ThinkPad X1 notebooks at CES 2018, with new Carbon, Tablet and Yoga variants, along with an updated ThinkVision X1 monitor.

Lenovo has given the third-generation ThinkPad X1 Tablet an all-new 13-inch design, with a 3K display (3,000 x 2,000 pixels) promising vibrant colors and supporting HDR (with the screen being fashioned from Gorilla Glass).

The tablet is powered by Intel’s latest 8th-gen processors, boasts up to 16GB of system RAM, and offers optional LTE-A connectivity for speedy web surfing on the move.

It also incorporates an infrared camera (facilitating secure login via facial recognition) and optionally comes with a stylus, Lenovo’s Pen Pro which supports tilt-to-shade and 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. Battery life is a claimed up to 9.5 hours.

Carbon copy

Moving onto the refreshed ThinkPad X1 Carbon (the sixth-generation of this variant), Lenovo claims that this is the world’s lightest 14-inch business laptop. It’s certainly highly portable with its carbon fiber chassis weighing only 1.13kg, and it’s just a shade under 16mm thick.

The 14-inch screen has a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 and is a Dolby Vision-capable HDR display that should deliver some pretty punchy images indeed. Again, this notebook utilizes Intel’s 8th-gen CPUs (up to Core i7), paired with up to 16GB of system RAM.

Battery life is claimed at up to 15 hours, and a quick charge feature means that one hour of charging will give you up to 12 hours of battery life, Lenovo says.

Dolby Premium Audio is on board, plus you also get optional LTE-A connectivity here, too. Furthermore, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon boasts far-field 360-degree microphones to allow for voice control from up to four meters away (Amazon’s Alexa is also supported here).

There’s also a ThinkShutter to slide across the webcam for privacy – no Zuckerberg-style masking tape required – and a fingerprint reader, as well as facial recognition login with Windows Hello.

Note that there is now a touchscreen variant for the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which replaces the aforementioned 2,560 x 1,440-resolution screen with a Full HD touch-capable display.

Yoga refresh

Finally, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga has been refreshed in a third-generation model which also runs with Intel’s 8th-gen processors, and the same Dolby Vision HDR display as seen on the X1 Carbon.

It also offers the same far-field 360-degree microphones and Alexa tricks, ThinkShutter feature (and an option on an IR camera, for facial recognition login), fingerprint reader, LTE-A support and up to 15 hours of battery life. All in a convertible format with the Yoga sporting a 360-degree hinge.

Every one of these new ThinkPad X1 spins offers a solid range of connectivity, including a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports (and a pair of USB 3.0 ports on all but the X1 Tablet). They all boast 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2.

The new ThinkPad X1 Tablet will start at $1,599 (around £1,180, AU$2,040), with the X1 Carbon weighing in at $1,709 (around £1,260, AU$2,180), and the X1 Yoga starting at $1,889 (around £1,395, AU$2,410). They will all be available later this month.

Monitor magic

Lenovo also unveiled a refreshed ThinkVision X1 monitor with a 27-inch 4K IPS display. This is an ultra-slim model at 4.7mm thick, with ‘near-borderless’ bezels on all four sides of the screen.

It has a Thunderbolt 3 port, alongside HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, and boasts 99% coverage of the sRGB color gamut. There’s also an extra nifty touch in the form of a motorized webcam which can pop up out of the chassis at the touch of a button when the user requires it (and be lowered to remain hidden when not needed).

The ThinkVision X1 monitor will set you back $799 (around £590, AU$1,020) and also goes on sale later this month.

  • New year, new tech – check out all our coverage of CES 2018

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

TOPICS