Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet (3rd Gen) Review - Review 2022

If y'all were making a Windows tablet designed to brand Microsoft'due south Surface Pro look a flake dull and dated, you'd brand the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet. (The base model starts at $ane,269; it costs $1,547 as tested.) Both tablet families offering a option of Core i5 or Core i7 power, but Lenovo'southward uses Intel'due south newest-gen quad-core chips versus the older dual-cores in the Surfaces. Both have sunny IPS screens, but the X1 Tablet has a thirteen-inch, three,000-past-2,000-pixel console to the Surface Pro's 12.3-inch, 2,736-by-ane,824 display. And while Microsoft'due south slate has only a usual USB 3.0 port, the ThinkPad X1 Tablet has ii Thunderbolt iii ports. The Surface Pro retains one key crown—bombardment life—but this Lenovo slate is proficient enough to spirit away our Editors' Option for high-stop detachable hybrids.

Sparring With the Surface Pro

The $i,269 starter model($749.00 at Lenovo) combines a 1.6GHz Core i5-8250U processor with 8GB of retention, a 256GB solid-state bulldoze (SSD), and Windows 10 Habitation. Stepping up to our $i,547 tester brings a 512GB PCI Express-coach NVMe SSD, Lenovo'due south ThinkPad Pen Pro and Gen 3 Thin Keyboard, a fingerprint reader, and Windows 10 Pro. That's a grand total of $12 less than a comparably equipped Surface Pro with a Surface Pen, a Signature Type Cover, and but half the storage.

Real power and real savings come up with the Core i7-8650U model, which teams that i.9GHz CPU with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and the pen and keyboard for $2,132, versus $two,959 for a similar Surface Pro. Roamers will notation that, while the ThinkPad X1 Tablet has a nano SIM slot and can be configured with mobile broadband at ordering time, Lenovo doesn't offer separate LTE Advanced models as Microsoft does.

The 2d-generation X1 Tablet had a unique design that accommodated optional docking or projector modules plugged between the tablet and keyboard. The 2022 model is a more conventional ii-in-1 competitor, with a hinge halfway up its matte-black dorsum for the kickstand. The stand props the tablet at any angle from near-vertical to near-horizontal.

Like all detachables with kickstands, it's a lilliputian wobbly in your lap but sits securely on a desk or tabular array. The removable keyboard can either prevarication flat or stick magnetically to the bottom bezel at a slight tilt for an inclined typing angle.

Hey, Tablet Tough Guy

The magnesium and aluminum tablet has passed MIL-STD tests for surviving shock, vibration, and ecology extremes. Information technology weighs 1.96 pounds or 2.79 pounds with the keyboard, making it a flake heftier than the smaller-screened Surface Pro. (Microsoft'southward tablet comes in at i.75 or two.41 pounds, respectively.) It'southward also a fraction larger than the Surface Pro, at eight.9 by 12 inches lying flat and 0.35 inch thick. (It's 0.59 inch thick when you lot factor in the keyboard.)

X1 and ThinkPad logos decorate opposite corners of the back, which also sports a 3,200-by-1,800-pixel camera...

The front, naturally, consists mostly of the Corning Gorilla Glass-covered screen, surrounded by thumb-grip-sized bezels. There'due south a 1,920-by-1,080 webcam centered above the display and a Windows Hello fingerprint reader at the right. Both cameras capture well-lit, well-baked images, better than about tablet cams.

On the tablet'due south left edge are a micro SD carte du jour slot, the two Thunderbolt three ports (either of which works with Lenovo'due south supplied USB Blazon-C charger), a lockdown notch for a security-cable tether, and an audio jack...

The correct border holds the power push, a book rocker, and a slot for a slightly clunky plastic gadget (not shown) that holds the pen...

Alas, the Lenovo pen (more about which in a moment) doesn't stick to the tablet's side magnetically, as Microsoft's Surface Pen stylus does.

Y'all'll want to go on the volume rocker turned all the way up, equally the X1 Tablet'south minuscule speakers merely aren't up to rock and roll. The sound is pretty good, but the maximum volume level is weak, and driving percussion sounds annihilation but; it's faint and flat. For switching from MP3s to Skype conferences, of course, audio is fine.

A 3K Feast for Your Eyes

The ThinkPad X1 Tablet's 3K display, with a 3:2 attribute ratio, is a highlight, with rich, saturated colors and broad viewing angles. Effulgence and dissimilarity are both superb, with inky blacks and glowing whites. Plus, the glosscoat provided past the Gorilla Glass helps to enhance the perceived vividness of the panel nether the right lighting conditions.

Fine details, indeed, look crystal articulate at the three,000-by-ii,000-pixel native resolution. That said, the resolution proved too fine for my clumsy fingers in some touch operations. The tablet arrives with Windows' screen-element zoom prepare to 250 percent. You may want to tweak that to your liking, depending on your eyesight and your fat or skinny fingers.

Of class, yous tin't prepare fingers, so to solve that, there'south the ThinkPad Pen Pro, a ii-push button, bombardment-powered stylus that offers 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. The pen kept upwards with my fastest swipes and scribbles, and the screen was a good sport, showing skillful palm rejection as I brushed the glass in my sketching trials with the side of my hand. As you'd approximate past the Gorilla Glass panel, though, the pen's tracery on the screen yields a slick and burnished, rather than paper-like, experience.

The keyboard cover is arguably best in form—the form existence "keyboards that snap onto and off of detachable 2-in-1s." Given the removable pattern, information technology can't lucifer the near-perfection of some Lenovo ThinkPad laptop keyboards, such as those in the ThinkPad T serial, with their highly refined switches and inimitable keyfeel. But it'south splendid for what it is.

My ane quibble: I wish the Fn and Ctrl keys in the lower left corner were swapped. As well, the travel is undeniably shallow, and the backlighting dim. Merely that the keyboard has backlighting at all is a plus, and given that this is a tear-off/snap-on design, it has a solid, responsive typing feel.

Across just reveling in the key feel, ThinkPad loyalists will be happy to find an embedded pointing stick, as well as a polish-gliding touchpad. The latter required a firm rap instead of my usual gentle tap to register a click, but its lower corners worked well as mouse-push button substitutes. You also get a set of dedicated left- and right-click buttons to use with the pointing nub; they're positioned forwards of the pad, between it and the spacebar.

Lenovo backs the tablet with a one-year depot or carry-in warranty. The handy Lenovo Vantage utility merges various organisation functions in a software preload that otherwise skews toward casual games like Candy Crush Soda Saga and Hidden City. As well, the company promises Amazon Alexa voice-control support in the near future.

Speed Tests: For a Detachable, It'due south Got Pep

The ThinkPad X1 Tablet scored 2,873 points in our PCMark 8 office productivity benchmark, narrowly missing the 3,000 that nosotros consider excellent and essentially tying the Cadre i5-based, LTE-equipped Microsoft Surface Pro that we tested in March 2022...

Likewise, its quad-core processor gave it a sizable advantage in our Cinebench CPU measurement and Handbrake video-editing practice, where it joined its mid-price cousin, the Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 520, atop the ratings among our competitive set.

The Miix 520 has the same processor but fewer pixels to push, thanks to its full Hard disk drive screen. That fact made it the winner in the native-resolution segment of our Heaven and Valley gaming simulations...

All of these tablets, all the same, rely on Intel'south integrated graphics in a host of like flavors—the Core i7 Intel Iris Plus 640 samples you see to a higher place being the best of a ho-hum lot—then scores in our graphics tests were low beyond the board. Detachables are fabricated for everyday productivity work, sketching and pen tasks, and subsequently-hours Netflix or Web surfing, not for grinding workstation apps or any kind of serious gaming.

Meet How Nosotros Test Laptops

Speaking of later on hours, the ThinkPad X1 Tablet won't give you much runtime beyond an average workday. It lasted viii hours and 49 minutes in our battery rundown exam. That's bang-up (it beats the Miix 520, for case), but it's no friction match for the thirteen-plus hours of the 2 Microsoft Surface Pro slates. If unplugged life is your summit priority, a Surface Pro volition be your preferred option.

Two Thumbs Up for This 2-in-i

The battery life, we tin live with. Cistron in the more than than $800 in savings between loaded Core i7 models that we discussed earlier, and Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Tablet deserves an Editors' Pick nod among loftier-end Windows slates.

On the plus side of the tally canvas are its superb screen and keyboard cover, frontward-looking Thunderbolt 3 ports, and up-to-date CPU. If you lot like to sketch or do pen input at to the lowest degree office time, and will make enough use of the tablet mode to justify a removable-keyboard design like this one, you'll find the redesigned ThinkPad X1 Tablet an ingenious culling to a conventional laptop—and maybe even to a Surface Pro.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet (3rd Gen) Specs

Laptop Class	Business, Detachable two-in-ane
Processor	Intel Core i5-8250U
Processor Speed	ane.vi GHz
RAM (as Tested)	8 GB
Boot Bulldoze Type	SSD
Kicking Drive Capacity (every bit Tested)	512 GB
Screen Size	13 inches
Native Brandish Resolution	3000 by 2000
Touch on Screen	Yes
Panel Technology	IPS
Variable Refresh Support	None
Screen Refresh Charge per unit	60 Hz
Graphics Processor	Intel UHD Graphics 620
Wireless Networking	802.11ac, Bluetooth
Dimensions (HWD)	0.35 by 8.9 by 12 inches
Weight	one.96 lbs
Operating Organisation	Windows 10 Pro
Tested Bombardment Life (Hours:Minutes)	8:49

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/migrated-11570-tablets/28421/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-tablet-3rd-gen-review

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