Join for quick access. Enter your email below and we'll send confirmation plus sign you up to our newsletter.
By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over,
have read our
Privacy Policy
and agree to the
Terms & Conditions. Geographical rules apply.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gets Comet Lake CPU Upgrade
Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon, one of the leading ultrabooks for business users and enthusiasts, is getting upgraded to Intel’s new Comet Lake, 10th Gen CPUs. Available in September, the new X1 Carbon configs will start at $1,479 and will be joined by a Comet-Lake-powered X1 Yoga, Thinkpad T490, ThinkPad X390, ThinkPad L13 and ThinkPad L13 Yoga.
(Image credit: Lenovo)
The new models with Comet Lake will not immediately replace those with 8th Gen “Whiskey Lake” processors that just launched a couple of months ago (there is no 9th Gen for U series CPUs). In fact, the new X1 Carbons are still considered part of Lenovo’s same “7th Gen” lineup and have the same size, design and weight, tipping the scale at just 2.4 pounds and maxing out at 0.6 inches (15mm) thick.
14-inch 1920 x 1080 (400 nit), 1920 x 1080 IPS Touch (300 nit), 2560 x 1440 (300 nit), 4K IPS (500 nit)
Battery
51WHr, 18.5 hours
Ports
2 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 2x Thunderbolt 3, HDMI 1.4, 3.5mm audio, proprietary Ethernet (with dongle)
Wireless
Wi-Fi 6, Optional LTE
Size
12.7 x 8.5 x 0.59 inches (323 x 217 x 14.95 mm)
Weight
2.4 pounds (1.1 kg)
The biggest benefit of Comet Lake is its increased performance, which Intel claims is 16 percent faster overall than last year’s models and 41 percent quicker on productivity tasks such as running Office 365. The top of the line, Core i7-10710U is also the first U-series processor that has 6 cores and 12 threads, which should help with heavily-threaded workloads like those you find when video editing.
Comet Lake also brings with it Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) support so the new X1 Carbon and its siblings will be able to get faster wireless connections than their immediate predecessors. Lenovo claims that the added performance Wi-Fi won’t harm battery life as the new X1 Carbon is rated for 18.5 hours of endurance. (The current model is advertised as lasting 18.3 hours.)
Like the current, 7th Gen ThinkPad X1 Carbons, the new ones will be available with a variety of screen options, which range from non-touch, 1920 x 1080 on the low-end to 4KIPS on the high end. They will have the same port selection: 2 USB 3.1 Type-A ports, 2 Thunderbolt ports, HDMI 1.4 out, a 3.5mm jack and proprietary Ethernet.
The other Comet Lake enabled ThinkPads are all slated to launch in the September to October timeframe. The X1 Yoga with Comet Lake will bow in September for $1,609 while the T490, X390, L13 and L13 Yoga are planned for October at starting prices of $1,129, $1,019, $749 and $919 respectively.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Avram Piltch is Managing Editor: Special Projects. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC, or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
