My Next Linux Ultrabook: Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon With Core i7-5600U

[Bbox]

Have they fixed the ugly, I mean glossy, gorilla glass peace of ssh?

My wallet could not bleed so much as my eyes do now on a X220 with crappy HD. WQHD+ sounds like heaven.

[veeableful]

WHY DO PEOPLE BUY THIS? NO DEDICATED GRAPHICS? 1800$?!

Check this out:

http://www.xoticpc.com/gigabyte-p34wv3cf2-eta-jan15-p-7617.html

It appeals to me because there's not much need for dedicated graphics on a laptop. I prefer lighter, longer-lasting laptop with modern CPU and good open source driver since I literally don't game at all on a laptop.

However I do use dedicated graphics for my desktop, though that may change soon depending on how much power can the new Intel NUC provide me for playing games with semi-high requirements (like TF2!). In any case, I can always turn down the graphics if I need to.

[Michael]

Any reason for not considering/choosing System76? Built from the ground up for Linux and tons of options for customization.

Build quality, reliability, would likely cost even more than the X1 Carbon for the same hardware, and they don't yet have any Broadwell products...

[Michael]

WHY DO PEOPLE BUY THIS? NO DEDICATED GRAPHICS? 1800$?!

I don't want dedicated graphics... This is an office system. My Intel Haswell Iris Graphics right now drive my 4K display fine and have no issues with it. If the laptop came with dedicated graphics, most likely it would be NVIDIA graphics, and there I would then be forced to use the NVIDIA binary blobs and that would only clutter the system more for my preferences out of my main production system. And I want to test Broadwell graphics anyhow.

[bug77]

Build quality, reliability, would likely cost even more than the X1 Carbon for the same hardware, and they don't yet have any Broadwell products...

I was able to build something similar, but with two SSDs, 15" screen and an i5 CPU for around $1600. Haswell, true that, but Broadwells were just announced, hopefully they'll pick them up, too.
Too bad you're listing build quality and reliability as cons. I thought it was a little strange they still offer VGA out, but other than that, I know nothing about their quality.

Thanks for the answer.

[Michael]

I was able to build something similar, but with two SSDs, 15" screen and an i5 CPU for around $1600. Haswell, true that, but Broadwells were just announced, hopefully they'll pick them up, too.
Too bad you're listing build quality and reliability as cons. I thought it was a little strange they still offer VGA out, but other than that, I know nothing about their quality.

Thanks for the answer.

Having used many System76 units, they're nice and great for many individuals, but I wouldn't compare their build quality to ThinkPads or MacBooks for that matter.

[tomtomme]

galago pro

Any reason for not considering/choosing System76? Built from the ground up for Linux and tons of options for customization.

yep - just ordered a galago pro with 256 SSD for 1.350 $
graphics with its eDRAM and the real quad-core should be faster.
sure its heavier and not so thin (20 mm) but whats the point with this thin-thin-business??

[nbecker]

please try fedora 21

I'd love to hear about fedora f21 running on this

[Jabberwocky]

I don't want dedicated graphics... This is an office system. My Intel Haswell Iris Graphics right now drive my 4K display fine and have no issues with it. If the laptop came with dedicated graphics, most likely it would be NVIDIA graphics, and there I would then be forced to use the NVIDIA binary blobs and that would only clutter the system more for my preferences out of my main production system. And I want to test Broadwell graphics anyhow.

I can't agree more. Just have something to add... I've had problems with various Dell and LG Xnote laptops since 2011 all with dedicated graphics. Three of those laptops failed just after 2 years of usage. With the Dell Inspiron N5110 - i7 & Geforce 525M being the worst of the lot. Constantly overheating, whether it was Ubuntu with heavy disk I/O via MongoDB (running my mocha db tests) or gaming on windows 7, it was a design problem and everyone had the same issues. I tried replacing the thermal paste and got a "laptop cooler", but to no avail. The one LG Xnote had it's second hdd replacement last year.

I'm sure there's better laptops out there like Alienware or Macbook-Pro, but it's too expensive and bulky. Having something light/small makes my life easier. I currently don't own any laptops and I would like to keep it that way. I only have my colleague's old laptop, a Mid 2011 Macbook Air and it is just pure joy! Once in a blue moon I play Starcraft 2 and Dota 2 on OS X Mavericks.

[blackiwid]

yep - just ordered a galago pro with 256 SSD for 1.350 $
graphics with its eDRAM and the real quad-core should be faster.
sure its heavier and not so thin (20 mm) but whats the point with this thin-thin-business??

There are X240 and X250 Thinkpads too, if you like this thin and also light weight notebooks you can only compare them to that. Else you argue against a class of computers not a specific modell. I also dont like this thin-modell class but on the other hand when I look at the X250 with max 8gb ram the advantages go basicly to zero so why not take the small one

And size and weight matters much. I switched from a 10" samsung nc10 netbook to a 13" thinkpad E325 I nearly never used it, and it was because its to immobile mediocre akku times and way to big and heavy. Now I have a Thinkpad x220 which improved the situation much. its not so hypermobile than the x220 was but its my main maschine now with a docking station.

So If I would use the laptop as my desktop maschine without a seperate monitor and input devices I see why people like this system76 maschine, but 1.8kg is for many people just not mobile enough.

ok the carbon is also 14" but is much lighter, that and the mouse-stick + lenovos good tastaturs should be enough to take that, would be at least for me.

What I just dont understand is my thinkpad x220 has 2 ram ports and just googled it, it supports 2x 8gb ram aka 16gb ram (dualchannel).

No with the x250 we have only 1 ram slot supported only 8gb single channel, is lenovo or intel trolling us. Its a bad joke... they think we have to spare somewhere money to get higher earnings last time they got rid of mouse buttons (x230) thats the dealbreaker for me, I would buy one or 2 years from now anyway because I dont want to pay the new prices. I think I could live even better without mouse buttons would then just switch to keyboard only more consequent, than with only 8gb ram. And for what should I upgrade to this no 4cores no 16gb ram, so the only task that needs more cpu power than the x220 has is virtualisation. and because of that bad hardware its not better to do that than the x220.


sorry for going off-topic. I use my x220 99% on the docking station... thats the selling point for me to thinkpads. Maybe I search for this gaming notebook with mechanical keyboard swtiches but its tainted by nvidia gpu if I am not mistaken...

sorry for going off-topic just was in my mind