Lenovo’s new 8th-gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon thin and light laptop comes less than half a year after the company introduced its 7th-gen model… so maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the new version looks virtually identical to its predecessor.
The similarities aren’t just skin deep though — not only is the body of the laptop unchanged, but so are the processor options. The new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 is available with the same 10th-gen Intel Comet Lake processors (up to a 6-core Core i7 chip with vPro) as last year’s model.
But there are a few changes that help justify the new name.
First up, the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon has support for new display options including a 500-nit FHD display and/or a PrivacyGuard screen that lets you limit the viewing angles on the display to keep people sitting near you from seeing what you’re looking at.
Second, the new model supports WiFi 6 (802.11ax). And third, there’s an updated keyboard with dedicated buttons for making VoIP calls using Skype or other services.
And… that’s about it. If none of those are must-have features for you, then you might be able to save a few bucks by picking up a Gen 7 model instead. The new ThinkPad X1 Carbon should hit the streets later this year for $1499 and up.
The 14 inch laptop weighs 2.4 pounds and will be available with up to a 4K display, up to a Core i7 processor, up to 16GB of LPDDR3 RAM, p to 2TB of PCie solid state storage. It features two Thunderbolt 3 ports, an HDMI 1.4 port, and two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, plus a 51 Wh battery and an HD webcam and IR camera with a ThinkShutter that you can slide over the front to block the cameras when you’re not using them.
Looks like their “new” keys replace the features on F9, F10, and F11 — I always leave function lock on anyway. 🙂
They’ve been pretty consistent with using F9 for “Settings”, but F10 and F11 had different features depending on the model before already.
Project Athena = big-time marketing, nothing substantial.