The only reason I was waiting for this (and any other ultra books) to come out with the quadcore was because I do some amateur video editing and the CPU is really the controlling piece of hardware with that.
I like the Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 6 due to the quality, the options, and the full set of ports that seem to be missing on most ultrabooks. But I know I’ll be paying a high price for it.
I’ve been using the new Pixelbook the past month or so and have been pretty impressed. If you like everything about a Chromebook except for the specs it might be the right machine for you.
You can’t do any serious gaming with the device though - although you can play most Android games fine through the Play Store
Add the Huawei MateBook X Pro to the list for consideration: https://gizmodo.com/this-laptop-is-the-macbook-pro-people-wish-apple-would-1824138523
As someone who paid money for a Nexus 6P - nope.
I almost commented the EXACT same thing, but I didn’t want to rain on anyone’s parade.
But yeah, no Huawei for me, ever again. I learned that lesson.
I had no issues with my 6P but coworker had a RMA nightmare.
Update: I purchased a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th Gen. i7-8650u, 16 Gig Ram, 1T NVME Opal 2.0 SSD, 1920x1080 touch screen. I had a coupon for a pretty good discount plus eBates 7% rebate check but still a little pricey.
So far, loving it. I’ve been lugging around an Alenware M17x that was powerful but very very heavy, gets really really hot, and has zero battery life. It’s cool to be able to grab an ultralite notebook with on hand and bring it along. Quoted at 15 hours battery life, I’m checking it out now with standard use. I absolutely LOVE the keyboard. I started out using the touchpad but tried out the red button Trackpoint and I find I really like that also.
Build is very solid, feels very high quality. Compared to most ultra lite notebooks, it’s got ports out the wazzo: 2 USB 3.1 ports (including one that can be set to power up a device even with laptop is off), two USB 3.1 Gen 2 type C Thunderbolt ports, HDMI, Type 2 ethernet connector. 4 in 1 Micro SD card reader. Backlt keyboard with control over brightness. Fingerprint reader.
It’s a pain moving apps and installing existing apps onto a new system, but it’s also like moving houses, you toss out the stuff you don’t really use but could never get yourself to get rid of.
Nice! I’m sure that configuration was pricey. Quite the upcharge for 16GB and larger drive space from Lenovo. On the T460s, I got the base config with 4GB ram and 128GB SSD and saved quite a bit upgrading both myself - too bad ram is not user-upgradable on the X1. I’m happy with my machine but that 6th gen X1 is quite the sexy beast and nice that quad core is now available on the ultraportables.
Thinkpads have the best keyboards. And as great as the X1 and T460s keyboards are, I have a T430 (2012 model) and it trumps the keyboards on the thinner machines. My wife uses it at home and whenever I type on it I get the urge to make it my main machine and give her the newer one but the older machine is a thick, 5 lb slab with a very mediocre low ress screen.
My Alienware M17x must weigh 10 pounds! This is incredibly light yet feels very well made and sturdy, but that’s one of the reasons I bought it. I do miss the huge 17" screen on my Alienware, but I’m surprised how quickly I’ve gotten used to a sharp 14" screen. I haven’t really used the touch aspect of the screen yet, just not used to that being an option. I was really pleased with being able to use the notebook for 9 hours on battery a couple of days ago on a business trip, my Alienware was down to an hour (at most.)
My son just ordered the Dell XPS13 2-in-1 from the Dell Outlet. No sign that it includes a stylus. Is the $99 Dell Premium Active Pen necessary for proper functionality? Not necessary, but better than other options? Or a rip-off?
I have the same configuration. It is now my main mobile computer option after I tried to use a MacBook Pro 13 inch with the touch bar (thing gets hot enough to cook on and battery life is not as good as the X1 OR my 15 inch MacBook Pro).
I sold my Haswell-era ASUS ZenBook and am looking to get a Lenovo/Dell XPS13/MBP ultrabook-tier laptop now too.
I would wait until intel releases chips with Meltdown fixes. Shouldn’t be too long now.
We should see laptops with the on-substrate AMD graphics soon too. Misnomer to call it Vega as actually it’s Polaris, interestingly enough. But the performance is pretty great for its power envelope.
Update after living with my Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th gen for a while. Love it. It is SO light, battery lasts all day, it would be tough to go back to the touchpad after getting used to the little red nub, and surprisingly, even though it has the quad core “u” chip and a dedicated Intel GPU vs. the Geforce card in my old Alienware, it renders 1080p videos much faster in my video editors than my old Alienware did.
I had it sitting on the bed (so bad ventilation) and it was getting pretty warm, but I had to put my ear up to the laptop to tell if the fans were running. I.e. incredibly quiet.
Love the keyboard and it just feels like it was designed for quality, nothing feels “cheap” or like they cut any corners.
Yeah, it’s a nice alternative to the XPS13, but quite a bit more expensive if you go for the higher-end CPU.
Well, to be fair, I looked at the XPS 13 but I couldn’t come close to configuring it (on the Dell website) to the config of the X1C I purchased (i7-8650u, 1T fast SSD, 16GIG RAM, etc.)
The only thing I worry about is what will happen if my Thinkpads fail at some point. Now, I have four Thinkpads of various age and model at home or work and they all still work just fine. Never had to deal with Lenovo customer support for a repair issue. Apple replaced a defective screen on my wife’s MacBook 12 inch in three days for free. Just handed it to one of the geniuses and received a call three days later to pick it up.
I have a 3 year “pro” warranty on my Thinkpad X1C (but I hope I never have to use it.)
FWIW My Lenovo X1 Carbon stopped working a few years ago while it was still on warranty. I don’t remember any particular problems getting it fixed, although our department admin handled some of the calls for me. Basically we sent it off to them, and then it came back, haven’t had any problems since. IIRC they provided us the box to ship it out with.
I don’t think Lenovo gave us any hassles on it. I do recall the total time away was longer than I would have liked. It was definitely longer than 3 days. I think it might have been longer than a week.
I’ve had Dell laptops in the house (me, wife, kids) for years and years. At one time their tech support was really good. But in the last 5 years I had become really frustrated at every tech support call. I’d get someone who clearly didn’t know anything and didn’t listen, like the person I called when I had a back screen flickering problem, which I could make happen by wiggling the screen. He insisted that I reinstall Windows. I told him, this is a hardware problem that has nothing to do with Windows. Didn’t matter, the sheet in front of him clearly said tell the customer to reinstall Windows. I asked to talk to a supervisor, he refused unless I reinstalled Windows. I hung up, called again, got someone who saw I’d called before, and then gave me attitude because I would not follow the instructions of the previous tech support person.
Or the time when my then teenage daughter’s Inspiron 15 developed a stress crack on the hinge. This notebook stayed on a desk in the kitchen, she only used it for school stuff (she used her phone and iPad for everything else.) In a previous job I actually had a lab that worked with Dell on stress crack issues on the hinge (the polymer they were using had an issue that allowed tiny initiation cracks, too small to see by the naked eye, due to the too high stress from their molding process.) The laptop was only about 3 months old. So I called in for a warranty fix or replacement, the first person said since I didn’t have accident insurance, too bad. I got to his supervisor, who said yeah, that could only happen if she dropped the computer. I told him the computer was not dropped, this has developed sitting on a desk and just opening and closing the lid. Nope - that’s not possible. He refused to do anything. Told me he’d dealt with “people like me who try to get free computers after they abuse the ones they have.” For this one, I ended up taking the transcripts of the call (I started recording and told him I was recording) and sent it to a contact I still had at Dell, and that finally resulted in support.
Those are only two examples of quite a few calls.
So far, the only call I’ve had to make to Lenovo was answered quickly and the person I talked with was friendly and very knowledgeable. Yeah, one data point. But anything will be better than my long time experiences with Dell, Oh - BTW - I try to be friendly and cheerful when I call tech support, so my issues with Dell were not because I was that entitled SOB that tech support has to deal with so often.