Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6, hands on: A premium 14-inch 2-in-1 for business

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 laptops are suitable up there with the most effective on the current market. Commonly perfectly constructed with leading-stop parts and terrific usability, they can be tough to defeat. The most current in the 2-in-one ThinkPad X1 Yoga series, now in its 6th era, is reasonably priced only to individuals with deep pockets, even at its beginning price tag of £1,849.ninety nine (inc. VAT £1,541.sixty six ex. VAT) in the United kingdom — whilst versions are at the moment available from $one,393.84 in the US. But splash out, and you can get a beautifully moveable, potent and usable laptop computer. 

The layout of the ThinkPad X1 Yoga is perfectly recognized and carries on to impress. The chassis is compact thinking of it residences a fourteen-inch display, measuring 313mm large by 223mm deep by fourteen.9mm thick (twelve.32in. x 8.77in. x .59in.). It didn’t difficulty even the smallest of my have luggage. The ‘starting at’ excess weight is quoted very exactly on Lenovo’s United kingdom web-site at one.399kg, whilst the US website just settles for 3lbs, which converts to one.36kg. It is not as light as some 2-in-1s, but the exceptionally stable build – the X1 Yoga passes MIL-STD-810H testing — justifies each gram or ounce. Neither the lid nor the foundation exhibit any flex, so you will find no mechanical require for a protecting sleeve. Nevertheless, if this were my day-to-day laptop computer I’d likely want to protect the scratchable metal outer shell. 

Like

• Terrific display
• Superb speakers
• Bundled stylus with on-product housing
• Lots of ports and connectors
• Several configurable possibilities

You should not Like

The deep gray chassis color is fairly beautiful, and Lenovo’s acquainted ThinkPad X1 brand on the lid is unique. This is recurring on the bottom suitable corner of the wrist relaxation — somewhat unnecessarily, in my see, as the silver, pink and black color plan is a very little distracting. 

As with all Lenovo Yoga devices, the 360-diploma display hinges guidance pill as perfectly as laptop computer method, and points in among these kinds of as ‘tent’ and ‘presentation’ method. All versions have a contact display, and Lenovo supplies a stylus which is housed on the chassis. The AAAA-powered ThinkPad Pen Pro is pressure sensitive, featuring regulate above line thickness. It has two buttons, which can be configured to launch apps or carry out features in the on-board Lenovo Pen Options app. The stylus fees whilst in its housing, and battery daily life can be exhibited in the settings app and on the taskbar. The inclusion of the stylus and its on-product housing are massive as well as points. Despite the fact that the pen is fairly smaller and light-weight, I found it fine for hand-written enter.  

The keyboard is very at ease to use. You can find not a good deal of resistance on the downward stroke, and keys bounce back again with vigour, producing typing feel effortless. The ‘click-clack’ seem that accompanies typing is not distracting. The principal keys all have Lenovo’s conventional pot-bellied layout, whilst the Fn crucial row and arrow keys are squared off. The Enter crucial is tall and large. I experienced no difficulty contact-typing at my regular velocity. 

Lenovo’s trademark pink TrackPoint sits among the G, H and B keys, with a few buttons earlier mentioned the trackpad for use with it. The TrackPoint is responsive and uncomplicated to use, but individuals buttons do indicate a lot less space for the touchpad. It is usable more than enough, but Lenovo can not comply with the pattern for huge touchpads here. 

Biometric authentication is catered for by a fingerprint sensor built-in into the lozenge-shaped electricity button that sits on the suitable facet of the hole among keyboard and display. The 720p webcam earlier mentioned the display has a sliding privacy protect, and IR guidance is available as an alternative if you want to use Windows Hello there experience authentication. 

My review unit experienced a leading-stop UHD+ (three,840 x 2,four hundred, 323.5ppi) IPS contact panel whose brightness (500 nits), sharpness and clarity were all excellent. It also supports 90% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. A reduce resolution FHD+ (one,920 x one,200, 161.7ppi) IPS contact panel is also available, with possibly four hundred nits or 500 nits brightness (the latter also comes with a PrivacyGuard filter). A reduce-resolution display will make perception if you want to maximise battery daily life. 

A terrific display deserves terrific speakers, and that is exactly what Lenovo supplies here. You can find heaps of quantity, bass is punchy, classical songs is perfectly-described, and voice is apparent and sharp. Lenovo supplies two strategies of tweaking audio. Its own Lenovo Commerical Vantage application supplies Dolby Audio settings for distinct situations: dynamic, film, songs, sport and voice, and makes it possible for consumers to instantly optimise audio voice contacting. The Dolby Access app supplies finer-grained controls for individuals five situations, as well as a few presets. It is fairly an expansive array of settings if you like to fiddle and tweak. 

There are at the moment 8 ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen six versions on Lenovo’s United kingdom web-site — a few ‘build your own’ and five ‘ready to ship’. The beginning price tag is £1,849.ninety nine (inc. VAT £1,541.sixty six ex. VAT), for which you get an Intel Core i5-1145G7 processor, built-in Iris Xe Graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a fourteen-inch FHD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS contact display with four hundred nits brightness. Configurable possibilities go up to a Core i7-1185G7 CPU (+£210), 32GB of RAM (+£180), a 2TB SSD (+£410) and a UHD+ (three,840 x 2,four hundred) IPS contact display with 500 nits brightness (+£150). 

Mobile broadband is provided with some of the preconfigured versions and is available as a customisation alternative: 4G LTE will insert £140 to the price tag, whilst 5G is a £400 addition. 

In the US, as mentioned earlier mentioned, rates begin at $one,393.84, which purchases you a Core i5-1135G7, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and an FHD+ display. The leading-stop preconfigured product in the US (Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, UHD+ display) charges $2,393.forty. 

Lenovo, and other brands, can be stingy with ports and connectors on their high-stop laptops, but not here. It is terrific to see a pair of USB-A ports in addition to two Thunderbolt four USB-C ports, total-size HDMI and a three.5mm combo audio in/out slot. Just one of the USB-C ports is utilized for charging, leaving just a single totally free for a peripheral or hub when the battery is being replenished. Even so, Lenovo reveals that it really is probable to deliver a good array of ports on a compact laptop computer chassis.

Lenovo promises up to 15 hrs of daily life for the 57Wh battery on its web-site, whilst the data sheet has estimates ranging from 16.1h to 23.9h. My review unit’s UHD+ (3840 x 2400) display may well be dependable for a somewhat poorer demonstrating, which noticed the completely billed battery tumble to just forty nine% for the duration of a a few-hour session managing mainstream workloads — writing into internet apps, internet surfing and media streaming. That operates out at close to six hrs on a linear extrapolation, and I’d hoped for improved. It is probable there was an problem with my review unit, mainly because on the very first try at a rundown take a look at the battery achieved eighty two% after a single hour and then crashed suitable down to six% in the following 50 % hour. If I get a next review unit from Lenovo, I will retest the battery.

Immediate charging (which requires a 65W electricity offer or increased) labored fine, however. With the battery at six% a 15-minute charge noticed it rise to 27%, a further 15 minutes took it to forty four% and after a overall of 45 minutes it experienced risen to sixty two%.

Conclusions 

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen six is a gem of a 2-in-one laptop computer, albeit an highly-priced a single. It is compact and perfectly-manufactured, with a excellent keyboard, a high-resolution display and an excellent audio subsystem. The bundled, garaged stylus and good array of ports are added as well as points, and the potential to configure the laptop computer to fulfill your exact requires, together with up to 2TB of SSD storage, is welcome.

You can find a concern mark above battery daily life, but this may well be a glitch with my review unit. If my battery dilemma proves to be a a single-off, then the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen six is a high quality fourteen-inch 2-in-one to be reckoned with.

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