Lenovo ThinkPad X1 - Seriously Black
Battery Performance and Portability Index
Battery Life
The good news here is while you can’t play the latest 3D games in the market on the X1 (don’t tell us why you want to, your boss might be reading this), the life of the four-cell (instead of a standard 6-cell to reduce weight) battery is able to support multimedia (tested using a 720p video file loop) usage for three hours 20 minutes. For a Windows machine, it is pretty good, as it lasts almost as long as a much smaller, and underpowered netbook.
Specifications / Notebook | Lenovo ThinkPad X1 | HP Pavilion dv6 | Sony Vaio Z |
---|---|---|---|
Processor | Intel Core i5-2520M (dual-core, 2.5GHz) |
Intel Core i7-2630QM (quad-core, 2.0GHz) |
Intel Core i7-620M (dual-core, 2.66GHz) |
Chipset | Intel HM65 | Intel HM65 | Intel HM57 |
Memory | 4GB DDR3 | 4GB DDR3 | 2 x 4GB DDR3 |
HDD | 160GB SSD | 750GB HDD - 5400RPM | 4 x 64GB SSD (RAID 0 Config) |
Video | Intel HD Graphics 3000 | ATI Radeon HD 6770M / Intel HD Graphics 3000 |
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M / Intel GMA HD |
Battery | 38.4 Whr | 51 Whr | 56.16 Whr |
Dimensions | 337 x 231 x 16.5 - 21.3mm | 378 x 247 x 31.1mm | 315 x 211 x 25 - 33mm |
Weight | 1.7 kg | 2.63 kg | 1.42 kg |
The three machines running on integrated graphics were closely tied in terms of staying alive, but do note that the HP dv6 was running on a larger capacity battery (6-cell). The X1 managed to stay alive for almost as long on its 4-cell battery, but of course it had tamer specs and a smaller screen to contend with. Another small point to note is that the battery test for the dv6 was done with a DVD loop, while testing on the X1 was done with a looped video file as it lacked an optical drive (optional) hence the X1 would be a tad less power sapping. Overall, battery stamina was about about on par with the last generation of Sony Vaio Z, which is in a similar class of notebooks as the ThinkPad X1 in physical attributes. However, when you consider that the Lenovo machine is now using a newer processing platform for better performance than the older Sony Vaio Z, the ThinkPad X1 is definitely more efficient from a performance-per-watt perspective. And it shows as depicted in the below graph. Of course, other aspects like the lack of a discrete graphics card and an optical drive also help the X1.
While the battery life and power consumption of the ThinkPad X1 seems good, this was however expected. So it's more of the X1 living up to new expectations with the new hardware and configuration rather than it being a breakthrough of sorts. However, thanks to the RapidCharge technology, another innovation by Lenonvo and IBM, you don't have to worry much if you're running out of juice because this machine can charge to 80% in half an hour - and this is a pleasant extra. On a side note, while running the notebook during our prolonged testing, the unit was cool to the touch unlike some that warm up around the keyboard area or at the base.
Portability Index
The final defining test the ThinkPad has to pass is the Portability Index. This is a quick look and at how much work you can get done on the machine versus the effort to carry the unit around with you. It takes into account the size, weight and battery performance of a notebook. Multimedia machines usually score below the 0.5 point mark, thin and light notebooks range from 1.3 to 1.5, while netbook typically score from 1.5 to 2.0 mark. Of course by and large, these are just rough measures based on our past experience and some notebooks can fair much better or worse than the norm due to certain extra attributes or the lack thereof. For the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, it performs reasonably for its range and class of 13-inch notebooks, though it's not quite as outstanding as we had hoped for.