The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano takes the notion of a slim, lightweight Ultrabook to a new extreme, and I mean that in a good way.
My first literal impression of the X1 Nano came when I took it out of the box. Was really this Light? It turns out that yes: despite its 13.3-inch screen panel, the ThinkPad X1 Nano weighs just 2 pounds. This is about 1 kilo lighter than the typical Ultrabook, so it is about 30% lighter than most of its competitors. It is also the lightest ThinkPad that Lenovo has ever made.
Of course, when you take so much weight off a laptop, something has to give. And for sure, the keyboard and the palm rest are a little smaller than the normal size, although they seem perfectly suited for the job. The screen does not support multi-touch or smartpens, which is good on a portable PC. And there are only two USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, both on the left side of the PC, as well as on the Apple MacBook Air.
This is not ideal, but Lenovo is probably betting that there is an audience for such a thin and light laptop and that they will tolerate the absence of legacy ports. And ThinkPad buyers, unlike Apple fans, at least have a lot of options with these ports, if that’s what they need.
In addition to its epic thickness and lightness, there is much more to enjoy with the Nano. This screen displays a desirable 16:10 aspect ratio, making it more ideal for productivity jobs than typical 16: 9 screens. And it has a very high resolution, albeit unusual, of 2160 x 1350. Strangely, the settings are bigger than I would expect on a PC like this.
Build quality is also exactly what we expect from the ThinkPad, and with its carbon fiber top and magnesium alloy bottom, it also offers the same promises of durability.
Internally, the Nano is completely modern. It is powered by 11th generation Intel Core processors – a Corei7-1160G7 in the case of the analysis unit – up to 16 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of storage based on PCIe NVMe SSD. As an Intel Evo PC, the Nano also features Intel Iris Xe Graphics, which is perhaps the biggest breakthrough when comparing this generation of processor with the previous one. It also features Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.
The Nano also supports Windows Hello fingerprint recognition through a small square sensor on the right wrist rest, and Windows Hello facial recognition through the 720p webcam, which even has a manual cover for privacy.
The ThinkPad X1 Nano costs about $ 950 for a Core i5 processor configuration, 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. This is quite reasonable, but the analytics unit with its Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage is currently at twice that cost, which seems exorbitant.
Early.
Marked with Lenovo, Lenovo ThinkPad, ThinkPad X1 Nano