Lenovo at CES 2019: 7th Gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gets Thinner

Anton Shilov

from on 2019-01-10 17:00 (#46Q3G)

Lenovo this week introduced its 7^th Generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptops. The new notebooks got a number of tangible improvements when compared to their predecessors. The latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon come in a thinner chassis and integrate latest-gen processors from Intel. In addition, higher-end versions of the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon will come equipped with a 4K LCD featuring a 500 nits brightness and Dolby Vision HDR support.

Being Lenovo's flagship notebooks, ThinkPad X1 Carbon support the company's latest technologies and business features as the manufacturer naturally wants to create a product that will stand out from the crowd. The new ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes in a new chassis that is 14.95 mm thick (down from 15.95 mm before) and weighs 1.08 kilograms (down from 1.13 kilograms before). Traditionally, ThinkPad X1 Carbon features ultra-thin display bezels that enable to install a 14-inch LCD into 13.3-inch-class chassis. Speaking of monitors, it is necessary to note that the new laptops will be outfitted either with a premium 10-bit Ultra-HD display panel with a 500 nits brightness and Dolby Vision HDR support, or a more conservative Full-HD panel with a 400 nits brightness and the ThinkPad Privacy Guard.

The new ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptops are based on Intel's quad-core 8^th Gen Core i5/i7 processors based on the Whiskey Lake microarchitecture and featuring Intel's UHD Graphics 620 iGPU. Just like in case of previous-gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon machines, the CPU will be paired with LPDDR3 (presumably) DRAM, and a PCIe SSD. Since the laptop is about half of a year away, Lenovo does not disclose its exact specifications, possibly because some things may change.

Connectivity wise, the 7^th Gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon seems to be generally similar to its predecessor albeit with some improvements: it is going to support Wi-Fi + Bluetooth featuring an enhanced antenna design, an optional 4G/LTE-A Cat16 modem, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, USB 3.0 Type-A connectors, a GbE with a dongle, an HDMI output, a TRRS audio connector, and so on.

One of the important improvements of the upcoming ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptops over the current-gen laptop is a revamped Dolby Atmos-badged audio subsystem with four speakers and four far-field microphones. As for webcam, Lenovo will offer both regular as well as IR-equipped 720p cameras both of which can now be covered with the company's ThinkShutter privacy cover.

Lenovo says that its next-gen Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon notebooks will work for up to 15 hours, but does not mention its exact capacity. Based on previous-gen flagship Lenovo laptops, it is highly likely that only Full-HD model will operate for up to 15 hours on one charge, whereas Ultra-HD SKUs will work for around 12 hours, depending on the usage model.

The 7^th Generation Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptops will not be available for quite a while. Lenovo promises to start their sales only in June, 2019, at an MSRP starting from $1709.

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