When comparing Surface Book vs Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the Slant community recommends Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon for most people. In the question“What are the best laptops for business?” Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is ranked 2nd while Surface Book is ranked 6th. 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 touch display
Surface Book has a detachable, 13.5”, 3000x2000, 10 point multi-touch PixelSense display. It has good viewing angles, color reproduction and strong, 1700:1 contrast ratio.
Pro Versatile design
It can be used as a standard touch laptop, the hinge allows it to be used in a tent configuration and the screen can be detached from the rest of the body to be used as a standard tablet.
Pro Good trackpad
The Surface book has a large, accurate 5-point multitouch trackpad.
Pro Zero bloatware
Pro Comes bundled with a great stylus
The stylus can be magnetically attached to the side of the screen.
Pro Great key spacing
Microsoft's years of experience creating keyboards are noticeable in the keyboard's layout as keys are spaced in a way that will be intuitive to most users.
Pro Great laptop battery life
Laptop battery life lasts for an excellent 12 hours on a single charge.
Pro Magnetically sealed lid
The lid of the Surface Book is, when closed, magnetically sealed.
Pro Great performance
Can be equipped with the latest specs in terms of processors, graphics cards, etc.
Pro Durable design
Magnesium casing.
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.
Cons
Con Comes with Windows that lacks developer tooling
Developer tools under Windows are lacking compared to OSX and Linux. And while it's possible to replace the OS, dual-boot or run a VM environment for development, it's extra hassle that you have to deal with.
Con No USB-C port
USB-C will be the prominent new port used, as it can manage much more than previous USB ports. While it isn't widely adapted yet for accessories, some computers being sold today only have USB-C, which will really help push for more USB-C devices down the road. For now it isn't a big issue, but in a few years the lack of a USB-C port could limit the accessories you use to older options (unless you want to carry adapters around).
Con Far too expensive for specs
Con The screen and keyboard isn't protected from dirt when laptop is closed
The laptop leaves a gap on the side when it's closed allowing for dust and dirt get to the screen and keyboard.
Con No Kaby Lake CPU options
Kaby Lake is Intel's 7th generation processors, which weren't available when the Surface Book was first released. As such, it isn't possible to get the current Surface Book with these newly optimized processors.
Con Keybord might not be for everyone
Surface Book has a keyboard with a uncommonly low travel that might require some getting used to.
Con Screen's aspect ratio might require some getting used to
Surface Book uses a 3:2 aspect ratio compared to the more traditional 16:9 or 16:10 used in most other laptops. The aspect ratio also means that most videos will be letterboxed.
Con The hinge is not as resistive as a typical hinge of common laptops
The hinge can slightly wobble when the Surface Book is used in a lap. This is especially important on this computer as it has a touchscreen you'll want to use and also a pressure sensitive pen which won't work great in laptop mode without support.
Con Hinge scratches any surface it touches.
The hinge when the screen is open will scratch the surface that the Surface Book is sitting on. That nice glass table you're working on? Ruined. Your antique table? Worthless.
Con 3K, not 4K display
Most laptops in this price range have 4K laptops.
Con 3h of battery in tablet mode
According to a TechCrunch video, 3/4 of the battery is stored in the base and 1/4 in the tablet. That 1/4 of the battery will last you about 3h.
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.