Review: Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 is a powerful laptop with heat problems

Enlarge / Lenovo's Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 4. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

The term desktop replacement" is a bit out of fashion as a descriptor for laptops these days, if only because fewer people have desktop computers they're trying to replace. But I struggle to think of a better term for something like Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Extreme, currently in its 4th generation.

Where other workstation-y laptops like Dell's XPS 15 have dropped ports and offer only limited GPU options in an effort to slim down and become more mobile, the X1 Extreme still comes with a healthy selection of ports (both in number and variety) and offers GPUs all the way up to Nvidia's RTX 3080. Its 16-inch screen is also subtly but noticeably larger than the 15.6-inch panels you'll find in other laptops with similar speeds and weights.

(If you're buying an X1 Extreme Gen 4, you could also check out the Lenovo P1 Gen 4, which is a workstation-branded version of an essentially identical laptop with Nvidia A- and T-series workstation GPUs in most models rather than RTX-series consumer GPUs. If you can get a P1 for cheaper than a comparable X1 Extreme, it's a safe trade to make.)

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