Here’s a slightly more unusual security feature. Lenovo’s X1 Carbon 6th Gen—for those models without the IR camera—now includes something called “ThinkShutter,” a sliding physical shutter that you can close, a nod to those who are concerned that someone may hack their webcam without their knowledge. I found the ThinkShutter to be really pretty stiff when I first started sliding it back and forth using the integrated divot, though it loosened up over time. When shut, a red ring surrounds the small lens, notifying you that the camera is obscured.You can use your fingernail or a coin to slide the ThinkShutter over. But it’s stiff enough that you may be concerned about breaking a nail.
Any audio propelled upward by the X1 Carbon’s speakers sounds flattish and somewhat on the soft side, though the the breathy lyrics of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” didn’t seem to lose any clarity when played back over the laptop’s speakers. There’s more than enough volume to fill a normal conference room, though it tends to blare without a lot of depth.
It’s worth noting that the X1 Carbon includes the Dolby Atmos audio enhancement algorithm, which improves the audio both over the speakers and headphones. Still, even headphones produced audio that wasn’t all that inspiring, and the volume controls didn’t actually seem to elevate the audio volume in the upper echelons of the audio controls. Granted, this is a business PC first and foremost.Lenovo’s keyboards have earned an elite reputation, and the X1 Carbon continues that tradition. The X1 Carbon’s keys feel a bit springier than those of its cousin, the X1 Tablet, thought each key is actually a bit smaller than I expected. Other notebooks such as the Huawei Matebook X Pro compress some of the control keys and use the extra space to increase the size of the main, lettered keys. There are two levels of backlighting.
Again, the extra bit of resilience may weary some fingers a bit—it did for me, although I accustomed myself to it in a day or two. Some keyboards allow your fingers to glide over them, gently depressing each key. Another way to look at it would be to say that the X1 Carbon more approximates a desktop keyboard than other notebooks do. Depth cameras are great, but this fingerprint sensor on the X1 Carbon 6th Gen reliably does the job. The small ridge to the top is an LED, which lights white while you log in, or red to indicate that the login failed. The process takes less than a second.
As you might expect, the X1 Carbon also includes the the iconic red Trackpoint nub, as well as the physical left, right and center buttons above the trackpad. The trackpad feels a little smoother and slicker than those on other Lenovo products I had handy, but it’s proportionally a bit smaller, too. Don’t forget about the small fingerprint sensor to the right of the trackpad, which serves as a convenient way to log in that’s also compliant with Windows Hello. All of these are typical of most Lenovo notebooks. Remember that Lenovo also places the Function key in the far left-hand corner, while others reserve this for the Control key. This can be adjusted using the Vantage software.
As befitting a business notebook, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon foregoes virtually all unnecessary apps, save for what Windows itself provides. Lenovo’s aforementioned Vantage software continues to be worth perusing, both as a means to upgrade drivers and firmware, as well as to toggle specific features on and off.By default, Lenovo’s X1 Carbon optimizes its performance settings to boost performance when you need it. In reality, this means that the ultrabook’s fan runs quite a bit, either in a fully revved-up mode or in a sort of quiet, background state. Even in a quiet office with central heating and air, the X1 Carbon’s revved-up fan noise was mildly annoying. The accompanying Lenovo Vantage software (go to the Hardware Settings icon, then Smart Settings) allows you to turn off this automatic Intelligent Cooling mode and place it into a “Cool & Quiet” state. Unfortunately, the X1 Carbon’s fan often kept quietly yet noticeably hissing away.
If you occasionally work in a home office (and who doesn’t?) be aware that I received some anomalous results that I believe were tied to the ambient temperature, due to a malfunctioning air conditioner. At a warm house temperature of 78 degrees, the X1 Carbon’s Cinebench scores dropped by a full 25 percent, and our prolonged HandBrake video conversion scores fell considerably, too. All of our final numbers, however, represent testing that we performed at PCWorld’s consistently air-conditioned office in San Francisco, where the system could use cooler, ambient air to chill the system.Still, we noticed that after resuming the X1 Carbon from a prolonged sleep state, installing some software, and rebooting (including a Windows update) the X1 Carbon immediately began power throttling to avoid going over its voltage threshold.
As we normally do, we measured the X1 Carbon 6th Gen’s performance using our trio of PCMark’s benchmarks: Work, Home, and Creative. Remember, with a 1.8GHz Core i7-8550U (Kaby Lake-R) chip inside it, the X1 Carbon should plow through general office tasks handily, and in our experience, it did so. The Work test measures Web browsing, working with Excel spreadsheets, and more. Clearly, its 8th-gen Core chip elevates it to the top of the heap.The Lenovo Legion Y920, with its full-on GTX 1070-calibre graphics, a bright 17-inch screen, and a mechanical keyboard, makes for a solid—and quite hefty—gaming laptop. Besides its premium mechanical keyboard, the Y920 boasts some enticing amenities that its competitors lack, such as a one-touch Turbo mode and Dolby Atmos sound.
It’s a good machine, but shop wisely. Gamers focused purely on the visuals may balk at the Y920’s hefty price tag, particularly given that a similarly configured version of the Alienware 17 R5 (not the maxed-out version we reviewed) currently costs many hundreds of dollars less. You’ll also see 17-inch gaming laptops with newer CPUs than its 7th-generation overclockable part. Note: This review is part of our roundup of the best laptops. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.The Lenovo Legion Y920 (more specifically, the Y920-17IKB) packs a quad-core, seventh-generation Intel Core i7-7820HK processor and a middle-of-the-road Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics core, both of which you can overclock a skosh by nudging a “Turbo” switch. You also get a 17.3-inch full-HD and G-Sync-capable display, 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 RAM, a 512GB solid-state drive, and a 1TB 5,200rpm hard drive.
A note on pricing and availability: Lenovo is no longer selling this model directly, but the company confirmed it was still available on Amazon and other third-party online retail channels. Its price tag is something of a moving target. One day, it was about $1,950 on Amazon, then the price jumped to about $2,110 a few days later. Newegg, meanwhile, has been selling the laptop for anywhere between $2,100 and $2,660.That said, if you’re pining for a gaming laptop with a mechanical keyboard (not a guaranteed feature) and easy-as-pie overclocking, the Legion Y920 might be worth the extra cash.The Lenovo Legion Y920 is about as hulking as you’d expect for a desktop refill, tipping the scales at more than 9.5 pounds and measuring a roomy 16.17 x 12.4 x 1.42 inches. Once you add the massive power brick, you’re looking at close to 12 pounds of hardware.
The Y920’s sturdy shell boasts a handsome brushed-aluminum lid emblazoned with Lenovo’s familiar “Y”-shaped logo, with a pair of stylish cooling vents in back.Open up the Y920 and you’ll find a nifty maroon speaker grille sitting above the mechanical keyboard (more on the keyboard itself in a moment). The keyboard’s RGB backlighting boasts a trio of customizable presets, ranging from a soothing “wave” effect to a pulsating ripple whenever you strike a key. Both zone and single-key backlighting are also on the menu.The Lenovo Legion Y920’s backlit mechanical keyboard includes a 10-key keypad and a large trackpad.
Sitting in the top-left corner of the keyboard is the Y920’s Turbo Boost switch, which lets you overclock both the CPU and the GPU on the fly. Thanks to the Y920’s one-touch Turbo Boost feature, you can overclock the CPU’s maximum clock speed from 3.6GHz to 4.1GHz, while the GPU can go from a top clock speed of 4GHz to 4.1GHz. We’ll take Turbo Boost for a real-world spin in a moment.