Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition review: The ups
A familiar aesthetic
Simple.
If you’ve seen one ThinkPad, you’ve seen them all.
That’s all true here and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But it’s sturdy, too.
But that battle is lost.
The power button is also on the right side of the machine.
I worried that I’d lock the machine accidentally while grabbing it or moving it about.
Keep that in mind if you have a predilection for wings while you work.
Nailing the Fundamentals
This is the part where I extol the virtues of the time-tested keyboard.
It get’s fairly loud too, without falling apart at the highs.
It’s a shame they keyboard lacks dedicated media keys, though.
The quality1080p webcam wasn’t surprising, on a machine built for work.
Vibrant Display
The Gen 13 sports a 14-inch, 2,800 x 1,800 OLED worth ogling.
It’s bright: 472 nits, in our testing.
Anecdotally, it looks great.
Colors are vivid without being overeager, and viewing angles are strong even at awkward angles.
We’ll touch on performance soon.
A few smart gimmicks
Pressing Fn + F8 brings up the “Smart Modes” panel.
Finally, there’s Smart Share.
It’s fine, I guess?
There are a lot of apps that will let you shuttle photos between mobile devices and PCs.
But we’re talking about a $1,000 premium here.
Our automated battery test consists of surfing the web with the brightness dialed down to 150-nits.
But you’ll see between three and four more hours of life in either the Yoga or MacBook Air.
There is, of course, the CoPilot functionality declaimed by that “Aura Edition” marketing badge.
The Gen 13’s durability claims are reassuring, but again, it’s twice the price.
If you’re worried about damaging your MacBook Air there’s AppleCare, and for the Yoga…
I dunno, buy two?
