ThinkPad X1 Carbon First Test Results: This Ultrabook Means Business

Like the ThinkPad X1 before it, the X1 Carbon is built for durability as it has passed 8 differe MIL-SPEC tests, including those which measure the ability to operate at extreme temperatures, altitudes and when being hit by sand. Like other ThinkPads, it has a roll-cage, but this time the cage is made from lightweight carbon fiber rather than magnesium. The X1 Carbon certainly felt durable in our testing as we were able to hold it by the deck with one hand, without feeling like the notebook would slip.

In order to make the X1 Carbon so thin, Lenovo has jettisoned several important ports. In particular the lack of an Ethernet connector will irk some business users. In many locations, wired Internet is much more reliable than wireless. Fortunately, Lenovo includes a USB-to-Ethernet dongle which solves this problem, as long as you remember to bring it along.

The notebook is equipped with a mini DisplayPort for video out, a 4-in-1 card reader and an audio jack, but just two USB ports, only one of which is USB 3.0 compatible. Business users with older projectors will definitely miss having a VGA port. Despite the limited space, Lenovo somehow found room for a hardware Wi-Fi on/off switch, which just duplicates functionality that’s available in Windows already. We would have preferred a third USB port or Ethernet.

The X1 Carbon’s 1600 x 900, 14-inch matte display is truly stunning. Using our light meter this ThinkPad’s screen registered 290 lux, which is even brighter than the 1400 x 900 MacBook Air’s 268 lux mark. However, the ASUS ZenBook Prime and its 1920 x 1080 display returned a much stronger measurement of 423 lux.

When we watched a 1080p QuickTime Trailer for SkyFall, images were sharp and detailed while colors were vibrant, though not quick as rich as on some other notebooks we’ve tested. Viewing angles were excellent; colors didn’t wash out at all, even at 90 degrees to the left or right.

The bottom-mounted speakers provided clean audio that was just loud enough to fill a small room at maximum volume. When we listened to both the bass-heavy “Forget Me Nots” and the guitar-laden “Basketcase,” sound was good quality was good enough to substitute for a low-grade stereo. Certainly, the Dolby v. 4 Home Theater software helped, particularly when we switched it into music mode. However, when we tried using the notebook on our lap, the speakers became just a little bit muffled.

The X1 Carbon’s island-style keyboard looks just like those on the recent ThinkPad T430 and W530, but it feels quite a bit shallower. Perhaps because the chassis is so much thinner, Lenovo had to sacrifice vertical key travel, which is a shame. Overall, we enjoyed typing on the keyboard and loved the feel of the comfortable, soft-touch palmrest under our wrists, but there is no doubt that it is not nearly as responsive as the keyboards on its thicker brethren. Even the MacBook Air’s keyboard seemed to have more depth and stronger feedback.

As with other ThinkPads, the X1 carbon has two different pointing devices. The TrackPoint pointing stick is incredibly accurate and comfortable, just as it is on every other recent ThinkPad. We highly recommend the stick because it provides the most accurate means of navigating around the desktop and allows you to move your pointer without taking your fingers off of the homerow.

Those who prefer a touchpad will like the large 4 x 2.4-inch glass touchpad. Unlike Lenovo’s other touchpads, which recently have had textures, this pad has a completely smooth surface that feels so smooth that sometimes we found our finger sliding around a bit. However, the pad was incredibly accurate and, despite its integrated buttons, it displayed none of the jumpiness we’ve seen on some other clickpads. Multitouch gestures like pinch-to-zoom and three finger swipe were smooth, but two-finger rotate only worked some of the time.

The Thinkpad X1 Carbon stayed pleasantly cool throughout our tests. After streaming a video for 15 minutes, we measured the touchpad at 77 degrees, the keyboard at 85 degrees and the underside at 92 degrees Fahrenheit. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable.

With a 1.8-GHz Core i5-3427U under the hood and integrated graphics, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is good enough for productivity tasks like crunching spreadsheets and transcoding videos. On PCMark 7, a benchmark that measures overall performance, the X1 Carbon scored a solid 5,297, well above the 2,854 Ultraportable average. This score also beats the 13-inch MacBook Air (4,380), which has the same CPU and the ZenBook Prime UX31A (4,989).

The 128GB SanDisk SSD booted into Windows 7 in a slow 56 seconds, 12 seconds behind the category average and way slower than ZenBook Prime (23 seconds) and the Fujitsu LifeBook U772 (27 seconds). The drive took a modest 1 minute to complete the LAPTOP File Transfer test, which involves copying 4.97GB of mixed-media files. That’s a rate of 84.8 MBps, which is about 50 percent faster than the 56 MBps category average, but slow for an SSD.

The SSD-powered MacBook Air completed the test at a rate of 159 MBps while the Fujitsu LifeBook U772 managed a rate of 121.2 MBps.

When it comes to perfoming productivity tasks, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is no slouch. It took a mere 5 minutes and 37 seconds to complete the LAPTOP Spreadsheet Macro test, which involves matching 20,000 names with their addresses in OpenOffice calc. That time is significantly faster than the 8:08 category average, but still behind the 2.6-GHz Core i5-3320M-powered ThinkPad X230 (4:29) and the 1.9-GHz Core i7-powered ASUS ZenBook Prime (4:59).

Just forget about gaming on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. With its integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics, it scored just 517 on 3DMark11, a synthetic graphics benchmark. That’s way below the 814 category average and the 624 offered by the MacBook Air.

When we tried playing World of Warcraft on the X1 Carbon, it managed a barely-playable 29 frames per second on autodetect settings and an unplayable 14 fps with the special effects turned up. Those rates are worse than the 46  / 23 fps category averages.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon feels really good on our lap, it has an excellent screen, solid sound and accurate pointing devices. Though the keyboard doesn’t offer the level of feedback we expect from ThinkPads, it is one of the best Ultrabook keyboards around. What will really make or break this notebook is its battery life, which we have yet to test. Lenovo says to expect up to 7 hours of endurance, but our battery test tends to produce results that are below manufacturer’s claims. Stay tuned for our full rated review.

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Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro5500 Review: Fast Color Inkjet Multifunction Means Business

The Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro5500 color inkjet multifunction printer is one of the most convincing alternatives to a low-cost color laser printer that I’ve seen to date. Designed to serve a small workgroup of two to five people, it is expensive for an inkjet, priced at $399 (as of January 30, 2012) compared to $299 for its current closest competitor, the HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus e-All-in-One. However, Lexmark's MFP is speedy even at scanning (a common bottleneck), and it overflows with paper-handling and productivity features, including USB, ethernet, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Its ink costs are also cheap overall, especially compared with those of any low-cost color laser.

Any business inkjet had better be fast. The OfficeEdge Pro5500 one-ups the competition by being fast in scanning as well as printing. In our tests it photocopied a simple text document at a brisk speed of 6 pages per minute. When it came to our hardest scanning test, which uses a full-page color photo, the OfficeEdge Pro5500 took just 68 seconds--one of the fastest scan times we've seen here.

Print speeds were also very fast, and in one case they were record-setting. On the PC, the OfficeEdge Pro5500 achieved a rate of 12.9 ppm printing monochrome pages consisting mostly of plain text with a few simple graphics. Color photo printing averaged 2.9 ppm. On the Mac, the Lexmark’s text speed slowed to a somewhat less spectacular 10.4 ppm, but it far surpassed all of the competition otherwise, printing a four-page PDF at a rate of 3.5 ppm and a full-page color photo at 1.3 ppm.

Did all of that rushing lead to sloppy-looking output? Happily, no. On plain paper, black text appeared very crisp and dark, while photos looked a little yellowish and somewhat washed-out--disappointing, but not surprising, from an inkjet. Also not surprising: Switching to Lexmark’s own photo paper produced superior results. Color copies on plain paper seemed a little grainy. Color and monochrome scans were adequate, coming out slightly dark, and looking noticeably fuzzy around curves and fine lines.

A note about scanning: On a PC, the Lexmark Printer Home software gives you standard one-click options for scanning a photo or a document. The alternative--and Mac users’ only choice--is the TWAIN scan driver. That driver is pretty straightforward, except for its Original Types settings, which range from the obvious ('Magazine') to the puzzling ('Press'). When we got awful results scanning traditional, silver-halide photos in our tests, and we wanted to make adjustments, we weren’t sure which Original Type to choose: The 'Inkjet Photo' setting seemed unsuitable, but the only other reasonable option, 'Retail Photo', was ambiguous--albeit the correct one, as it turned out. Lexmark ordinarily provides very detailed documentation, so the complete lack of it here surprised me.

Paper handling on the OfficeEdge Pro5500 is nearly flawless. It welcomes legal-size media, with a like-size scanner platen and full support of duplex printing and scanning up to that size. All components--the 300-page slide-out input drawer, the 150-sheet output tray, and the 50-sheet automatic document feeder--are both roomy and sturdy. A second, 550-sheet input tray costs $179. One of this machine’s few deficiencies is that the scanner lid does not telescope to accommodate thicker media. Also note that while the OfficeEdge Pro5500’s monthly duty cycle is an impressive 30,000 pages, Lexmark’s recommended monthly page volume of 500 to 1500 pages is more in line with what to expect from it or any other small-office or small-workgroup inkjet.

The easy-to-use front control panel consists of a 4.3-inch touchscreen color LCD; a few context-sensitive, navigational touch controls on either side; and a power button. The Sleep mode confused me initially, because my first impulse was to tap the blacked-out touchscreen, in vain. Pressing the power button is the correct answer, but you have to wait 7 or 8 anxious seconds for any feedback (other than a little internal humming). Also on the front of the MFP are slots for Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, SD, and XD Picture Card, as well as a USB/PictBridge port.

Software benefits for this machine include SmartSolutions, an ever-growing collection of Web and customizable workflow capabilities, all available from the front control panel. IT types will like the internal Web page and Lexmark’s universal print driver for easing deployment, plus PCL and PostScript support. Mac users don’t get much else, but PC users get Abbyy FineReader Sprint for turning documents into editable text.

The ink costs for the OfficeEdge Pro5500’s front-loading cyan, magenta, yellow, and black cartridges are economical for the most part. The printer comes with generous starter supplies: a 1000-page black and 900-page colors. The standard-size cartridges include a $26, 625-page black, which works out to a reasonable 4.2 cents per page. Each color costs $22 and lasts 500 pages, or a rather pricey 4.4 cents per color, per page, upping the cost of a page with all four colors to 17.4 cents. The high-yield inks are a far better deal, since the $37 black cartridge lasts 2500 pages (1.5 cents per page), while each $34 color lasts 1600 pages (2.1 cents per page). A four-color page from high-yield supplies costs a bargain 7.9 cents per page, bested only by the HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus’s 7.2 cents per page.

The Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro5500 sets a high bar for business inkjets, with scan speeds even more outstanding than its print speeds, and very few shortcomings otherwise. The real worriers should be those competitors that make low-end color laser printers, which are often slower and universally have more-expensive toner.

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