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Tested: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Update W/ Intel Broadwell, Self-Encrypting SSD

Posted by samzenpus on from the check-it-out dept.

MojoKid writes Lenovo just revamped the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and in this third generation of the machine, they've adopted Intel's latest 5th generation Core Series Broadwell processors, along with a few other updates. In addition, they've retooled the keyboard and trackpad area, returning back to more traditional roots versus the second generation machine, which was met with some criticism due to its adaptive function key row and over-simplified, buttonless trackpad. Notable upgrades to this 3rd gen model are a faster Core i5-5300U processor and a self-encrypting Opal2 compliant SSD. Performance-wise, the new ThinkPad offers up some of the best numbers in utlrabooks currently, though battery life is a bit middle of the road, but still able to last over 8 hours under light, web-driven workloads.

22 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Fuck em by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Informative

    I do not want SSL busting malware nor support a company which does so

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:Fuck em by Adrian+De+Leon · · Score: 3, Informative

      I understand not wanting to support Lenovo as a buisness entity, but to clarify, the Thinkpad line never had SuperFish installed.

      --
      adl

      My boring ramblings
    2. Re:Fuck em by mysidia · · Score: 5, Informative

      Lenovo has also become infamous for BIOS Whitelisting, where if you attempt to upgrade your WLAN card, or switch to one more friendlier to your OS, but not Lenovo's OEM hardware, the BIOS arbitrarily decides, that since your PCI card isn't in the Whitelist, the BIOS is going to disable that device and prevent use of it with the system.

    3. Re:Fuck em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I do not want SSL busting malware nor support a company which does so

      There are people on Slashdot, of all places, who are clueless enough not to wipe their machine with a clean OS image *regardless* of which OEM it came from? Guess all the technical people really have bailed out on this pesthole.

    4. Re:Fuck em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      People hack the bios and disable that. I'm typing this from a T410 which such a hacked bios.

      Scared the crap out of me after first flashing it. The hacked bios beeps the system speaker 5 or 6 times to show you it's hacked, but I didn't expect that and thought the machine was now bricked since I flashed it, rebooted, and started hearing system beeps.

      But after the 5 or 6 beeps are up, the system loaded normally and I had to go clean my drawers...

      Anyways that isn't a problem. We will hack the bios and kill the whitelist.

  2. Soldered RAM by e065c8515d206cb0e190 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No thank you. Also: bring back the old style keyboard, and trackpoint only option. Then maybe I'll consider Lenovo again. x61s forever.

    1. Re:Soldered RAM by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

      What does everybody call that pointer thing. I call it a nub. My wife calls it a clit.

    2. Re:Soldered RAM by cmdr_tofu · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I still use and love my x60t. It's a great linux laptop. I could live with 8gb of soldered ram because it's 8 gb, although a bad ram chip will not be fun.

      The real thing I want to know is how Linux-friendly this new laptop is, and can you get it without a Windows tax.

    3. Re:Soldered RAM by benmhall · · Score: 2

      I think the ThinkPad X220 was the pinnacle of ThinkPad design: Perfect keyboard, light, IPS display, easily serviced and upgraded, no need for dongles. It's been downhill ever since. For the life of me, I can't understand why Lenovo felt the need to mess with their keyboards after the X220/T420/W520. They were absolutely perfect.

      It's telling that the biggest feature of the newest X1 Carbon is the return of the same keyboard as the first X1 Carbon. It was good machine. No doubt this one is too, but I'll be holding on to my X220 at work for the foreseeable future and don't know why anyone would buy this rather than Dell's XPS 13. It's smaller, lighter, is better made, and has the best keyboard I've used on a new laptop. (Too bad it doesn't have a trackpoint.)

    4. Re:Soldered RAM by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nipple. Funny bit of trivia, some guy in IBM patented that thing and they sat on the patent for years thinking no one would like it. Every so often you'd think they don't really have their finger firmly on the nipple of the marketplace.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    5. Re:Soldered RAM by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2, Funny

      What does everybody call that pointer thing. I call it a nub. My wife calls it a clit.

      Alternatively, my recommendation for a long, happy marriage is that you *never* refer to your wife's clitoris (nor she your penis) as either "that pointer thing" or "a nub". Just my $0.02.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  3. The 5300U is lackluster at best. by Stonent1 · · Score: 2

    It averages less than 4000 on the PassMark CPUMark test. Roughly the same as a SandyBridge i3 (i3-2xxx series) or to put things into perspective a Core 2 Quad from 2008.

    1. Re:The 5300U is lackluster at best. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      It averages less than 4000 on the PassMark CPUMark test. Roughly the same as a SandyBridge i3 (i3-2xxx series) or to put things into perspective a Core 2 Quad from 2008.

      I'm using a Core 2 Quad from 2007 to type this right now, you insensitive clod!

      (I need a new computer. *sniffle*)

    2. Re:The 5300U is lackluster at best. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      The i3 was a 35W part and the C2Q was a 95W part.

      The broadwell is doing that in 15W, and throwing down a really half decent GPU at the same time.

      It's built to purpose, not win benchmarks.

  4. Nice Slashvertisement by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those guys have already proven that they're willing to compromise the security of their hardware for anyone who waves a few bucks at them. Is anyone actually considering buying one of their machines after all that? Or maybe they just think that we have the attention span of a three year old?

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  5. pre-installed with Pokki App Store by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pokki App Store came pre-installed on my X1 Carbon 2015. At first, I thought it was the official Microsoft App Store. It mimics the Microsoft Windows App Store, but I assume Lenovo gets a cut for apps purchased through Pokki App Store.

    Pokki does not show up in control panel's uninstall list. You have to click on uninstall.exe located at /users/~/appdata/local/pokki. Besides Pokki, other programs I uninstalled were Norton, Nitro PDF, and MS Office trial.

    X1 Carbon is an excellent laptop, though overpriced. I would have been just as fine with the T450s or Dell XPS 13.

  6. The Superfish by simplypeachy · · Score: 2

    Whatever you do don't mention the Superfish. I mentioned the Superfish but I think I got away with it.

  7. I'll pass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Lenovo? More like Oh-hell-no. Sorry, guys, but you've cratered your brand by selling out your customers for a few pieces of silver. I will never again by anything Lenovo makes. Hope that $250K was worth it.

  8. Re:Superfish not relevant by HiThere · · Score: 2

    And surely they wouldn't sell out their other users. Only the one's they've already been caught selling out.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  9. Nothing self encrypts in the whole world by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Encryption is a software process, in all cases. If something "self encrypts", that means it has access to the key, and produced cyphertext from plaintext, and plaintext from cyphertext. There's literally NOTHING stopping:

    > It could keep the key in some scrambled (and recoverable) form, rendering the encryption meaningless to anyone who knows how to access it physically.
    > It could use an escrow algo such that the vendor or their appointed agents (aka, a distant freedom hostile government, hackers) can gleefully decrypt anything forever.
    > It could use an implementation with a weakness (deliberately or accidentally) which allows anyone with knowledge of the weakness and sufficient cryptanalysis capabilities to decrypt.

    Now, you COULD get around this in a few ways- but ultimately, it's just a bad idea to trust hardware encryption. It is fundamentally not trustworthy.

    This is not a problem with the new lenovo, or lenovo in general, but rather with all self encrypting USB sticks, hard drives, SSD,s etc. Because nothing self encrypts!

  10. I've had my Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 3 for a week now by gamorck · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...and it rocks. Seriously. I've got Arch Linux loaded on this thing and it screams. The keyboard kicks ass. The trackpad is easily the best I've ever seen on a PC laptop. Picked mine up for a reasonable price with a 10% off coupon (I5, 8 gigs, 128 gig SSD which I upgraded to 512 gig on my own later in an effort to avoid the extortion like upgrade prices Lenovo charges on their site) for around $1100. I'm getting between about six and eight hours of battery life in Linux at the moment.

    It's a sweet piece of hardware. Superfish? Who gives a fuck? I didn't even boot the M.2 SSD the thing came with. I immediately opened up the laptop and changed out the SSD as my first order of business. Buying a laptop this nice just to run Windows 8.x probably just means you are some kind of moron. Do yourselves a favor and move onto a better operating system.

    Still while it is a great Linux laptop - it's not perfect - yet. The Trackpoint buttons dont work quite right in Linux yet but numerous patches (libinput, xorg synaptics driver and the kernel) are making their way into source trees everywhere. So for now it's a trackpad only experience as the trackpoint is useless without working hardware buttons.

    In any event I couldn't be more pleased with this purchase.

    --
    I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
  11. Self-encrypting SSD? by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How much does it cost for the password?