Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 review
There are so many reasons why I wanted to love Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12; its reputation precedes itself and the build quality is superb. That good feeling when your palms are resting on the surface and you’re typing away is hard to capture well – and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 does it with aplomb. The question is whether the rest of the machine can live up to these expectations. We branded the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon Gen 10 (2022) a standout in nearly every category, so we jumped at a chance to get hands-on with the latest iteration.
You can get quite a lot for your money these days – and for the $1,500 mark, that means the latest high-end hardware (excluding a dedicated Nvidia or AMD GPU) and 32 GB RAM. If you’re lucky, you’ll also nab a bright OLED display and a battery life that can hit 15-plus hours. Our configuration of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12, by contrast, was a mid-range laptop fitted with an Intel Core Ultra 5 series chip. So it doesn’t hit that bar set by, say, the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 – which benefits from high-end AMD components for around the same price. Should you wish to spec up, though, you’re looking at around $4,000 (if you aren’t lucky and manage to grab one in a sale). That said, there are plenty of enterprise-focused features included that might mean it justifies its pricing.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12: Design and display
Unlike most aluminum-crafted laptops, Lenovo’s latest enterprise machine uses carbon fiber made from post-industrial recycled materials alongside 90% recycled magnesium. The result is an elegant and lightweight build quality that makes this Lenovo laptop feel great to use – there’s a subtle rubbery friction when you rest your palms on it which elevates the experience of using it. The all-black matted chassis also has a certain elegance about it – although this is somewhat undermined by the raised notch that protrudes from the flushed lid you get from most other machines. This is functional – it helps you open the device much easier – but does slightly stick out like a sore thumb.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is a great laptop for users who often need to work on the go, given its 2.72 lbs (1.24 kg) weight – identical to the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3). This makes it one of the lightest mainstream enterprise devices out there. It’s also a little thinner than others at 0.59 in (15 mm) by a whisker and more compact. It’s also MIL-tested for shocks, vibrations, and temperature extremes. In short, you’re onto a winner with this machine.
Where perhaps there is a slight taste of disappointment is in the 14-inch 16:10 1,920 x 1,200-pixel IPS HDR display fitted in our configuration. We can’t reasonably make comparisons with the OLED configuration – but the standard IPS version we tested didn’t blow us away. It’s solid and reliable, but you lack the depths of OLED as well as the smooth 120 Hz refresh rate you would otherwise get – and a touchscreen if that’s on your wishlist. This basic configuration registered a below-average 317 cd/m2 maximum brightness – which is less than 446 cd/m2 max brightness of the OLED display fitted in the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2. Other machines that do slightly better include the HP Spectre x360 14 (365 cd/m2) and the HP Envy x360 14 (360 cd/m2). Otherwise, for an IPS display, you get fairly accurate color representation and a decent black level and contrast ratio. If you need something for media or graphics work, this is not a laptop that is specialized to suit those workloads, but as a secondary discipline, you can do worse.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12: Performance and battery life
This machine is the definition of mid-range in terms of performance, fitted with an Intel Core Ultra 5 135U chip and Intel Graphics, alongside a healthy 32 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD.
This is plenty enough for basic tasks – with single-threaded performance in GeekBench 6 testing actually matching the levels we registered when testing machines fitted with the Intel Core Ultra 7 chip. However, it somewhat falls down when you measure it in terms of multi-threaded performance. Interestingly enough, the difference isn’t too much. The HP Spectre x360 14 scored 10,480 and the HP Envy x360 14 scored 8,365 when tested – and both were fitted with the 7 series CPU. This Lenovo, by contrast, registered 9,102. That said, it’s nowhere near the levels you’d get with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset, with machines scoring between 13,000 and 15,000 in our tests for multi-threaded performance.
The Intel Graphics chip also punches above its weight, hitting 18,463 in our GPU tests – which is more than good enough for entry-level workloads that push the GPU. It only slightly underperforms against the Qualcomm Adreno GPU you get fitted into the best AI PCs. Elsewhere the 521 GB SSD is pretty zippy, with 6,709 MB/s reads and 4,763 MB/s writes – up there with the fastest we’ve tested, making it an ideal machine if you often find yourself locked in making massive data transfers.
Where we wish there was an improvement above all other areas is in this machine’s battery life. At 10hrs 29mins, it is one of the lowest we’ve tested this year – and it will last you a full working day for sure, but falls short of the new bar set in 2024. We aren’t sure whether it’s the fault of the Intel chipset, but most Snapdragon machines we’ve tested run for at least 14hrs. By sheer contrast, the excellent Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 lasted a staggering 26hrs 9mins in our test.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12: Features
One of this laptop’s strengths is a snappy and zippy keyboard that you can type on for days without feeling any fatigue. Lenovo has redesigned this for the X1 Carbon – and it features a larger fingerprint reader as well as tactile markings to help you find the right keys when touch typing. On that note, typing is a sheer joy; there’s very low resistance when pushing the keys, reasonable travel distance, and they’re spaced well – meaning you can’t ask for much more. Navigation, on the other hand, is a major issue. The red TouchPoint embedded in the middle of the keyboard feels more like a relic with each model that’s released – while we experienced several issues with the minimized touchpad. Firstly, it’s too small – but also suffers from poor responsiveness when you’re trying to move the cursor. Now and then, it took a few moments to register finger movements following a right click, or sometimes when you’re hoping to drag your fingers.
Elsewhere, Lenovo has packed this machine full of ports and features to give you all the tools you could possibly need while at work. In terms of ports, you have two USB-A, two USB-C, and an HDMI port alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack and a SIM slot (optional but included in our review model). For a 14-inch machine, this is plenty more than you would expect, and a big tick to fit them into a model as compact as this.
There is a boatload of security features that ships with this machine too – including human presence detection, TPM 2.0, hardware-level security with the Intel chip, screen-blurring, and a webcam privacy shutter (thanks to a switch beside the lens). An entry-level integrated NPU also means the capacity to take advantage of Studio Effects – which is possibly the most useful AI feature built so far anyway.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12: Is it worth it?
There are plenty of great features in the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 that make it an appealing enterprise proposition – including a fantastic build quality, a robust chassis, an exquisite keyboard, and the fact it’s among the most portable machines out there. Fundamentally, however, our specific configuration suffered from middling performance, a basic display (if that matters to you), and a poor battery life. We would easily recommend – if money is no object – exploring the specced-out versions of this machine, as you are not likely to be disappointed with enterprise-grade performance and likely a more dazzling OLED display. But for the sheer amount you would need to pay, it’s also hard to say you’re getting value for money. As for this specific configuration and its $1,500 price point, we would suggest you look elsewhere to get much more value.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 specifications
| Processor | Intel Core Ultra 5 135U 1600MHz (12 cores) | Row 0 – Cell 2 |
| RAM | 32 GB DDR5 SDRAM | Row 1 – Cell 2 |
| Graphics card | Intel Graphics | Row 2 – Cell 2 |
| NPU | Integrated (11 TOPS) | Row 3 – Cell 2 |
| Storage | 512GB SSD | Row 4 – Cell 2 |
| Screen | 14in, IPS HDR, 1,920 x 1,200 pixels | Row 5 – Cell 2 |
| 3.5mm audio jack | Yes | Row 6 – Cell 2 |
| Graphics outputs | HDMI, USB-C, USB-A x2, USB-C | Row 7 – Cell 2 |
| Connectivity | Intel Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3 | Row 8 – Cell 2 |
| Operating system | Windows 11 Home | Row 9 – Cell 2 |
| Dimensions (WDH) | 8.45 x 12.31 x 0.59 in (214.6 x 312.7 x 15 mm) | Row 10 – Cell 2 |
| Weight | 2.72 lbs (1.24 kg) | Row 11 – Cell 2 |
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