Lenovo Carbon X1 - could this be the best laptop for a working photographer

Hi all,

This is doing my head in chosing a laptop for work. It seems like there is no perfect laptop at the moment for photographers. So I have to prioritise 1st (screen colour) - for art work shoots + tethered corporate work on location, 2) portability 3) power for LR4 and PS editting, also speed for download sometimes 2000-3000 raw files.

The X1 I can't find any details on % of sRGB or aRGB. Enthusuast Photographer have you tried to colour calibrate the x1, if yes , how was it? I researched HP Envy, some issues to colour calibration, Asus UX31A only 4 RAM and soldered onto motherboard! Samsung series 9 13.3inch 900x3c-a01 great display but 4RAM but 1600MHz- soldered - otherwise a possibility? MBP15 - feels weighty to me. X230 looks great spec but only 12.5 screen. I am leaning toward Sony Vaio Z3 - mainly because of the anti reflective 96% adobe. The 1920x1080 is probably too high for my eyes, so could lower the resolution to something similar to the x1. Screen is 13.1, a tad smaller than i would like. Lightweight enough to sneak in when carrying all my gear on the plane as hand luggage. Power seems enough juice and 8 RAM. If the Sony Z3 was 14inch! wow wow! MBP retina - has issues with LR and CS, also I need to Power Point stuff and Word/Excel stuff which has to be 100% compatible with client, so I guess Apple is out. MS said no updates for the office suits for retina.

I feel that every laptop company has bits and pieces to offer for the ultimate laptop, yet at the moment they don't exist in one laptop. Guess 2013 will be an exciting one for photographers.

I'm in a similar boat. I travel the world by bicycle and I'm looking for an ultrabook that allows me to edit on the road. Weight is obviously a determining factor for me. I was so waiting for the X1 carbon to come out and I was dead disappointed just now when I saw 8gb but not on i7 and the i5 with 8gb still being 300usd more than the MacBook Air @ 8gb!
and 4GB seems to be too little to deal with the D800 files.....
So i don't know what to do.... yet

amateurphotographer wrote:

Hi all,

This is doing my head in chosing a laptop for work. It seems like there is no perfect laptop at the moment for photographers. So I have to prioritise 1st (screen colour) - for art work shoots + tethered corporate work on location, 2) portability 3) power for LR4 and PS editting, also speed for download sometimes 2000-3000 raw files.

The X1 I can't find any details on % of sRGB or aRGB. Enthusuast Photographer have you tried to colour calibrate the x1, if yes , how was it? I researched HP Envy, some issues to colour calibration, Asus UX31A only 4 RAM and soldered onto motherboard! Samsung series 9 13.3inch 900x3c-a01 great display but 4RAM but 1600MHz- soldered - otherwise a possibility? MBP15 - feels weighty to me. X230 looks great spec but only 12.5 screen. I am leaning toward Sony Vaio Z3 - mainly because of the anti reflective 96% adobe. The 1920x1080 is probably too high for my eyes, so could lower the resolution to something similar to the x1. Screen is 13.1, a tad smaller than i would like. Lightweight enough to sneak in when carrying all my gear on the plane as hand luggage. Power seems enough juice and 8 RAM. If the Sony Z3 was 14inch! wow wow! MBP retina - has issues with LR and CS, also I need to Power Point stuff and Word/Excel stuff which has to be 100% compatible with client, so I guess Apple is out. MS said no updates for the office suits for retina.

I feel that every laptop company has bits and pieces to offer for the ultimate laptop, yet at the moment they don't exist in one laptop. Guess 2013 will be an exciting one for photographers.

amateurphotographer wrote:

Hi all,

This is doing my head in chosing a laptop for work. It seems like there is no perfect laptop at the moment for photographers. So I have to prioritise 1st (screen colour) - for art work shoots + tethered corporate work on location, 2) portability 3) power for LR4 and PS editting, also speed for download sometimes 2000-3000 raw files.

The X1 I can't find any details on % of sRGB or aRGB. Enthusuast Photographer have you tried to colour calibrate the x1, if yes , how was it? I researched HP Envy, some issues to colour calibration, Asus UX31A only 4 RAM and soldered onto motherboard! Samsung series 9 13.3inch 900x3c-a01 great display but 4RAM but 1600MHz- soldered - otherwise a possibility? MBP15 - feels weighty to me. X230 looks great spec but only 12.5 screen. I am leaning toward Sony Vaio Z3 - mainly because of the anti reflective 96% adobe. The 1920x1080 is probably too high for my eyes, so could lower the resolution to something similar to the x1. Screen is 13.1, a tad smaller than i would like. Lightweight enough to sneak in when carrying all my gear on the plane as hand luggage. Power seems enough juice and 8 RAM. If the Sony Z3 was 14inch! wow wow! MBP retina - has issues with LR and CS, also I need to Power Point stuff and Word/Excel stuff which has to be 100% compatible with client, so I guess Apple is out. MS said no updates for the office suits for retina.

I feel that every laptop company has bits and pieces to offer for the ultimate laptop, yet at the moment they don't exist in one laptop. Guess 2013 will be an exciting one for photographers.

Hi - sorry I lost track of this thread. I haven't tried to callibrate the screen. All I can tell you is I've been impressed by it - sharp and good colors.

For portability, there is nothing else out there at under 3lb with a 14" screen.

I do run LR and PS on this box, and it seem to run it fine. Generally I'd go i5/8GB over i7/4GB if you have to choose. I've seen rumors on forums that there will be an i7/8GB here in the US, but I can't confirm any of that. I don't run D800 files, so I'm not much help on performance.

As for speed of download, it has USB 3.0, and that makes a huge difference. It does have a card reader. I haven't actually used it - I have a USB 3.0 card reader and was so in the habit. I'll try to do a test at some point, but net is you have options.

It has a terrific (backlit) keyboard and the best trackpad I've ever used (including on Apple). For precision, I far prefer the TrackPoint (the little eraser thing). You get both. I have to say the trackpad is getting more and more use, which I never saw happening. Lots of the ultrabooks I've tested have pretty terrible keyboards...

Lastly, this thing is built like a tank! It passes the same durability tests all the other ThinkPads pass and has the same 8 milspec rating as they do. No other ultrabook currently passes any milspecs (which are US military ratings for dust, impact, humidity, high/low temperature, etc.). Go check out some of the consumer ultrabooks - open the lid and twist them in your hands (don't go crazy unless you want to pay for it though). The X1 Carbon is just...strong.

Anyway, I'll ask around about the screen callibration. My brother-in-law had a really serious accident over the weekend, and I've spent most of the last several days helping my sister out (and will be back there today), so it may be a few days before I can respond.

Ultimately, I'd be surprised if there is a better option in this weight-range (there are 3lb 13" and 3.6lb 14" out there) for durability, performance, comfort of daily use, etc. I do work for the company, but I try not to be blind to the competitors.

Enthusiast Photographer wrote:

Anyway, I'll ask around about the screen callibration. My brother-in-law had a really serious accident over the weekend, and I've spent most of the last several days helping my sister out (and will be back there today), so it may be a few days before I can respond.

Ultimately, I'd be surprised if there is a better option in this weight-range (there are 3lb 13" and 3.6lb 14" out there) for durability, performance, comfort of daily use, etc. I do work for the company, but I try not to be blind to the competitors.

Enthusiast Photographer - Sorry to hear about your bro-in-law, wish him well.

I ended up getting the Sony Vaio Z, mainly becuase of screen 96% aRGB (which i did some simple tests with test charts), weight of the machine - and still bearable with the sheet battery, with the 600g sheet battery provides 16hrs battery so they say, speed is awesome, windows rating 6.5. Comes with external Blueray burner which i will need to burn DVD on location. The keyboard is so so and so is the tracks pad, which i guess X1 will be better. Benefits over MBP15 are weight and also compatibility with windows products. I would be still interested to see how well the screen on the X1 calibrated and how the colours compared to some standard test colour charts, but you will need print outs to do a true comparison. All the best. At least I have a machine i can do some work on now

I was looking for light laptop to use for traveling that I could put Lightroom and Photoshop on. Reading the reviews I thought that the X1 Carbon would be the answer to my hopes. I bought one, but after struggling for several weeks with it, I am selling it, and upgrading my "old Thinkpad X220" with its IPS screen with an SSD drive0000.

After spending many hours comparing the Thinkpad X1 Carbon display with the IPS+ display on my X220, I reluctantly concluded that I CANNOT LIVE with the X1 Carbon for PHOTO-EDITING. The TN display tends to blow out highlights, create too much contrast, is too blue. The greatest problem is the hypersensitivity of the colors on X1 Carbon's display to slight variations in the vertical angle of the display. I found the display completely UNACCEPTABLE for photo-editing in Lightroom, even if these were to be temporary, preliminary edits until I got home. Skin tones almost always looked horrible and with blown highlights. The colors were so much better on my X220.

If you can get your hands on an X1 Carbon, look at the last few solid color pages of this test and vary the monitor angle and see the radical change in hue. http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/all_tests.php.

I bought a ColorMunki callibrator and callibrated the display several times, and that helped, but could do nothing to change the extreme hue changes with the display angle.

I guess all the glowing reviews about the "sharpness" of the high-resolution display came from reviewers who look mainly at documents or some YouTube videos.

So I am selling my X1 Carbon and keeping the X220.