![]() It was previously located next to the touchpad and has been relocated on the Gen 9 and integrated into the power button above the keyboard. The X1 Carbon Gen 9 is not without biometrics. In the plus column for the X1 Carbon’s webam is the presence of a physical privacy cover. The X1 Carbon’s only camera upgrade is a 720p camera with IR, which allows you to use facial recognition for logins. Even a 1440p webcam isn’t too much to ask for - that’s what you get with HP’s Elite Dragonfly Max. A 1080p upgrade ought to be on the wish list for the X1 Carbon Gen 10 if not already at least an upgrade option for the Gen 9. ![]() The X1 Carbon’s 720p cam produces a well-balanced image with accurate colors, but it’s grainy. If Zoom meetings are a big part of your workday, then a 1080p camera can make you much clearer to colleagues and clients. At a time when 1080p cameras are becoming more common, it’s disappointing to see Lenovo stick with a standard 720 cam on its flagship laptop. For getting work done, a 16:10 display is the way to go.Īs impressive as the speakers are, the webcam is decidedly mediocre. The taller 16:10 display also means you need to scroll less through long documents, spreadsheets, and web pages. A 16:9 display makes sense for an entertainment-minded laptop because the wide display is a good match for watching movies, but it feels cramped when you are multitasking and juggling a handful of windows. It may seem like a trivial change, but it amounts to an enormous difference when working. The biggest change from the X1 Carbon Gen 8 to Gen 9 is a move from a 14-inch display with a wide 16:9 aspect ratio to a 14-inch display with a taller 16:10 aspect ratio. For example, the 14-inch HP Envy 14 weighs 3.3 pounds and the 13.3-inch HP DragonFly Max is smaller but is slightly heavier at 2.59 pounds. Plus, its 2.5-pound weight is light among premium ultrabooks. That’s a hair more than the 2.4-pound X1 Carbon Gen 8 version, but the added ounce or so of carrying weight is certainly worth it for the roomier 14-inch 16:10 display. It has passed a series of MIL-SPEC tests against environmental hazards and extremes. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon has toughness baked in to help it hold up in the field. You can configure the X1 Carbon Gen 9 with Windows 11, but our test system is running Windows 10 Pro. Both 4G LTE and 5G mobile broadband are upgrade options neither was included on our test system. We also got the baseline, non-touch, Full HD display, but there are two touchscreen options - one with Lenovo’s Privacy Guard technology and one without - and a non-touch 4K option. There are three solid-state drives available: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. Our review unit is packing the standard 16GB memory allotment, but you can double it to 32GB of RAM. There are four CPU options, two Intel Core i5 Tiger Lake chips, and two Core i7 Tiger Lake chips - with and without Intel’s vPro. Our test system features the top-end CPU offered. Measured weight: 2.54 pounds (laptop), 0.65 pounds (AC adapter).Left side: USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, combo audio jack. ![]() Connectivity: Right side: 2 x Thunderbolt 4, USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 2.0.Webcam: 720p with physical camera shutter.Using the customizable model on Lenovo’s site, we outfitted our test system for $1,799.60. The manufacturer also lists a handful of preconfigured ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 models, but our test configuration is not among them. ![]() It has an 11th-gen Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The baseline X1 Carbon Gen 9, for example, features a list price of $2,459 but is currently discounted to $999.99. Nailing down the pricing for Lenovo’s laptops is a challenge because the company lists inflated prices on its website that are usually then discounted by substantial and fluctuating amounts.
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