Lenovo Unveils Sub-2 Pound ThinkPad X1 Nano Laptop

One of the best ultrabooks, Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon tips the scales at a mere 2.49 pounds. But if you want an even lighter laptop, the company has a new model that weighs a half pound less. Available in the fourth quarter for a starting price of $1,399, the ThinkPad X1 Nano weighs just 1.99 pounds and measures a mere 0.55 inches thick, about 0.05 inches thinner than the Carbon.

Unlike the Carbon, which has a 14-inch, 16:9 display with resolutions up to 4K, the ThinkPad X1 Nano will come with a 13-inch, 16:10 panel that’s available in 2160 x 1350 resolution only (touch or non-touch). It will be powered by Intel’s new 11th Gen “Tiger Lake” CPUs which rely on the company’s integrated Iris Xe Graphics. 

ThinkPad X1 Nano Specifications

One of the first laptops to meet Intel’s Evo standard,the X1 Nano will have Wi-Fi 6, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports and a host of new A.I.-driven and biometric security features. Lenovo claims that the laptop will have new voice recognition and “human presence detection” features that allow you to login without a password, along with a traditional fingerprint reader. There will be versions available with optional 5G or 4G connectivity built in.

Unfortunately, to get a system this thin, you’ll have to trade away traditional USB Type-A ports. The system will have just two Thunderbolt 4 ports (which are backwards compatible with USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 devices), along with a headphone jack. If you want to plug in a USB Flash drive, a 2.4-GHz wireless mouse receiver or any of the million-plus other USB Type-A devices in the world, you’ll need an adapter, hub or dock of some kind.

In order to meet the Evo Standard, the ThinkPad X1 Nano must deliver at least 8 hours of battery life, as Intel mandates 9 hours for 1080p laptops, 8 for 2K laptops and 7 for 4K models. According to Lenovo’s spec sheet, the X1 Nano gets up to 17.3 hours of battery life. But that was tested using MobileMark 2014, which is a less stringent test than we perform in our labs, so we’ll have to see how the laptop performs when we get the chance to benchmark it.

While some ThinkPad models are available in both silver and black, the X1 Nano will come in black only, but will have the carbon fiber weave pattern lid that we’d seen on high-end ThinkPad X1 Carbons available as an option. It will employ a 720p camera with IR for face recognition, along with Lenovo’s ThinkShutter cover for privacy.