Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition: A Premium Business Laptop with a Twist

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition hands-on review

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a serious laptop for serious people (on paper) -- well renowned as one of the best business laptops you can buy. This is because of the ergonomic marvel that is the keyboard and touchpad (or the nipple-esque TrackPoint that still has a rabid fanbase), that lightweight, utilitarian design, and the impressive battery life. And now, at IFA 2024, we have a new generation in the Aura Edition, which packs the latest Intel Core Ultra 200 Series chipsets (otherwise known as Lunar Lake). So rather than waste your time with talking about design and usability (spoiler alert: it's the same), let's get into what is new here. Because there's a bunch of stuff I'm really excited about here -- Smart Modes makes navigating key settings for your work a cinch, and Smart Share is an absolute revelation in easily transferring content from your smartphone (even an iPhone). However, if I'm being really honest, there's a thorn in the paw of this productivity monster in the form of that new CPU. I'll take the benchmarks I managed to get with a pinch of salt, as there could be work to do and firmware updates for Intel to apply ahead of its launch in November for €2,699 (translates literally to an insane $3,000, but I predict $1,999). But as a first time touching a laptop sporting the brand spanking new chipset, color me a little worried that it may not be all its cracked up to be. More of the same is not a good thing, but you've heard it all before. So let's look past what you already know -- that same sleek, lightweight design that's super durable, and the stellar ergonomics for productivity -- and get to the new bits. It's easy for a work laptop to get long forgotten in the display department, but Lenovo makes a statement with a gorgeously sharp and fluid 2.8k OLED display. Anything I threw at it, the 16:10 aspect ratio display presented with a flash flood of color -- making me confident in not just doing the office work, but also dabbling a little in creative work like a quick Photoshop edit, or even maybe a quick AI image generation via Copilot (worth noting that Copilot+ features will launch in November for AMD and Intel laptops). I've played this game before -- a company will talk about adding some form of quick-access modes to change up your laptop, but they never really do that much. You'll normally see them called Focus Modes or something like that. Lenovo has legitimately put time and thought into these modes, as they do make some optimal changes to suit your needs at that point. These include: A lot of these modes have existed for a while -- same as those power modes between performance, balanced and eco have for years. But Lenovo has made them far easier to access with a press of that Mode button on the keyboard. It's a top notch corner-cutting exercise to getting things done! Using the M3 Pro MacBook Pro as my daily driver, I've found that AirDrop is easily one of the best implementations of wireless data transfer between devices. In Apple's own words, it just works, but I've been waiting for something similar on the Windows side. Many companies have tried, but I think Lenovo has finally cracked the code with Smart Share, and even put the Cupertino crew to shame. How? Well all it takes is a gentle tap on the side of the screen, and before you know it, your most recent photos pop up on screen for you to save. Using a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to transfer data, and measuring vibrations in the X1 Carbon from that knock to establish that connection, the effect is instantaneous and a massive time saver of having to upload to cloud and redownload. This can cut a lot of corners for hard workers. There's only one real glaring problem here, which I hope is just one firmware update away from being fixed. But remember the lofty promises Intel is making? ...yea Expectations are everything, and Intel's been busy hyping things up for Lunar Lake. But with the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V in the machine we tested, I'm really not sure what the fuss is about. Sure, there are some performant benefits going on in the spec sheet, such as the super fast LPDDR5x RAM or the PCIe Gen 5 SSD promising fast read/write speeds. And in any other world without Snapdragon X Plus or X Elite, I'd be talking about these as respectable numbers. But we live in a different competitive landscape of silicon now, and based on these early tests, Intel's mobile chipset just isn't cutting the mustard in multitasking, and Apple's outgoing M3 chip (given we're getting M4 MacBooks very soon) is still ahead. More interestingly, that multicore speed is actually slower than last year's Intel Core Ultra 7 in our own testing. But of course, a laptop is more than the sum of its parts. I hope that the whole slow Intel thing is just a firmware issue that is fixed rapidly, but in my early time with it, I still have that space in my heart for the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. It's the serious laptop for getting serious work done. The keyboard is an absolute joy to type on, that promised battery life of 18 hours (if true) should be good for a full day's usage, and the software tweaks Lenovo have on offer here really bring the machine into its own for productivity.

Hands-on: Lenovo's new ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a drool-worthy workhorse

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon has proven its worth over the years, time and time again. Now in its 13th generation, Lenovo might just have made it into the most opulent AI-powered laptop money can buy. After some hands-on time with the new Aura Edition of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon at IFA 2024 in Berlin, all I can think is 'I want one'. Everything looks great spec-wise. It's powered by Intel's brand-new Core Ultra processor (Series 2) with Intel Arc Xe2 graphics and integrated NPU offering up to 48 TOPS, 3x the AI performance of the previous generation ThinkPad X1. It's also, as you would expect, capable of a Windows Copilot+ experience when Microsoft rolls that out for Intel chips later this year. But I'm particularly impressed with the design of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon -- and with an incredibly neat party trick that's exclusive to Lenovo. At just 2.16lbs it's one of the lightest laptops I've picked up in a long time, almost feeling like it's just a chassis with no internals. The lid opens incredible y smoothly with a minimal amount of effort - everything feels plush. Lenovo has also kept the environment in mind with a customer-replaceable battery, 90 percent recycled magnesium in the C cover, and 100 percent plastic-free packaging made from bamboo and sugarcane. Onto the Aura Edition's party tricks, which are branded as AI of course. I like the idea of "Smart Modes." A quick tap of a modes key on the keyboard summons a small window where you can select Shield, Attention, Collaboration, and Wellness along with power modes. These can help you focus and are customizable so you can make them work for your needs. Lenovo's real party trick here is Smart Share, where you can physically tap your phone on the side of the lid and, like magic, a window pops up with your gallery to transfer your pictures between the two devices. Rather than something like NFC to trigger the connection, Lenovo says it uses 'sensor fusion' with elements like listening for the resonance of the tap as well as the accelerometer in the phone. It then uses a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for the connection. When it works (I was looking at a pre-production sample) it's almost instantaneous, and importantly works with both Android and iPhone. You just need the Intel Unison app on your phone and, for now at least, the Smart Share feature is exclusive to Lenovo. Otherwise, Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon Aura Edition touts things like a whopping 'more than 18 hour' battery life, a Haptic ForcePad, a gorgeous 14-inch 2.8K OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate, and a decent selection of ports. All of this makes it a great candidate for work trips (like IFA), where I need my laptop to power through everything I'm doing without slowing down or running out of juice halfway through the day. I'm drafting an email to the IT department to request one as my next machine. Although at a starting price of $1,999, I'm not so hopeful it will be approved.