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Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon family has long offered laptops with business smarts, a touch of elegance and a sleek, minimalist design language. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 machines come in various shapes and sizes, including foldables, convertibles, and good old-fashioned laptops. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the latter, a traditional clamshell laptop form factor with focus on an ultra-premium configuration and experience. In terms of business class laptops, the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition we’re evaluating here today sets a new standard for ultra-portable computing.
The latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition (yes, that’s a mouthful) is the lightest yet, weighing in at less than one kilogram (about 2.1 pounds). Regardless of its ultra-svelte design, on board the machine we’ve tested is the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 Lunar Lake processor platform with an generous 32GB of RAM. And despite its solid specs, there are some caveats to consider, one of which is its relatively high price tag. Still, this laptop stands alone in the realm of ultraportable, premium business machines, so let’s dig in with a full review of what makes this ThinkPad sing.
ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition: Specs, Design, Build Quality & Features
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition has a bit of a clunky name, but the laptop itself is anything but. Even after acclimating to this machine, you’ll probably still be surprised by how alarmingly light it is when you pick it up. Thus, this featherweight computer is very easy to carry in a bag or balance on your lap. Lenovo managed to shave substantial weight off off its previous 12th Gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon, bringing its mass down from 2.42 pounds to just 2.1 pounds. For reference, Apple’s lightest laptop, the 13-inch MacBook Air, tips the scales at 2.7 pounds, so what Lenovo has achieved is no small feat.
In spite of its light weight, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 doesn’t feel or look cheap—there’s a beautiful utilitarian elegance to this machine. It’s made from premium materials like magnesium and carbon fiber, in addition to the aluminum frame you see in most laptops. This gives the ThinkPad X1 Carbon structural resilience while keeping its weight down. One notable drawback of all that carbon fiber and this machine’s soft touch finish (which feels great by the way) is that it will collect fingerprints quite readily, unfortunately.
Lenovo clearly paid attention to the little things with this high-end enterprise laptop. The lid has Lenovo’s more recently-added lip around the camera that makes it easier to open, and it’s incredibly smooth. You can easily lift the lid with one finger, and the hinge is sturdy when open; there’s no wobble, even when you move the machine around. That’s doubly impressive considering how feather-light this thing is.
Our Hands-On Preview Of The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition
And when you pry open the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition, you’re treated to a gorgeous 2880×1800 OLED panel. It has punchy saturation, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a peak brightness of 400 nits—its matte finish helps reduce reflections, so while we’d prefer a bit more brightness, this machine should be readable in most lighting conditions.
This display does not have touch support, which is increasingly uncommon for consumer machines, but it’s still the way for most enterprise laptops. We’re not so sure you’d want to muck up this beautiful display with more fingerprints, anyway.
The bezel around the screen is very slim, contributing to the compact footprint of this machine. At the top, next to the 1080p webcam, you’ll find a physical privacy shutter, which is a much appreciated feature on a high-end laptop. The camera supports IR for Windows Hello, and there’s also a fingerprint sensor. The sensor can be easy to miss at first; it looks like a key on the keyboard, but it’s a stationary raised block between the arrows and the Copilot key. It’s very accurate and fast for a Windows laptop, which is to say it’s still slower than the fingerprint sensors on modern phones.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 has a good but not great selection of ports. There are two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 on the left side, along with a USB-A. The other USB-A is on the right side with the 3.5mm jack, a full-sized HDMI 2.1, and a Kensington lock. It’s nice to see two legacy USBs, even if they’re limited to 5Gbps. We’d also prefer to have the USB-C ports split up to allow charging on either side.
Input is where the new ThinkPad X1 really shines. It comes with the traditional trackpad/trackpoint combo, which may not be long for this world. Lenovo recently announced the first ThinkPad without trackpoint, which is not surprising. Lenovo is the only OEM still committed to the keyboard nub, but we remain fans. It’s a very comfortable, precise way to control the mouse that doesn’t force you to move your hands away from the keyboard. On the other hand, trackpoint’s buttons eat into available trackpad real estate.
You’ll have to pry my trackpoint from my cold, dead hands.
The trackpad, small though it is, offers excellent responsiveness and a smooth texture. The click mechanism of the trackpoint buttons and the trackpad’s lower section are quiet and require just the right amount of pressure to trigger.
The keyboard on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 is superb, (as usual for ThinkPads) offering more key travel than you’d expect for a thin-and-light machine, and the keys feel great. There’s no undue flexing or mushiness at the bottom of the keystroke. We also love the layout, which features offset arrow keys with page up and page down keys.
Bundled Lenovo Software And The Aura Edition Experience
As this is a business machine, you won’t have to wade through the bloatware that infests most Windows laptops. The machine’s settings and services are centralized in an app called Lenovo Commercial Vantage. There’s no AI schlock, no pre-loaded “free” games, and no McAfee software. In fact, you could argue the greatest source of unwanted software on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 is Microsoft itself.
Vantage is a clean, efficient way to tweak the computer’s settings. It offers options for the keyboard, camera, power settings, audio, and more. Where it doesn’t have fully integrated settings, it can link you to the Windows settings page that does. Vantage also handles core firmware updates that don’t appear in Windows Update.
The “Aura Edition” moniker here indicates that Lenovo worked with Intel to optimize the machine’s performance profile and features. As a result, there are several special modes accessible from a keyboard shortcut. Hit the “Mode” button on the keyboard, and you’ll get a small control panel that lets you change performance profiles and enable the special modes: Shield, Collaboration, Attention, and Wellness.
The Aura Modes are interesting, but they have narrow usefulness. For example, Shield mode prompts you to connect to a VPN and uses the camera to keep an eye out for someone peeking over your shoulder. Attention, meanwhile, silences notifications and blocks time-wasting websites of your choosing. We didn’t find much reason to activate any of these modes, but having power control on the widget is nice, as it saves you from digging around in convoluted Windows settings.