Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 Fold is the first laptop in the world that can be folded in half to transform into a 13" tablet or a netbook that is the size of a small book. The Thinkpad X1 Fold succeeds in a lot of ways while falling short in others. But overall, we think users will find the Thinkpad X1 Fold to be very practical. ..
Design
The ThinkPad X1 Fold has a range of orientations for every work environment. The keyboard and stand attach magnetically to each other and to the notebook itself, folding together and snapping onto the outside of the chassis when folded. The optional Wacom pen also attaches magnetically to the edge of the display. The X1 Fold Gen 2 looks very sturdy, which is a relief given the propensity of folding technology to break for very little.
The speaker chamber is made of a nice, grippy fabric made from 100% recycled plastics. That eco-friendly design ethic extends to the rest of the product; the speaker chamber, internal battery housing and AC adapter are made from at least 90% post-consumer recycled materials. Even the packaging is fully compostable.
The Acer Aspire One is a laptop that has a 16-inch, auto-rotating screen that allows you to use the device in portrait or landscape mode, or you can fold it at an angle, attach a keyboard to the bottom half of the screen and use it as a small laptop. The key word is versatility. It doesn’t have the same polished, refined look and design as an ultrabook, but there’s no denying the practicality of trying to offer the advantages of a large screen, but in a package that reduces its size for easy portability.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The ThinkPad X1 Fold now includes accessories that are designed to improve the user experience. The TrackPoint Bluetooth keyboard is a full-size peripheral modeled after the ThinkPad X1 Nano keyboard, and it includes TrackPoint buttons, a haptic trackpad, and a Windows Hello compatible fingerprint reader. When not connected to the display, the keyboard can be used separately from the display while connected to Bluetooth. Additionally, you can place the keyboard on top of the flat part of the folding PC in clamshell mode or continue to use it docked or separately.
The ThinkPad X1 Fold 2022 is a great laptop for people who want a large screen and a comfortable keyboard. The stand magnetically attaches to the laptop and it fits snugly in portrait or landscape mode. There are no missing keys or surprises: everything is right where you’d expect it to be on a standard ThinkPad laptop. That’s largely thanks to the larger size – there’s no more need to make compromises to fit all the keys.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold review: Display
The OLED display is a beautiful, high-resolution display that has 600 nits of brightness and HDR certification. Colors pop and blacks are deep and crisp. The touchscreen is operated well with fingers or the compatible Wacom stylus, which may make it a great choice for digital artists.
The new keyboard on the Lenovo X1 is much easier to use, with full-size backlit keys that offer decent travel. Naturally, it includes Lenovo’s signature red Laptop Nipple in the center. The newly enlarged haptic trackpad is responsive enough, but feels a bit thin and doesn’t offer a very satisfying click.
Connectivity
The ThinkPad X1 Fold offers two USB-C ports that can also be used to connect external displays. One port is on the left side and the other on the bottom edge. There is no SD card reader, but Lenovo installs Intel’s popular and fast AX201 module as WLAN module, which also supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.1. ..
The Netgear RAX120 router performed well in our tests, and we found no problems with signal quality. The ThinkPad X1 Fold is optionally available with a 5G WWAN module, which you’ll learn more about in our review. ..
Audio
The X1 Fold offers stereo sound and Dolby Atmos immersive audio capabilities in different configurations, but the quality of the audio/video experience varies. We found that we had to use the inbuilt Dolby Access software to manually specify what type of content we were using. ..
Although the video is obviously considerably smaller and less theatrical in clamshell mode, the sound is, as far as we can tell, roughly the same and the video quality is still excellent. ..
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold review: Graphics
The integrated graphics card with the UHD Graphics G7 designation is not as fast as the iGPU of Ice Lake processors in principle, but its clock speeds are significantly reduced. However, we cannot determine the exact GPU speed. The iGPU is sufficient for normal tasks, which also include high-resolution video playback. Nevertheless, you should not expect much more performance.
The graphics performance on the Samsung Galaxy Book S is slightly better than on the previous UHD Graphics 620 iGPU that was used for many years. However, the test model cannot compete with modern Intel Xe models or AMD iGPUs.
Gaming performance is limited on the hybrid processor, and this can lead to further shortcomings. If you want to play games without fail, you will have to limit yourself to less demanding titles or simple games from the Windows Store.
Performance
We weren’t able to properly test the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold in our brief time with it, but we’ll be sure to include our usual set of benchmark results when we receive our own unit and update this review. Regardless, we’re confident that the X1 Fold will outperform its predecessor. With the generational leap in performance offered by the 12th generation Intel Alder Lake CPUs, we should see improvements across the board.
The X1 Fold is a laptop that uses a single graphics card to run most tasks. This means it won’t be able to handle very demanding workloads, but everyday use and low-to-medium intensity tasks should be a breeze. The battery life could vary significantly between models, as the X1 Fold can be configured with a dual-battery setup that places a battery on each side of the center hinge. The default primary battery is actually a 48Whr unit compared to the first generation model’s 50Whr, which is a bit of a concern – although Alder Lake’s reduced power consumption will hopefully mitigate this somewhat.
Lenovo’s X1 Fold Gen 2 laptop has a secondary battery that is much smaller than the original battery. This feature allows the laptop to be more energy-efficient and cooler overall.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold review: Battery life
The ThinkPad X1 Fold’s 50-Watt-hour battery lasts about 4-5 hours when using the device in the balanced profile and 4 hours when using it in performance mode. In power saving mode, the battery lasts an average of 3 hours. We used the ThinkPad X1 Fold mainly in the balanced profile at 60% brightness, which gave us an average battery life of 5 hours. ..
The 65W charging adapter takes about 90 minutes to charge the machine from 0% to 100%. You can also use the device while it is still charging, but that slows down the charging speed. The battery life feels on the low side considering it’s an OLED display which is considered low power.
Heat
The device heats up mainly on the left side, where the important components are located. The surface temperatures are already slightly elevated here during idle use. Under load, we measured a maximum of 45 °C, which is still harmless.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold: A Sleeper for the Soul
Configuration options
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold starts at $2500. This excludes items like a Lenovo Mod Pen and the presumably essential Lenovo Fold Mini Keyboard.
Although there are no processor or RAM upgrades available, you could easily spend approximately $3000 on a Fold. With the Fold, you can have up to a 1 TB PCIe-based SSD plus, if you’d like, 4G or 5G mobile broadband.
Conclusion
The Lenovo X1 Fold is a proof of concept that a foldable display could be an excellent addition to a PC. Although it is not perfect, considering that Windows 10X, the software for which it was intended, isn’t yet ready, it functions extremely well. Although it is far too pricey for most people to actually buy one, it does serve as evidence that foldable displays may be helpful in any size and that ultra-compact PCs in the near future will be excellent.
