When comparing Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs System 76 Lemur, the Slant community recommends Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon for most people. In the question“What are the best laptops for programmers who travel/digital nomads?” Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is ranked 2nd while System 76 Lemur is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is:
The Carbon X1 is a very light and durable laptop. It has the characteristic raven-black finishing of other Thinkpads on top of a carbon-fiber reinforced chassis. The carbon fiber increases the overall durability of the laptop, making it a great fit for people who travel a lot since it can withstand a lot of physical damages.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great build quality
The Carbon X1 is a very light and durable laptop. It has the characteristic raven-black finishing of other Thinkpads on top of a carbon-fiber reinforced chassis. The carbon fiber increases the overall durability of the laptop, making it a great fit for people who travel a lot since it can withstand a lot of physical damages.
Pro Great battery life
The battery supports over 10 hours of light activity like web browsing, watching videos and editing documents. This can be doubled to 20 hours by swapping in the extended, 6-cell battery, which can be hot swapped without turning off the laptop since it also has an internal 4-cell battery.
Pro Very portable
At around 2lbs this is a very light laptop. Especially when you compare it to other Thinkpads. It's light enough to carry in one hand and when it's carried in a backpack it's easy to forget that you are carrying a laptop because of how light it is.
Pro Excellent display
The X1 Carbon comes in two different versions. With a 1080p or a 1440p display, with the latter being $70 more. Both displays are excellent. The image is sharp and the colors are very noticeable. Although, understandably, the 1440p display has images that are a bit sharper than its 1080p counterpart.
According to colorimeter tests, both versions of the display can produce 104 and 103 percent of the sRGB color gamut, respectively. That's very impressive when compared to the average for 14" displays (83%).
The 1080p screen is noticeably brighter than the 1440p screen (292nits vs 257nits) and the colors generally start fading only at about 45 degrees viewing angle.
Pro Excellent typing experience
Like most Thinkpads, the X1 Carbon has an excellent keyboard as well. The keys have about 1.8mm of travel and provide great tactile feedback. Their gently curved keys also make it very easy to target without looking at them. The keyboard also has optional backlighting which can be turned on or off with a simple key press.
Pro Built-in support for Amazon Alexa
The 2018 model of the X1 Carbon has far-field microphones built-in to work with Amazon Alexa. This will allow you to give commands to Alexa from across the room.
Pro Built-in support for Amazon Alexa
The 2018 model of the X1 Carbon has far-field microphones built-in to work with Amazon Alexa. This will allow you to give commands to Alexa from across the room.
Pro Great speakers
The X1 Carbon has bottom-mounted speakers which provide excellent audio output. The sound is loud enough to fill a large room and there's clear separation of sound coming from the speakers, making them great for any sorts of recreational activity involving audio be it listening to music, watching movies or playing videogames.
Pro Ubuntu just works out of the box
System76 machines come with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS pre-installed with all drivers and necessary software ready to go. For Ubuntu users there's no need to install their distro of choice from scratch.
Pro Choice of version of Ubuntu
System 76 allows the user to choose between the LTS release of Ubuntu and the latest release as the installed OS of the shipped device.. While installing a new version of the OS is done easily at home, it is convenient to see that System 76 will do it for you.
Pro Base model is pretty cheap
For $599 this is the cheapest model System 76 sells, who are one of the few companies that sell laptops with Linux installed by default.
Pro Portable
At about 3.6lbs, it's a relatively lightweight laptop that can be easily carried around.
Pro Comes with free lifetime software support
Officially System76 provides free lifetime support for Ubuntu. And they will also try to provide unofficial support for other distros to the best of their abilities.
Pro Great performance
The "medium" build of Lemur (8GB of RAM, i7 CPU) can do most activities just fine. Whether that activity is developing Android applications, writing documents, or editing a 4K video with Kdenlive, the Lemur will not have any problems with lag or overheating.
Cons
Con Extended dual battery adds weight
6-cell extended battery adds 0.4 pounds to take this ultrabook's weight far above that of the ultrabook standard (<3 pounds).
Con Missing an Ethernet port
The X1 Carbon is missing an Ethernet port, so people who prefer having that option as well are forced to use Wifi only.
Con Poor build quality
Like with most System76 products, the build quality for the Lemur is rather poor, especially when you compare it with other laptops at this price point. The plastic feels a bit cheap and flimsy and is not as durable as other laptops.
Con Terrible battery life
Even when just web browsing, the battery will last five hours tops.
Con Screen brightness doesn't go low
Even at minimal brightness, the screen is too bright to comfortably use at night.
Con Limited hinge angle
The hinge only opens to around 120 degrees. This is suitable for desk work. However, on a lap, it could be limiting.
Con US keyboards only
System76 only manufactures laptops with US (American English) keyboard layout. As most other language specific keyboard layouts use a larger number of keys, this is a clear disadvantage to customers from other countries.