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Tech · Lenovo · 2021

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9

A 16:10 screen and a carbon-fiber lid near 2.5 pounds, with memory soldered for life.

Off-lease ThinkPads: which generation is still worth it — #2

Overall

8.2

out of 10

Axis scores

Strongest on Design (9.0), weakest on Value (7.6), a 1.4-point spread. The 8.2 overall is the plain average of all 5 Tech axes, with no weighting.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 — axis scores out of 10Horizontal bar chart of editorial scores out of 10 across 5 axes. Bars run from a shared zero baseline; longer is better. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9: Performance 8.0, Value 7.6, Durability 7.8, Ease of use 8.6, Design 9.0.PerformanceLenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 — Performance 8.0 out of 108.0ValueLenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 — Value 7.6 out of 107.6DurabilityLenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 — Durability 7.8 out of 107.8Ease of useLenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 — Ease of use 8.6 out of 108.6DesignLenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 — Design 9.0 out of 109.0Editorial score out of 10 — higher is better
  • Performance — How well it does the core job
  • Value — What the same money buys elsewhere
  • Durability — Failure and fade reports past the one-year mark
  • Ease of use — Setup, daily operation, cleaning, maintenance
  • Design — Build quality and how it sits in a room

Specs

Processor
11th-gen Intel Core i5 or i7
Memory
8GB, 16GB, or 32GB soldered LPDDR4x
Display
14-inch 16:10, 1920×1200 on most units
Battery
57Wh
Ports
2× Thunderbolt 4, 2× USB-A, HDMI, headphone jack

As published by the manufacturer. We didn't measure these ourselves.

Is it for you

Buy it if

  • You carry the laptop daily and want the lightest ThinkPad here
  • Writing and reading on a taller 16:10 screen is most of your work

Skip it if

  • The listing is an 8GB unit, because the memory can never be upgraded
  • You need Ethernet without carrying a dongle

Gen 9 is the year the X1 Carbon moved to a 16:10 screen, and that taller panel is the reason to buy it over earlier generations. Weight starts around 2.5 pounds, according to Lenovo’s PSREF.

All of its memory is soldered. A 16GB unit is the minimum worth buying, and an 8GB one should be passed over no matter how clean it looks. The SSD remains a standard M.2 slot.

The two Thunderbolt 4 ports drive a dock with external monitors, which is how most of these were used in offices, and docks from the same leases often turn up on eBay alongside them. The carbon-fiber lid shows scuffs and shiny palm-rest wear sooner than the aluminum T-series; ask for photos of both.

Last updated . The scoring method is on how we rank.