Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Impressions

At beginning glance, the X1 looks much like whatever other ThinkPad but the more you study it, the more you realize how Lenovo has refined it. The front end bezel and lid edge are characterless, a style that Lenovo carries around the perimeter of the arrangement.

The exterior lid is solid black with a speckle-style black rubber-similar terminate complete with the Lenovo and ThinkPad nameplates. On the right side of the notebook is a switch to enable / disable all radios, a iv-in-1 card reader (SD, MMC, SDHC and SDXC) and the difficult bulldoze port.

The majority of ports are on the back of the organization which include, from left to right: Network jack, what appears to exist a non-functional SIM bill of fare slot, a USB 3.0 port, HDMI port, Mini DisplayPort port, a powered eSATA / USB 2.0 combo port, ability connector and a Kensington lock slot.

On the left side of the system we detect the CPU fan exhaust vent likewise as a safety plug that covers the headphone / mic jack and an additional USB 2.0 port.

There are iv condom feet on the bottom of the organization as well as multiple vents to exhaust organisation heat. We can likewise run into slots designed to bleed liquid from the keyboard surface area in the event of a spill. Two of the smaller slots hide the dual downwards-firing Dolby Dwelling house Theater v4 capable speaker system.

The difficult drive can be taken out by removing a single screw, popping off the embrace and pulling the drive out. Accessing the memory, withal, is more difficult and would require the removal of no less than x screws.

The six row keyboard on the X1 looks and feels great. New features here include an LED backlight keyboard, a new spill resistance drainage design and what Lenovo has coined equally a "legacy reduced layout" – a fancy term which but means they take removed less oftentimes used buttons like Scroll Lock and SysRq.

This existence a ThinkPad, the requisite TrackPoint pointing device is present between the K, H and B keys as is the dedicated mouse click buttons just below the space bar. Additionally we run into that Lenovo has retained their Fn / Ctrl primal placement which is a staple among ThinkPads.

Just to the correct of the slightly concave chiclet style keyboard is a modest media console featuring the power button, ThinkVantage button and dedicated volume command buttons. A fingerprint reader sits to the right side of the touchpad for added login security.

The touchpad on the X1 measures roughly 3" ten ii.5" and features integrated mouse click buttons. If you call back in my X220 review, I was not happy with Lenovo's implementation of this. I am happy to report that this system works much improve than what I used on the X220. I would still adopt Lenovo's almost-perfect physical click buttons, but this is the next best matter.

The 13.four" SuperBright LCD display features glossy Corning Gorilla glass for added scratch resistance with a low-light HD webcam and microphone centered above. Lenovo has implemented what they telephone call an "infinity" design with the display and surrounding bezel. Much similar an infinity pool, the drinking glass covering the brandish extends out past the border of the screen and covers almost the entire display bezel. This results in a very elegant await and is something I would similar to run across other manufacturers adopt when using non-matte screens.