Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 review: Two steps forward, one step back

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon has long been one of our favorite ultrabook designs, combining a generous array of ports, a nice keyboard and trackpad, and a larger-than-typical 14-inch screen into a thin-and-light package.

Last year's Gen 10 iteration had a major flaw, though—a big step down in battery life, at least partially attributable to a more power-hungry 12th-generation Intel processor. (Yes, before we get any further, Lenovo's ThinkPad generational designations don't align with Intel's processor designation, so a Gen 10 ThinkPad uses a 12th-gen Intel CPU, and the Gen 11 ThinkPad uses a 13th-gen CPU.)

This year's Gen 11 X1 Carbon refresh mainly has one job: retain all the good stuff about last year's refresh and the X1 Carbon lineup generally but get the battery life closer to where it was before. The Gen 11 partially does that job. That means the performance gains from last year are negligible (and sometimes even a small step backward). It's an acceptable sacrifice for improved battery life, and the X1 Carbon is still one of the best all-around portable laptops you can buy. It's just that the Gen 11 model still can't quite manage to feel like an across-the-board upgrade from the Gen 9 X1 Carbon from two years ago.

ThinkPad is ThinkPad

Externally, the new X1 Carbon changes very little, even by the standards of other recent ThinkPad refreshes. There's nothing externally visible that distinguishes the Gen 11 X1 Carbon from the Gen 10 model; the size and weight, the small bump in the display bezel for the 1080p webcam, the ports, the keyboard, and everything else about the laptop are identical to last year's version.

To reiterate the reasons to prefer a Carbon to an XPS 13 or a similar 13-inch laptop, the 14-inch screen is slightly larger and more comfortable to work on without adding substantially to the laptop's size and weight. It's still nice to have a built-in HDMI port and a pair of USB-A ports in the system without resorting to dongles (two Thunderbolt 4 ports mean you get all the benefits of USB-C charging and Thunderbolt transfer speeds, too).

This version of the ThinkPad keyboard is still one of the best you can get in an ultrabook, with relatively comfortable key travel, nice spacing, and an even backlight; there's a shallower and less-satisfying version that we've seen in other ThinkPads, like the Z13 from last year, but that's not the one being used here. For those who live and die by the TrackPoint nub, it's present and accounted for; for those who don't, the trackpad is reasonably large and accurate, though the TrackPoint buttons do cut into the space that would normally be used for a trackpad.

Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB ports on the left.

Andrew Cunningham

Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB ports on the left. Andrew Cunningham

A headphone jack and another USB port on the right.

Andrew Cunningham

A headphone jack and another USB port on the right. Andrew Cunningham

The physical webcam shutter, which is manually switched on and off.

Andrew Cunningham

The physical webcam shutter, which is manually switched on and off. Andrew Cunningham

A headphone jack and another USB port on the right. Andrew Cunningham

The physical webcam shutter, which is manually switched on and off. Andrew Cunningham

We tested the version of the X1 Carbon with the typical 1920×1200 non-touch display, which has a pleasant matte texture, a peak brightness of 400 nits, and a 1,778:1 contrast ratio as measured by our i1 Display Studio colorimeter (all of these numbers are consistent with our Gen 9 and Gen 10 testing). A touchscreen option, a brighter version with a "PrivacyGuard" filter to keep people from peeking at your screen in an open office or on a plane, a somewhat sharper 2240×1400 option, and a 2800×1800 OLED option are all available, though the basic screen has been more than fine for my day-to-day use. There is no 4K-or-better option, though at this screen size, a 4K panel mostly serves to burn through extra battery without offering many user-visible benefits.

Everything else about the ThinkPad is either fine (the speakers, the laptop's attractive but fingerprint-prone soft-touch coating) or good (the webcam, which also includes a physical privacy shutter). These things are also all consistent with X1 Carbon models from the last few years.

Performance and battery: From U to P and back again

The biggest change to this year's ThinkPad is the processor, which will take a bit of explaining.

Historically, the X1 Carbon and most of the other MacBook Air-imitating PCs that began coming out in the early 2010s have used processors from Intel's U series. The U historically stood for "ultra-low voltage," and the processors saved power by prioritizing efficiency over raw performance.

Last year, many laptop makers who historically used these U-series processors used Intel's 12th-generation P-series processors instead, a kind of CPU more typically seen in larger 15-inch laptops (Intel hasn't really said what "P" stands for, though "performance" is one guess). These chips included more processor cores and used more power.

As a result, most of the 12th-generation laptops we tested last year had pretty mediocre battery life, from the X1 Carbon Gen 10 to the Framework Laptop to some iterations of Dell's XPS 13. Other reviewers, like Monica Chin at The Verge, noticed the same thing we did. Devices that stuck with U-series chips, like the Surface Pro 9, generally had battery life similar to past generations.

Intel seems to have at least partially fixed the P-series' battery life problems for its 13th-generation chips, at least in our testing of the high-end Core i7 version in this year's Framework Laptop 13. But Lenovo has decided not to risk its battery life this year, reverting to mostly U-series chips for the X1 Carbon Gen 11. This is generally a good trade, but not without consequences.

The good news is that this helps battery life quite a bit. Our Core i7-1355U-equipped review unit lasted around 12.5 hours in our PCMark-based battery life test. That's still a couple of hours short of how the X1 Carbon Gen 9 did a couple of years ago, but it's substantially better than the X1 Carbon Gen 10. It's also ahead of what most other recent PC laptops are capable of (though if Macs could run PCMark, Apple Silicon MacBook Airs would probably make all of these systems look mediocre).

Aside from battery life not quite fully recovering, this year's performance gains are also mild at best. The i7-1260P in the Gen 10 ThinkPad used four of Intel's performance cores (P-cores) and eight smaller high-efficiency cores (E-cores). The i7-1355U still has eight E-cores but only two P-cores.

Complicating all of this is Lenovo's uniquely aggressive performance tuning, which changes performance levels and battery life significantly depending on which of Windows 11's built-in power plans you decide to use. Choosing a different power plan usually makes just a small difference around the margins—for Lenovo's PCs, the difference can be huge. The X1 Carbon Gen 10 took twice as long to finish our HandBrake video encoding test in Balanced mode relative to Best Performance mode. The Gen 11's battery life in Best Performance mode also drops to roughly the same level as the Gen 10. We'll be talking about performance under both power settings.

One of Intel's 13th-gen P-cores is faster than one 12th-gen P-core, which is reflected in single-threaded benchmarks like Geekbench or Cinebench. For tasks that only need one processor core for brief bursts of speed—still the most important aspect of computing performance when opening or using most apps and browsing the web—the laptop is faster by as much as 17 percent in some tests.

But you notice those missing P-cores in heavier multi-core tests. The Gen 11 ThinkPad can draw even with the Gen 10 version sometimes, as it does in Geekbench. But Cinebench multi-core scores and the demanding Handbrake video encoding test show the Gen 10 outrunning the Gen 11 model by quite a bit.

That said, you don't give up nearly as much performance in Balanced mode as you did last year. In our heavy-duty HandBrake video encoding test, the X1 Carbon Gen 10 was twice as fast in High Performance mode as it was in Balanced mode, and in Balanced mode, it was actually slower than the X1 Carbon Gen 9. Performance in Balanced mode does drop off for the Gen 11, but not nearly to the same degree—and the Gen 11 in Balanced mode does manage to beat the Gen 10 in Balanced mode.

In short, last year's X1 Carbon with an i7 processor is faster than this year's if it's running at top speeds. But that's a big "if," and in the default Balanced mode, both performance and battery life in the Gen 11 are better.

It's worth noting that AMD and Apple laptops don't have to deal with any of this stuff and that both the year-old Ryzen 6850U and M2 manage to match or beat the i7-1355U's performance while being more power efficient. These facts don't help you if you don't want a Mac or you don't want to put up with all the things you give up by switching to a ThinkPad Z13.

Per usual for 13th-generation Intel systems, graphics performance doesn't change much this year. The Intel Iris Xe GPU was reasonably impressive as an upgrade to the old Intel UHD 620 GPU when it started coming to laptops in late 2020 and 2021, but graphics performance has (again) been at a standstill since then. AMD's integrated Radeon GPUs have gotten much more impressive, and hopefully Intel's next-gen Meteor Lake processors will follow suit.

Arguably an upgrade

The X1 Carbon Gen 11 leaves me feeling weird. I do think it strikes a better balance of performance and battery life than the Gen 10 model from last year, and I still think that its light weight, screen, keyboard, and port selection are best-in-class. Money-no-object, I'd still buy and recommend it over the equivalent Dell XPS 13 if you need an ultraportable Windows laptop.

But it's a bit frustrating that, unlike the Framework Laptop, Lenovo couldn't deliver performance gains and battery life boosts with this year's model. I'm mainly left wishing that I could buy an AMD Ryzen-based clone of the X1 Carbon, with its larger matte screen, understated design, and comfortable keyboard—the ThinkPad Z13 remains the closest equivalent and delivers an outstanding mix of CPU and GPU performance and power efficiency—but the X1 Carbon's screen, keyboard, and port layout are all superior. (And aside from that, AMD never quite seems able to supply its newest laptop chips quickly enough or in large enough quantities to compete with Intel, so the Z13 is still using last year's chip).

It's possible to simultaneously praise the X1 Carbon for what it continues to do well while also being frustrated that it isn't as good as it could be. The X1 Carbon Gen 11 is another slightly flawed version of a very good laptop. If you need to buy a great lightweight Windows PC right now, you'll probably be very happy with it. But if you can get by with your current computer for another year, it's worth waiting to see if the next-gen Meteor Lake architecture can make the laptop a slam-dunk recommendation again.

The good

• Battery life recovers compared to last year's Gen 10, though it's still not as good as the old Gen 9
• 14-inch screen in a 2.5-pound body. The basic screen is very good, and there are touch and OLED options available if you want them
• Better port selection than most ultraportables
• Performance is always an upgrade over Gen 9, sometimes an upgrade over Gen 10
• Lenovo publishes good service manuals for repairs and upgrades

The bad

• Needing to juggle power modes to get better battery life or better performance; most laptops don't make you think about this
• Performance regressions from Gen 10 in heavy multi-core workloads

The ugly

• Still feels like we're waiting for a true, no-compromises successor to the excellent X1 Carbon Gen 9