Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet (3rd generation) review 2018

As you unfold the tablet, you are faced with a slightly thick bezel surrounding the tablet. improved screen, which houses a fingerprint reader halfway up the screen to the right. According to our measurements, the ThinkPad X1 Tablet delivers a brightness of 451 slow, far more than you need. Below, the included keyboard should be familiar to ThinkPad enthusiasts: there is the iconic red TrackPoint nub pointer, as well as the touchpad with its big red rimmed buttons just above.

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Lenovo has not rested on its laurels, though. Lenovo said the keyboard was stiffer and more resilient, and it appears that there is less donation (or "bounce") when typing than on previous models. Finally, Lenovo has also jumped on the bandwagon running PC. Although there is no data plan that comes with the ThinkPad X1 tablet, there is a SIM slot that also serves as a microSD card holder. If you have an additional SIM card, you can add data connectivity to make yourself more productive on the go.

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A number of hardware manufacturers have started delivering utility software that allows you to configure and modify their products to your liking. Lenovo's Vantage utility is excellent. Two hidden features are shown below in this screenshot, which allows you to eliminate one of the typing troubles listed elsewhere in this review. If you buy the ThinkPad X1 Tablet, be sure to check it.

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Lenovo bets on a 3K screen and USB-C

Finally! Lenovo has passed the 2160×1440 display of the old version and jumped to the 3000×2000 display used by more and more competitors. Although the IPS screen still appears slightly faded, the richer color and higher resolution address one of the weakest aspects of the ThinkPad X1 tablet range.

If the built-in screen was not enough, Lenovo also made a massive transfer to USB-C ports with Thunderbolt, which can be used to connect external storage or power an external monitor. Lenovo has not bundled dongles or other backward compatibility options, so you will need a dongle or hub to connect existing USB-A devices.

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The new far-field pickups that capture your voice across the room are less visible. Lenovo planned to include the Amazon Amazon support application, but it was not quite part of our evaluation unit. Nevertheless, if you allow Microsoft's Cortana to answer "Hey Cortana" on the lock screen, you can scream through the room to ask questions, set reminders, and perform similar tasks. These microphones seemed to perform as well as the Harman / Kardon Invoke, another device powered by Cortana. If you choose, you can also turn off the microphone entirely via a function key on the keyboard.

The typing experience has improved

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 tablet range ranks among the most robust typing experiences. X1 Tablet continues the tradition. While I felt that the typing experience of the last generation was taking a step back, this generation looks like a return to form. The keys stay a little stiff for my preferences, but they are wide, offering a lot of landing space for your fingers. The stroke of the 1.5 mm wrench provides a satisfactory depth.

Lenovo has reinforced the keyboard of this third-generation ThinkPad X1 tablet and the results are remarkable. I almost forgot that I was typing on a tablet keyboard. There is still a small part of this sweet hollow sensation that we are waiting for, and the keyboard still sways significantly. Under your fingers, however, it feels amazingly close to the equivalent of a laptop.

Lenovo is content with the basic principles of its function keys and a set of four large arrow buttons to navigate. Just be aware that, as with the previous ThinkPad X1 Tablet, the last line of Lenovo's keyboard places the function key before the Ctrl key on the left, and not after, a marked difference from Microsoft. and Logitech keyboards.

Although I've used the TrackPoint a lot in the early days, the trackpad has improved enough to make the legendary eraser eraser largely irrelevant. Still, the TrackPoint is relatively unobtrusive, and the plasticky trackpad of the X1 Tablet is not as good as the others I've used. In other words, some users might still want the TrackPoint.

Unfortunately, Lenovo also removed one thing from the ThinkPad X1 tablet: its suite of complementary hardware modules, though somewhat practical, though impractical. Although the projector module was a bit anemic, the gun battery was a practical addition. The largest battery of 42 Wh (against 36 Wh in the previous generation) does not fully compensate.

Long-time ThinkPad users have generally referred to the screen as one of its weak points. With the X1 tablet, it's the audio that is a little mediocre. No one expects the quality of the sound emanating from a tablet to be anything special, but it is the volume that is lower. It is strongly recommended that if you buy the X1 tablet, dive into the audio settings and enable the included Dolby Atmos enhancement (Control Panel > Speaker Properties> Dolby Atmos ) – you'll be grateful for the boost levels that enhances the overall experience. However, the best audio experience is with headphones, as with most tablets.

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Lenovo tablet designers seem to have a love-hate relationship with the pen loop, which appeared both as a passive attachment that can be inserted into the USB-A port, and more recently as a dedicated loop . With this iteration, Lenovo has thought a bit: there is no dedicated pen loop, but there is a dedicated notch specially designed for the case. Purists will not have to worry about a pen loop breaking the clean lines of their tablet, and pen fans will not have to sacrifice an E port. / S useful. But problems can occur when you carry the tablet, because the case can hang and you have to put the ThinkPad X1 tablet in your bag, stylus in place.

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As for the stylus, Lenovo's ThinkPad Pen Pro with two included buttons has 4,096 sensitivity levels. I preferred Lenovo's Active Pen 2 bundled with the Miix 520, primarily for its top-mounted button and sleek lines, but it lacked the pocket clip that the Pen Pro included. The Pen Pro is rated at 156 hours of use with its single AAAA battery (included). We have not tested this aspect, but the Pen Pro is quite comfortable in the hand and inks with a little bit of latency. Lenovo includes a Lenovo Pen Settings application to configure what each button does, rather than using Windows.

Performance: 8th Generation Core Processors Boost It Strongly

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Series tends to focus on productivity. to the PCMark Office test, mainly for benchmarking. But with this generation, Lenovo has added a more powerful 8th generation Core processor. We expected this to improve the performance of the X1 and, in general, we were not disappointed. Using the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, we discovered that the ThinkPad X1 tablet was not limited to meeting thermal limits. But it artificially limits performance to reach its own power threshold, which has a similar effect. As a result, some benchmarks may be lower than you might have imagined.

We compared the ThinkPad X1 tablet (3rd generation) to several recent tablets as well as some laptops. We also note the respective CPUs and display resolutions, in order to better evaluate how each tariff is compared to the other. The ThinkPad X1 Tablet SSD hard drive and 8GB of memory do not hurt, either

PCMark Work, which measures performance across a range of office tasks, including spreadsheets and word processing. Ironically, it was the test where the ThinkPad ranked among the worst, though still competent (any score above 2,000 is good).

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