Gadgetory

all right so I've talked a lot about searching for the perfect laptop I've been having a lot of fun trying to zero in on the ultimate laptop for me personally based on what I do most of the time figuring out what's important to me I've talked a lot about this model right here the x1 carbon from Lenovo and what I like about it mostly starting with the keyboard for me that's all the laptop is it's like a keyboard and a screen that's where it all starts yeah it's 9c if it's a little bit more powerful it's nice if it some nice form factor if it's light and all the rest of it but the reason I'm reaching for a laptop these days over some other device like a tablet or a smartphone is because I want to type something a lot of the times and I want a tactile kind of control I couldn't find another keyboard anywhere close to this one at that form factor right there you get a look at it look at this thing holds all the way up it's a big improvement over a lot of the chiclet style keyboards that exist in the world in my personal opinion me personally I came from MacBooks many different eras of MacBooks I own every single version up until the latest one I guess I kind of just accepted those keyboards then when they started to fail that's what motivated this change to go looking for the ultimate keyboard which then led me to my picture of what the ultimate laptop would be but this thing pad this x1 carbon on the top once I determined that I really liked this laptop that it was going to be my choice my selection for the daily laptop I was like I want to customize one to my exact specification instead of this one and that's where this box comes in right here so this model in front of me is an x1 carbon but customized to be the ultimate perfect laptop and you can see that identified here in this long list of customization so 1.9 gigahertz i7 it's got 16 gigs of RAM which is the maximum for this particular laptop that well that model over there was 8 this one also has mobile antenna so you can put a SIM card in here and remain connected at all times oh also this is a bit of an experiment this could be risky but the model inside of here is a silver model it's grey in color which is kind of t think pad but one of the things that I didn't like so much about the matte-black model is it does get smudgy it gets finger prints on so I wanted to try out this silver version which is kind of crazy because they are putting out a 7th generation of this laptop very shortly and it's gonna have a carbon fiber weave and I think they're getting rid of this color so if I end up liking this color it might not be for long the wqhd display whereas the model that's sitting over there was just 1080p now of course my main curiousness at this point is relating to the color since the standard matte black is like the legendary ThinkPad thing and I don't know maybe I'll end up hating the silver it's a bit of a risk especially on a custom config also I will say I got a coupon for this when I ordered this so I actually got a fair amount of money off so if you do order a pink pad directly even a custom one there's typically some decent coupons floating around I think I say like 500 bucks on this custom one so keep that in mind unboxing experience I've done this before with the last one this is so cool see how it lifts up like that big fan of that is such a cool presentation baked into the box it's like they knew they were gonna be on unbox therapy with this they didn't know that but it you know it's striking to have something with an industrial design like this that feels as solid as this that's still this light like to put it in perspective this is a 14 inch display and it's half a pound lighter than the MacBook Air oh I like that color okay it's darker than I expected it to be almost Space Gray territory it's definitely not glossy but it's also not matte it's somewhere between the two so this is what happens on the matte finish is it gets a little smudgy you see the smudge enos right there this inevitably happens it's just part of the finish and I get it it's meant to be industrial like who cares but it's just something that happens with this particular texture and even more so when you open it up see that right there the trackpad the the palm rests it's not a big deal I would happily keep using this laptop because I otherwise liked it so much but when I saw this finish I was like man I really got to try that out so anyway that's what I've gone for here now if you open it up does it and this is what it looks like on the inside so you still have the exact same black keyboard same key travel same kind of u-shaped design to each key I just I love the travel of these keys it's a happy place to be because I opted for the wqhd display it's still a matte finish which is a big deal to me I really like that type of display I work in front of a window fairly frequently so but also because that you get the infrared sensor up top so this is gonna have windows hello face unlock whereas the non-custom config sort of base model x1 carbon didn't have that so if you pick this configuration you can unlock with your face so keep that in mind and as you can tell one of the trademarks of the ThinkPad series the hinge goes all the way flat this is a fairly portable power brick 65 watts now I did a video on a third-party power brick a tiny little power brick that I've been using with my other x1 carbon you can go check out that video you if you want if you're looking for something even more portable than this the available ports on this model so you have the type-c connector which is a thunderbolt port but it also works to charge the device there's this proprietary connector here which you can connect in Ethernet adapter to kind of a weird connector I mean it will give you gigabit ethernet but you do need that adapter cable the one beside there is actually another another Thunderbolt connector you got your traditional USB and HDMI port and can I just say having come from a MacBook Pro having a diversity of ports has been such a breath a deep breath of fresh air because every so often I have to interface with for example a card reader or something like this which uses the traditional USB or some other peripheral a mouse and I don't need to use an adapter for that because the traditional USB is on there also having a full size HDMI comes in handy as well and I just got used to not having those options or needing to use a hub with the MacBook Pro but to have it on a package is portable it's nice diversity of ports useful you get another USB on the other side as well and a headphone jack too so lots of ports to choose from almost forgot on the back here like I said since I opted for the wireless antenna I can just pop a SIM card in here and connect that to my data account and just be running wireless no matter where I am without the need for Wi-Fi so that's a cool feature that you can spec out on this as well all right now one of the things I didn't like that much about this laptop was the speakers so low to speed this is the latest one what was probably your email you know granted I'm not assuming I'm going to see any kind of improving here cuz it's the same model as the previous one that said the next version of this laptop the seventh generation x1 carbon apparently not only did that one get a little bit lighter and it's showcasing the carbon fiber exterior like you'll actually see the carbon fiber pattern but apparently also they improve the audio it's something I learned to live with to be honest I guess I just I don't know it turns out that as much as like on the MacBook I appreciated the speakers that it had it's not a deal-breaker for me it's nowhere near as important as say the keyboard for example which is top priority for me it turns out after having tried a bunch of them I've got the new one booted up and first things first I'm I'm very happy with the display upgrade going to the higher resolution model I think is worth it not just because of the resolution but also to have the face unlock which I find to be convenient even more convenient on a laptop than a phone to be honest because you're always staring at it pixels are much tougher to pick up on the higher res display than the 1080p version here at about this range I can see pixels in text I would say the newer model trends is a little bit warmer out of the box as you can see right there brightness wise they're pretty close if not identical so what can I say I mean you can go back and watch the original video if you want more detail on how the speaker sound ultimately this is me doubling down on what is my favorite laptop at the moment I'll be really upset if Lenovo gets rid of this finish because to me it's still got the industrial look to it it's a little bit cleaner doesn't smudge up the overall aesthetic of this device here it's a bit more in line with a modern lab the screen is nice the overall form factor 14-inch display at two-and-a-half pounds and a solid build you know it's just it's a solid package I think for right now based on what's available in the marketplace this right here represents my perfect laptop I'm gonna throw a sim card in it I'm always connected it goes under the arm it's very cool Lenovo don't get rid of this finish all right go ahead put out the carbon version for Generation seven with the carbon weave on it but like do this one too it's fine I promise I'll buy one that's probably not enough to convince you but the world's perfect laptop maybe possibly at least for me I'll put actually the specs in the description if you want to spec one out similarly but there you have it x1 carbon improved