Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Review: A True Power Player

­­­Lenovo continues the ThinkPad legacy with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 and its sheer mastery in providing business laptop experiences. The X1 Carbon Gen 12 sure does use Intel’s Meteor Lake processor which was shrouded in controversy but it manages to wrap that with other offerings such as 32 gigabytes of RAM, 1TB of SSD and of course, the state-of-the-art carbon fibre chassis that holds it all together and weighs like peanuts (a kilogram of peanuts, to be precise). 

First Impressions: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12

(The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 and the X1 2-in-1 Gen 9 side by side) 

ThinkPad X1’s Design And Build Quality 

The X1 Carbon Gen 12 laptop has a typical ThinkPad body with little to no changes from its predecessors. The X1 Carbon Gen 12 has a very sleek body that weighs a mere 1.09 kilograms (2.42 pounds). It honestly feels like carrying an actual notebook in your hands. The laptop uses a carbon fibre chassis which is clearly one of its biggest selling points. The body is light in weight and extremely easy to carry. The laptop does come with numerous I/O ports. We have two USB C Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB type A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port and a 3.5mm audio jack. 

There is a notch at the top of the laptop which houses the 8MP IR camera. It also has a manual shutter which I believe is a necessity these days. The 2.8K OLED display creates crisp images and rich colours. The 120Hz refresh rate does its best to offer a smooth visual experience too. The display in use is a 2,880 x 1,800-pixel OLED touch display and it is not as bright as you'd think. 

The keyboard has ThinkPad written all over it. There is a drastic change in the ThinkPad's keyboard and we also have the iconic ThinkPad TrackPoint. The keyboard is backlit and the Fn, Enter, Insert, and volume up and down keys now have tiny ridges, which I believe is to help visually impaired users find their way around the keyboard. We also see a fingerprint sensor placed where I was hoping to see the absent Copilot key.  

Hardware  

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is a criminally thin and light laptop that exists for the purpose of defining an ultrabook. This 14-inch little giant comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (Meteor Lake) CPU and integrated Intel graphics. I did find it very difficult to locate the words ‘Intel Arc Graphics’ on the X1 Carbon. Additionally, the GPU (integrated Intel graphics) performance was not that great on this laptop when I tested it for games like Forza 8 and even Valorant. Long story short, this is not a gaming laptop. The purpose of this PC is to help you improve productivity on the business side of things. 

The laptop runs on good old Windows 11 so copying data from older laptops won’t be an issue. I copied all my data from my old laptop to the X1 Carbon Gen 12 in a matter of a few minutes. The carbon fibre used in the X1 Gen 12 is in plain matte black instead of rubbery which one would expect. One advantage of this texture is that it prevents nasty fingerprints to a huge extent. 

There is, although, a SIM slot that opens up the possibility of mobile broadband, making this machine more reliable and functional. The laptop comes with two USB C Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port and a 3.5mm multipurpose audio jack. Considering this laptop is so light and thin, having four USB ports and an HDMI port is truly welcome. Bluetooth and WiFi 6E are part of the standard package.  

A Brief History Lesson 

ThinkPads have a huge history of being business computers that people often forget. Long before Lenovo made ThinkPads, they were made by IBM. First launched in 1992, IBM popularized the ThinkPad so much that it became the gold standard of computers for people in business (The first ThinkPad didn’t even have a trackpad and still won over people). These machines have a history of being practically indestructible. Durability holds a lot of value when professional laptops are talked about and ThinkPads were known to be durable. 

The ThinkPad line originated from IBM’s mobile computing division and debuted with three models at the 1992 Comdex trade show. The flagship 700C featured a stylish matte-black, rubberized-paint exterior, 10.4-inch active-matrix TFT display and a (what would later become a symbol for the ThinkPad) red rubber nub nestled amid the keys. IBM computer scientist Ted Selker created the TrackPoint II in order to give a unique experience to users. The whole thing looked like a bento box of electronic parts. The ThinkPad 700C sold for USD 4,350 which was very pricey for the time but still 15 per cent below the Toshiba 4400, the competition to the 700C.

The ThinkPad design didn’t change for decades and there is good reason behind it. The team developing the ThinkPad made a deliberate effort to preserve this iconic look simply because it works. David Hill, the person who served as the chief of design for ThinkPad for over 25 years was tasked to change the ThinkPad design in 1995 but refused to do so. “[…] of all the problems we have, this isn’t one of them,” is what he said in a statement in 1995. 

ThinkPads had become a counter-culture statement to MacBooks. You see, MacBooks had already started redefining how laptops looked at that time and other manufacturers had followed suit. Apple started making laptops that had a slimmer form factor, had minimal ports and had different components such as memory and storage soldered to the motherboard. ThinkPads, on the other hand, were completely opposite. They were these stodgy machines with multiple I/O ports, customisable components and more importantly they were compatible with Linux which was much quicker than Windows. ThinkPads that were a few generations old were customised with new components and were perfectly usable. This amount of flexibility made these machines extremely desirable among the C-suite, IT departments and enthusiasts. 

Verdict: Is the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Worth The Hefty Price Tag? 

With an official MRP of Rs 2,92,405, the question that begs to be answered is whether this laptop is worth that kind of cash. 

Well, for starters, this laptop is built to last with its carbon fibre body. The chassis is lightweight and extremely sturdy. The 120Hz OLED touch display is exactly what you would expect from a system with this kind of a price tag. The nub or as Lenovo calls it, the ThinkPad TrackPoint is quite handy once you learn how to use it. You see, the trick is to use traction instead of actually moving the finger like we do on the trackpad. 

The battery is a point of concern. It will last a day if you use the laptop carefully. With balanced power mode, 60Hz refresh rate and appropriate brightness, the X1 Carbon Gen 12 will go as far as 14 hours. The issue is that the 120Hz OLED panel is a mega battery drainer. So, while you might be getting a glamourous 2.8K resolution with deep blacks, the tradeoff is the inferior battery life compared to laptops with IPS panels. The display also has an anti-glare coating so no trouble working outside in the sun as well. 

The audio output of the laptop is commendable. It is louder and better than the M1 MacBook Air I own. This means that multi-media tasks such as streaming content on YouTube and OTT platforms will not be a problem. The laptop also has a 3.5mm audio jack which makes it easier to plug in headphones. 

The keyboard and trackpad do a great job as well. The keyboard, in particular, is great to use. The keys have ample feedback that allows for a pleasant typing experience. Once again, the ThinkPad TrackPoint plays a role here. If you actually know how to use it, this little nugget in the midst of the keyboard can be very useful. For those who do not know, the TrackPoint was first seen on IBM computers which they later sold entirely to Lenovo. 

The processor here is a topic that can be explained at great length but if I had to sum it up, it is good enough for everyday enterprise activities. Zoom conferences, Microsoft Teams meetings, working on spreadsheets, presentations and emailing. The Core Ultra 7 155H is clubbed with 32GB of LLDDR5X RAM and a 1TB Gen 4 NVME SSD and despite the processor's flaws, be it drawing in too much power, heating and battery life, it works well. Until the launch of the Lunar Lake series of processors, this was the best combination available out there. The laptop also comes with a Neural Processing Unit that helps in AI workloads which I found to be very gimmicky. Additionally, despite there being an  NPU, there is no Copilot key on the keyboard. 

The laptop offers a great combination of features it is not without a few drawbacks. For instance, the laptop faces a lot of heating making you wonder if the thermals are actually working. The battery is a huge issue when you set the display at 120Hz. The laptop barely goes up to 6 hours before it suspends itself. From the first generation of Intel’s Core Ultra processors, this was kind of expected. Additionally, this is not a ‘Copilot+ PC’, so do not expect any of those features in this laptop. 

The bottom line is that this is one of the finest Ultrabooks out there. Despite its battles with battery life, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 manages to pack a punch so powerful that you feel the impact the moment you switch to a different laptop. The looming question that still stands is whether it is comparable to a MacBook or not. 

At the end of the day, this laptop will target corporations and high-level executives and at that level, what the IT department looks for is a system that is familiar and easy to use. The X1 Carbon Gen 12 is exactly that. Despite being a generation old now since Lunar Lake Laptops are out, the X1 Gen 12 is still a good choice for professional work. It is a user-friendly machine that doesn’t take much to get used to. As far as productivity goes, the Lenovo has put all things together that make sure that the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 gets the job done.