The Black Beauty for Business: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review - Performance Part

After last post about Lenovo's Thinkpad X1 Carbon's design, today we are going to see the functional side of this black beauty. ThinkPad X1 Carbon is pre-installed with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, instead of the latest Windows 8. I actually think it's a good thing. Windows 8's revamped UI is specially designed for touch inputs. Since X1 Carbon doesn't have a touch screen, there is no point using Windows 8. Moreover, Windows 7 has been proved as a great operating system in business after the long-lasting Windows XP. Therefore, it is more desired to see ThinkPad, a business laptop equipped with Windows 7. 

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The Black Beauty for Business: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review - Design Part

Since Lenovo bought the brand of 'ThinkPad' from IBM in 2005, its fans have been debating over whether the product line retains the original characteristics and value. Needless to say, till today, it is still one of the best-selling PC brand in the market and it is seen as a perfect companion for business use. Today my review is on Lenovo's latest ThinkPad family member, X1 Carbon. 

ThinkPad is well known for its state-of-the-art industrial design. It is simple, durable and reliable (that may depend on personal expectation). ThinkPad X1 Carbon inherits the merits from its family. Following the trend since Apple's MacBook Air, Ultrabook that emphasizes on mobility is now the mainstream in the laptop market. As the name suggests, the case is built using carbon fibre. That makes X1 Carbon lightweight (1.36kg!) and yet not compromise in its strength. 

The X1 Carbon has the typical Bento lunchbox design like its predecessors, with slightly rounded edges. The surface is matte finished which helps reduce fingerprints compared to a glossy one. However, it could still be obvious if anything oily is touching on it. 

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Lenovo's Ideapad Yoga 11 Review: Part 2

In my previous post, you got a brief idea of how Lenovo's Yoga 11 looks like. You may notice that I didn't put much focus on what the specifications are, like CPU, RAM, hard disk speed, etc. That's because, to be honest, I don't really care about what's the clock speed of the CPU or the benchmark scores. At the end of the day, all that matters is that whether the system is smooth or sluggish, controls are convenient or awkward and whether it's a breeze or hassle to get your daily things done. Apple does not offer the highest specs in its iPhone and iPad compared to other competitors, but it manages to provide the best experience to its customers. After all, what makes an individual buy the product is that he/she simply likes using it.

In this part 2 of the Yoga 11 review, it will be a mix of Yoga 11 and Windows 8 experience since I haven't really used Windows 8 before and it may also give you a glance of how it looks like. In one of my previous blog posts, I talked about what's the flaw in the Windows 8 design. So in this post, I'll also pay a little more attention to whether the experience is affected in Windows 8.

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Lenovo's Ideapad Yoga 11 Review: Part 1

A hybrid laptop isn't something new. Many years back, HP and IBM already supplied laptops with rotatable screen so as to make the annotation easier. However, that was pretty much about it. Windows 7 is not specifically designed for touch/stylus use, so the use is very limited. With the advent of tablet era, Lenovo has come up with something really cool, yet not forgetting the traditional laptop form factor. It's the latest Ideapad Yoga series. 

Ideapad Yoga comes in two sizes, 11.6 inch and 13 inch. Besides the apparent size difference, the most major one would be the operating system. The latest generation of Windows has two versions. Yoga 11 is running Windows RT while Yoga 13 is Windows 8. Windows RT looks very similar to Windows 8, but it's notably different. The difference one would probably be most concerned is that Windows RT isn't compatible with desktop programs like Windows 8 does. Therefore, only Windows Store apps could be installed on the system. In other words, it works just like Android/iOS tablets.

In this review, I will share my thoughts and experiences with Lenovo's Yoga 11 and it will be two parts: part 1 will be most about the design of the gear and part 2 is how this performs in daily use.

To be honest, I have never really used a Lenovo product before, neither I have used Windows RT/8 on a daily basis. So in this review, I may have some fresh findings compared to those who are more used to this. Okay, now let's take a look at what Lenovo has got us.

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