Explore the New Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 AI Laptop
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 12 Ai laptop has a larger screen and durable build that is befitting of a business machine. It is also sleek and stylish. It is the only laptop that supports W.W.A.N and includes a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello authentication. The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 12 Ai laptop has a new touchpad with TrackPoint nubs that can pull up quick settings, and its software adds Glance attention-sensing capability. It can lock your computer when you walk away, pause video, and blur the display.
1. Intel Core Ultra 7 155H Processor
The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 12’s Core Ultra 7 155H processor and 16GB of RAM ensures that everyday tasks are handled with ease. This includes web browsing, watching videos and editing documents. Its 14-inch screen is bright, with 400 nits of brightness and a matte finish. The trackpad is also wide and features left + right mouse buttons and a pointing stick.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad Vantage app ties together the laptop’s settings, warranty and software updates. It’s available for both Android and iOS. It also lets you perform hardware scans and set up Wi-Fi security. The X1 Carbon’s battery lasts all day on a charge. It’s also sleek and light, so it’s a breeze to carry around. The lid is made from carbon-fibre and the body is magnesium alloy. It’s extremely sturdy, meeting MIL-STD-810H durability tests. The display has razor-thin bezels and is Eye safe certified.
2. 16GB of RAM
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 12 Ai laptop has become an industry benchmark for 14-inch no-nonsense business laptops. It offers a great keyboard, a beautiful display and good performance in a compact, lightweight package. It also offers a physical privacy cover for the webcam and an integrated fingerprint reader in the recessed power button. It also features Dolby Atmos sound and a smart software application called Glance by Mirametrix that adds attention-sensing capabilities such as locking the computer or reducing screen brightness when the laptop is not being used.
The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 12 laptop has been updated with Intel’s 13th-generation processors, which are still powerful enough for productivity tasks. It comes with a Core i7-1255U, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and an Intel Iris Xe integrated GPU. Its battery lasts ten hours on a single charge with light usage, and Geekbench 5 CPU scores which were in line with expectations.
3. 512GB SSD
The 512GB SSD in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 12) laptop is fast. 25GB of files can be copied at a rate of 1,461.5 MBps, which puts it ahead of the MacBook Air with a download rate of 958.9 MBps, ThinkPad Z13 with 852MBps and Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED having a rate of 1,157.2 MBps.
The keyboard feels great for typing on for long periods and the touchpad is small but responsive. Its battery can last ten hours with light use, and it has a good selection of ports, including two Thunderbolt 4 and one HDMI. There’s also a 3.5mm audio port, a Kensington lock slot and a Nano SIM tray for mobile data services. This is a very well-rounded work machine, and it’s worth considering if you’re looking for a portable business laptop. However, it is expensive, and most people will find the starting price hard to justify.
4. 14-inch 2.8K HD OLED Display
Razor-thin bezels frame a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display that’s beautiful to behold. It offers a brightness and color saturation that LCDs struggle to compete with. The display also features a wide color gamut that meets the DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB standards that many laptop displays only barely hit.
Its horizontal viewing angle is passable; the image dims and washes out a little from more than directly in front of the screen, but it’s still not bad. A vertical view angle is more of a concern; it tends to dim more quickly and suffer from more rapid color shifting.
The laptop runs on Windows 11 Home 64. The operating system’s security options include Bitlocker and a password-protected lock on the BIOS. It also comes with a Kensington lock slot and an embedded Intel wireless LAN adapter. The keyboard is backlit and the touchpad has a satisfying click action for typing long documents or emails.
5. Intel Arc Graphics
Lenovo continues to make this a solid business laptop with an excellent keyboard and great battery life. The X1 Carbon Gen 12 adds new Intel 13th-generation processor options, up to a Core ultra 7 processor with a U- or P-series chip with an integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
The NPU is intended to improve performance and power efficiency by offloading processing tasks from the CPU to the GPU. It can also provide security, productivity and performance improvements based on user activity.
This is a great notebook for working, but the lack of a dedicated graphics card makes it less than ideal for demanding gaming. You can still play some older games but you’ll need to lower the graphical settings. This is a common issue with Intel’s integrated graphics on laptops. You’ll get better results with a discrete GPU like Nvidia.
6. Dolby Atmos Sound
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon remains the business laptop best suited to work and play. It has a solidly constructed carbon fiber lid and magnesium chassis, but the hinge feels slightly less rock-solid than in competing laptops like the Dell XPS 13 or HP Spectre x360 14.
The small but comfortable glass touchpad accurately senses finger position and supports Windows 11 gestures. It’s also surrounded by two upward-firing speakers and two downward-firing woofers that provide Dolby Atmos surround sound. The system is very loud and clear, though audio aficionados will want to use headphones.
Lenovo keeps the X1 Carbon light on bloat, with only a couple of apps worth mentioning. The Camera app is a sort of Swiss Army knife for video conferencing, offering tools to improve image quality, blur content when someone looks away from the screen, and more. Glance by Mirametrix is an attention-sensing capability that can automatically lock the computer, pause videos, or move windows to the other screen when you’re looking elsewhere.
7. Windows Hello Facial Recognition
The X1 Carbon has an infrared camera above the display for Windows Hello facial recognition. It also has a ThinkShutter physical cover that hides the webcam and prevents hackers from spying on you. The Intel i7-8550U’s higher core clock and turbo boost speed help the X1 Carbon deliver strong performance over time, but it gets quite warm under sustained workloads.
The raven-black chassis features just a few splashes of red — the illuminated “i” in ThinkPad, power/sleep indicators and TrackPoint nubbin. The keyboard feels great and the lightweight chassis is just the right size for working on your lap. You can add a Gigabit Ethernet port and a few security options to make this an even stronger workhorse. Options include a ePrivacy-protecting display, a fingerprint reader and Computer Vision based presence detection. dTPM encryption is also supported.
8. Fingerprint Reader
Lenovo’s ThinkPad line of laptops has a decade-long history of industry-leading business computers that usually rank among the best ultrabooks for productivity. The latest model, the X1 Carbon Gen 12, is no exception.
This notebook’s keyboard is spacious and comfortable to type on for long periods, with deep key travel and satisfying tactile feedback. However, the position of the left FN key could be an adjustment for people used to other laptop layouts.
Lenovo’s fingerprint reader is built into the power button, making it easy to log in and unlock your machine instantly. Other biometric security features include face recognition software, computer vision-based presence detection and a physical privacy slider that locks your laptop’s webcam when not in use. The display is bright enough for well-lit environments and offers sharp 1080p video. The battery lasts about ten hours with light use.
9. Two Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C / USB-A ports
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 laptop comes with two Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C / USB-A ports to connect external monitors, keyboards and other peripherals. The laptop can also be charged via this port when connected to a power adapter with the right wattage.
The system also includes Dolby Access and Glance by Mirametrix, an attention-sensing application that can lock the computer when you walk away or pause videos when you look away from the screen. It can also switch apps between screens and blur the display when you aren’t looking at it.
The X1 Carbon is the lightest 14-inch laptop around, even lighter than other thin and light systems from HP and Asus. And it avoids the high-pitch fan noise that affects almost all super-light and slim laptops. It also has a stunning 14-inch 2.8K OLED screen that delivers great detail and vibrant colours.
10. One HDMI port
The X1 Carbon offers excellent port selection, with two USB-A ports supporting up to 5Gbps data transfer, and the two Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports supporting both video output (up to 4K at 60Hz), Power Delivery 3.0 (for fast charging), and DisplayPort 1.4a. Configurations with mobile broadband also have an additional Nano SIM slot.
This laptop is highly responsive when handling everyday tasks, and its 16GB of RAM allows for serious multitasking. However, the X1 Carbon’s Intel Iris Xe graphics are starting to show their age; they’re not fast enough for smooth gameplay in modern console games. Thankfully, the laptop’s battery life is excellent and lasts all day. It also includes Lenovo’s Vantage software that lets you configure security, power, and audio settings. The laptop is Tile Ready, meaning you can use your smartphone to locate it even when the X1 Carbon is powered off.
