This is my longer-term review of the 2025 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the 13th gen Aura Edition built on Intel Lunar Lake hardware.
This revision of the X1 Carbon series was launched late in 2024, but I got to use it around mid-2025, with mature software and after the initial bugs were more or less addressed. This article is still relevant for the remainder of the year, since the 14th-gen update will only be available sometime in 2026 with Intel Panther Lake hardware.
Now, if you’re familiar with the site, you know that I’ve been a long-time ThinkPad user and still have my trusty X220 around. I’ve also used and tested tens of ThinkPads over the years, including most generations of the X1 Carbon, which is the flagship ThinkPad chassis.
This Aura Edition update doesn’t aim at being a performer in its tier, as only a lower power implementation of the already low-power Lunar Lake hardware, but is rather a balanced daily-use office laptop with a focus on ergonomics, usability, efficiency, and quietness. It is expensive, though, significantly more expensive than alternatives with mostly similar features and hardware.
The Asus Zenbook S14, the Dell Pro 14 Premium, the HP EliteBook X G1i 14, and even the Apple MacBook Air are some of its main competitors, as well as Lenovo’s own ThinkPad P14s AMD or the Lunar Lake powered ThinkPad X9 14 or Lenovo Yoga 9i.
Specs sheet – Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, Aura Edition, gen13
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Aura Edition, 2025 model, 13th gen
Screen 14 inch, OLED, 16:10 aspect ratio, touch or non-touch,
Processor Intel Lunar Lake Core Ultra V,
Video Intel Arc 140V, up to 1.95 GHz
Memory up to 32 GB LPDDR5-8533 (soldered)
Storage single M.2 2280 slot – Samsung PM9E1 gen5 drive
Connectivity Wireless 7 (Intel BE201) 2×2, Bluetooth 5.4
Ports left: 2x USB-C with Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-A 3.2 gen1, nano SIM slot,
Battery 57 Wh, 65W USB-C GaN compact charger
Size 313 mm or 12.31” (w) x 215 mm or 8.45” (d) x up to 16 mm or 0.63″ (h)
Weight 2.54 lbs (1.15 kg) + .3 (.66 lbs) for the USB-C charger and cables, EU version
Extras clamshell format with 180-degree hinge,
As of mid-2025, Lenovo also offers this series with Intel Arrow Lake U hardware (Core Ultra 5 225U, Core Ultra 7 255U, etc). However, as explained in this article on 2025 Intel Core mobile hardware , Arrow Lake U is actually a refreshed iteration of Meteor Lake hardware, and is not built on the latest-generation CPU and GPU cores that are offered with Lunar Lake V and Meteor Lake H hardware. So make sure you understand what you’re getting here.
Design and functionality This X1 Carbon gen13 is the same chassis implemented on the gen 12 X1 Carbon model discussed in this previous review .
That means it’s a smaller footprint and lighter chassis than previous models, while still being a 14-inch design. It weighs 1.15 kilos in this variant with a 4G module and a matte IPS display, while the other models are as light as 1 kilo for the non-touch OLED model without 4G.
Aesthetically, this is a classic ThinkPad design, an all black chassis with a handful of iconic branding elements: X1 Carbon logo with a red dot on the lid, X1 Carbon engraving on the interior, to the right, minimalist X1 Carbon writing on the bottom right bezel.
The overall build quality is excellent with this chassis, without any creaks or squeaks, or funny noises. Just a smooth premium feel. Carbon fiber, magnesium, and plastic alloys are used for the construction. This doesn’t have the heft of unibody metal notebooks such as the Zenbook S or the MacBook Air, but it has its own appeal, with overall better ergonomics.
The black smooth surfaces smudge fairly easily, though, and the black keycaps show finger oil as well. The finishing might also eventually scuff and dent around the ports, although the process has been refined over the years, and the materials on these latest generations are much tougher than 3-5-10 years ago.
Back to ergonomics, they’re as close to perfection as you’d get on a modern laptop: sturdy build, good grip on the desk, smooth edges and corners everywhere, no lights in the line of sight, good selection of ports on the sides.
There’s also a notch on the screen part that allows to easily lift up the display. The hinges are the right balance of stiffness and smoothness, and allow for a 180 flat opening.
There’s just nothing to complain about here, other than perhaps the rather small size of the armrest, due to having a taller keyboard placed in the middle of the chassis. That leads to a smaller touchpad on some models, but more on that in the next section.
For reference, here’s how the X1 Carbon looks next to the Zenbook S14 and the MacBook Air.
Back to the Thinkpad, let’s discuss the IO as well, with USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, audio-jack, Lock, and a nano SIM slot on this particular configuration. There’s no card-reader slot, and the two USB-Cs are both placed on the left edge, which means you don’t get the convenience of charging the laptop on either side, as you would if they had split the ports one on each side. Something I wish manufacturers would consider in their design – perhaps on the 14th gen Carbon.
Keyboard, touchpad The keyboard on this X1 Carbon provides arguably the best typing experience available in this segment.
The layout is mostly standard for a ThinkPad, with full-sized keys all around a smaller set of keys for the arrows and dedicated PgUp and PgDn.
However, the Ctrl key on the right has been replaced with a Copilot key for this generation, and the right key on that line is a finger-sensor starting with the 12th-gen chassis, both peculiarities that bother some of the ThinkPad purists. I agree that they could have put the finger-sensor somewhere else on the chassis, and I also find that Copilot key useless, especially since Windows doesn’t allow rebinding it to Ctrl – but that’s just the way it is with 2024/2025 Windows devices. Oh, and I’d also mention that compared to the classic ThinkPad layout, the Fn and left Ctrl keys are swapped around, but those can be quickly changed in the settings if needed.
Layout aside, this keyboard is an excellent typer, with 1.5 mm of travel, slightly dished keycaps, firm feedback, and rather quiet actuations. I enjoyed this keyboard better than on a MacBook Pro or a regular Asus Zenbook, which are two other solid typers. Furthermore, the typing experience is way better than on a MacBook Air, Lenovo Yoga Slim, or Apple Zenbook S14.
The keys are backlit, with even lights that don’t get that bright, but just do their job. There’s no RGB, just white lights on two brightness levels.
For the touchpad, Lenovo offers the laptop in two variants: a more standard click pad with physical top buttons for TrackPoint use, which is fairly short by today’s standards, and a haptic touchpad without physical buttons, the one I had on this model.
This haptic implementation comes with a button area at the top, that can be either enabled or disabled. If disabled, the entire surface works a large touchpad for swipes, taps, etc. If enabled, only the lower part works as a touchpad, while that area works as buttons. If you’re a die-hard TrackPoint user, I’d still get the classic design with physical buttons, although some hardware configurations might just force you into the haptic model. Most users should find this haptic model perfectly fine, though, which I did as well. It just worked fine with everything I threw at it.
I also like that Lenovo left some space off the front lip, which means that ghost touches and swipes when using this on the lap are not as common as on a MacBook or especially on the Zenbook S 14, with their oversized touchpads.
For biometrics, there’s both a finger sensor and an IR camera on this laptop. Nice to have both, although the finger-sensor placement as a key isn’t necessarily ideal.
14-inch display, IPS or OLED This X1 Carbon generation is still a 14-inch design with a 16:10 display.
You can configure it with a couple of different panel variants: matte IPS, anti-glare OLED, and touch OLED with Gorilla Glass on top. I had the matte IPS on this unit, but we’ve also discussed the non-touch OLED in a previous article, which is a semi-glossy finish and not as reflective as most other OLED implementations in this segment.
The IPS panel is an entry-level option, with 400-nits of brightness, 1920 x 1200px resolution, 60 Hz refresh and 100% sRGB color coverage, so not as punchy, sharp, or beautiful as the OLEDs. It is a cheaper option, though, and a more efficient one, so if you need to maximize battery life or plan to use your laptop in bright environments more than just occasionally, this could make sense.
For the most part, though, I’d lean into the non-touch 2.8K 120Hz OLED as my main panel choice for this series. It’s the same Samsung-made 2.8K OLED offered with other 14-inchers out there, including on the Yoga Slim 7i series.
Hardware and performance Our test model is a top-specced configuration of the 2025 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Aura Edition, with an Intel Core Ultra 9 258V processor and Intel Arc 140V graphics, 32 GB of LPDDR5-8533 memory, and a very fast 1 TB gen5 SSD.
Disclaimer: This review unit was provided by Lenovo for this article. We tested it with the software available as of late July 2025 (BIOS 1.14, Vantage 4.2.85.0, Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.6972). This is a mature software package, 6+ months after the series was initially unveiled.
Lunar Lake is an SoC (System on a Chip) architecture, which means the CPU, GPU, NPU, cache, RAM, and connectivity are all integrated on the same chip.
The CPU on this review unit is the Core Ultra 7 258V, but a few other options are available as well. The 258V is a hybrid design with 4 Performance Cores, 4 Low Power Efficiency Cores, and a total of 8 Threads.
The RAM is integrated into the SoC, and the Core Ultra 7 258V integrates 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory.
As far as graphics go, there’s an Intel Arc 140v iGPU bundled with the 258V, with 8 Execution Cores and clock speeds of up to 1.95 GHz.
For storage, there’s an M.2 2280 SSD slot. The SSD on my unit is a very fast Samsung PM9E1 gen5 drive, but most units ship with gen4 drives, unless you’re willing to pay an arm and a leg for the gen5 chip.
Note: Now, as of recently, Lenovo also offers configurations built on Arrow Lake U hardware for the X1 Carbon, such as the Core Ultra 5 225U, Core Ultra 7 255U, etc. On a quick glance, the Ultra 7 255U is a 12C/14T processor, so you’d expect it to perform much faster than the 4C/8T Lunar Lake 258V, but once you look closer into the details, you’ll find out that Arrow Lake U uses older generation CPU and GPU cores, and is mostly a refined iteration of series 1 Meteor Lake hardware, the kind offered on the 12th-gen X1 Carbon. So that means you’re getting some performance gains in sustained CPU loads, but you’re losing on GPU performance. It’s also unclear to me at this point whether the Arrow Lake U models follow the same restrictive power profiles as this Lunar Lake V model tested here, but they probably do.
As far as I’m concerned, an Arrow Lake U configuration only makes sense if you’re not interested in GPU performance and/or if you want a configuration that goes up to 64 GB of RAM, as the Lunar Lake hardware is capped at 32 GB by design.
The SSD and the 4G module are the only non-soldered components. To get inside, you need to remove the back panel, held in place by only four self-retaining Philips screws.
As far as the software goes, this ThinkPad gets the Lenovo Vantage control app with access to the power profiles, battery and screen settings, updates, etc.
There are three performance/thermal profiles to choose from:
Best Performance – allows the hardware to run at 38W peak, 20W in sustained loads, with the fans up to ~35 dB;
Balanced – allows the hardware to run at 38W peak, 12-15W in sustained loads, with the fans up to ~35 dB;
Best Power Efficiency – limits the CPU to 10W sustained to favor fan noise of sub 25 dB.
These modes are deeply hidden within the app. You need to go to Vantage >> Device Settings > Modes > Power to get to them.
These are all low-power profiles, with very quiet fan settings. Thus, for daily use, I’d keep the laptop on Balanced when plugged in, and Balanced or Best Power Efficiency on battery power. For idle fans, you’ll have to go with Best Power Efficiency mode, as the others seem to keep the fans active even with very light use.
Here are a handful of logs with daily use.
Productivity Performance and Benchmarks – Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 H On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance in the Cinebench R15 loop test.
The Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor runs at ~38W for a little while on the Best Performance mode, and then stabilizes at 20W after a few loops. The scores end up at around 1150 points at that power level, with temperatures in the low 70s °C and fan noise levels of around 35 dBA.
The Balanced doesn’t seem to change fan settings, as they still spin at up to 35 dBA, but apply a lower power limit at around 15W. Thus, the CPU only ends up scoring around 950 points in the test, with temperatures in the high 50s °C
Best Power Efficiency mode keeps the fans quieter, at sub 30 dBA, with the power stabilizing at around 10W sustained. That allows for scores just under 800 points, roughly 70% of what the laptop delivers on Best Performance.
Best Performance mode on battery power stabilizes at 20W, just like with the laptop plugged in.
All these are illustrated in the graph below.
Overall, these are all low-power settings with quiet fan noise and low internal temperatures. I would have pushed Best Performance a little higher, around 25W, with closer to 40 dBA fan noise, for a 10% increase in sustained CPU performance.
Here’s how this Core Ultra 7 258V implementation fares against other hardware platforms available in current and past-generation thin and light laptops .
This ends up scoring about 8% lower than the same 258V in the Zenbook S 14 (at 24W sustained) and 20% lower than in the Yoga Slim 7i (at 30W sustained), while running quietly. It’s also running much quieter than the previous X1 Carbon gen12, which allowed for 27W sustained TDP on the Ultra 7 155H platform, with 20-25% higher scores in this multithreaded load.
Furthermore, a Core Ultra 9 285H on an AMD Ryzen AI 9 are 50++% faster in this test, albeit those are usually implemented at higher power on the Best Performance profiles.
We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and in Blender. We measured similar behavior, power limits, fan noise, and temperatures as described above.
We then ran the 3DMark CPU profile test.
Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook, on the Performance profile. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit fails the test when kept flat on the desk, but passes it when placed on the stand, suggesting the cooling capacity is slightly impacted when using the laptop on desk for longer-duration sustained loads. More on this further down.
Benchmark results and performance summary With that out of the way, let’s get to some benchmarks. We ran our standard set of tests with the laptop on Best Performance mode (~20W sustained TDP) and the screen set at its default 2K resolution.
Here’s what we got.
3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 5695, 16 – 5626, 8 – 5650, 4 – 3659, 2 – 2070, 2123 – 1149;3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 8354 (Graphics – 10134, Physics – 17697, Combined – 2687);3DMark 13 – Solar Bay: 16547;3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad Light: 2923.3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 4236 (Graphics – 3954, CPU – 7124);3DMark 13 – XeSS: XeSS Off – 7.63 fps, XeSS On – 22.13 fps, 190.2% performance difference.
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1974;Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 5805;
PCMark 10: 7565 (Essentials – 10857, Productivity – 10713, Digital Content Creation – 10101);GeekBench 6.2.2 64-bit: Multi-core: 10949, Single-Core: 2718;CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 1552 cb, CPU Single Core 286 cb;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 3992 cb, CPU Single Core 717 cb;CineBench R23: CPU 10081 pts (best run), CPU 8720 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 1874 pts (best run);CineBench 2024: CPU 519 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 123 pts.
And here are some work-related benchmarks, on the same Performance profile:
Blender 4.3.2 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 4m 43s ;Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 13m 29s;Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute, OneAPI: 2m 25s;
SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 26.90;SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 21.11;SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo: 33.53;SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy: 6.01;SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 114.78;SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical: 11.75;SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 6.39;SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 48.41;V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 6722, CUDA – 184.
On the CPU side, the lower sustained TDP translates to 10-20% lower scores than on some other Lunar Lake implementations. You’ll notice that in longer sustained tests, such as Blender or Cinebench R23/R24, but less so with the shorter tests due to the system being able to run the hardware at 37-38W for 10-30 seconds, sufficient to get high scores in 3DMark, Geekbench, or some of the shorter Cinebench tests.
So, for general use and multitasking, this ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a fair performer. For sustained loads, it shows its limits as it runs at lower sustained power than most other implementations of this hardware. It also keeps quieter, though, and internally cooler, aspects you must consider as well in your decision.
This even scores fairly closely in these burst tests to the 12th-gen X1 Carbon with a Core Ultra 7 155H processor, but trails it a fair bit in longer loads. As for the Arrow Lake U models, the Coer Ultra 7 255U is going to trail this Lunar Lake 258V in single-core performance, and beat it marginally in multi-core.
The Arc 140v iGPU works at about 80% of its max capacity in this 20W implementation as well, which isn’t bad either. The iGPU on the Arrow Lake U specs is nowhere near as capable.
At the end of the day, if you need a portable computer for heavier work, this X1 Carbon isn’t right for you. Get a device built on a more capable platform altogether, maybe an Arrow Lake H or a Ryzen 9 Strix model . For general use and regular multitasking, though, it will do fine.
Gaming Performance This isn’t a gaming machine, but we ran a couple of games on the Best Performance profile of this Core Ultra 7 258V – Arc 140V configuration, at FHD+ resolution, with Low/Lowest graphics settings.
Low settings ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2025, Zenbook 14 2025, Zenbook Duo 2025 ,Yoga Pro 14 2024 ,Zenbook S 14 2024 ,Zenbook S 16 2024 ,Zenbook Duo 2024, Zenbook 14 2024,
Dota 2 76 fps (44 fps – 1% low)
80 fps (50 fps – 1% low)
83 fps (50 fps – 1% low)
74 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
82 fps (46 fps – 1% low)
80 fps (46 fps – 1% low)
72 fps (42 fps – 1% low)
76 fps (44 fps – 1% low)
Far Cry 6 46 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
51 fps (32 fps – 1% low)
53 fps (32 fps – 1% low)
48 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
52 fps (38 fps – 1% low)
54 fps (46 fps – 1% low)
44 fps (36 fps – 1% low)
46 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
Horizon Forbidden West 42 fps (30 fps – 1% low)
46 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
crashed
40 fps (32 fps – 1% low)
45 fps (32 fps – 1% low)
40 fps (30 fps – 1% low)
–
35 fps (26 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider 58 fps (30 fps – 1% low)
68 fps (42 fps – 1% low)
70 fps (46 fps – 1% low)
72 fps (56 fps – 1% low)
66 fps (26 fps – 1% low)
72 fps (56 fps – 1% low)
53 fps (32 fps – 1% low)
65 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 64 fps (40 fps – 1% low)
50 fps (40 fps – 1% low)
51 fps (42 fps – 1% low)
46 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
78 fps (56 fps – 1% low)
60 fps (38 fps – 1% low)
44 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
45 fps (33 fps – 1% low)
Not bad, considering the limited power settings. Within 20-25% of the better higher-power iGPUs implemented in Arrow Lake laptops, and faster than the AMD options (running at much higher power).
And don’t forget this laptop keeps quietly even on Best Performance, at about 35 dBA at head level.
The GPU averages between 1.6 to 1.8 GHz between games, so it works at 75-90% of its maximum capacity possible at higher power. That’s on Best Performance, as Balanced mode is only a 15W setting with a bigger toll on performance: ~28 fps in Horizon and ~34 fps in FarCry.
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others The cooling module on this laptop is rather minimal, with two tiny fans, two radiators, and a single heatpipe.
This is perhaps the main reason Lenovo went with the lower power settings on this series, and is a result of aiming for the 1-kilo weight level (not for this particular configuration). Slightly beefier cooling would have made more sense on this sort of premium business laptop, potentially allowing for a 10-20% boost in sustained performance, and lower external chassis temperatures as well.
There’s also another concern with this sort of tiny fans: high-pitched hissing. And yes, the fans on my unit have showcase this hissing with sustained loads. Despite the overall noise levels staying under 35 dBA, the high-pitched nature of the noise is noticeable in a quiet environment and can be a deal breaker for some of you. Based on what others are reporting, Lenovo sources their fans from a few different sources, and not all of them showcase the hiss.
Furthermore, some users on Reddit and ThinkPad forums also mention coil whine and even some crackling sounds noticeable with light use, most likely coming from the speakers. I haven’t noticed them on my unit, but I’d be extra careful about all these. Make sure to listen and test for any inconveniences on your unit within your return window.
What I’ll add is that the fans only seem to idle on the Best Power Efficiency mode, and not on Balanced, even without any use. For light use, this profile is more or less fine, but it might feel slow for multitasking.
Anyway, as far as the noise levels go, expect ~35 dBA on Best Performance, sub 35 dBA on Balanced, and sub 30 dBA on Best Power Efficiency mode.
As for external temperatures, the chassis feels rather warm with light use, with the warmest spot at ~40 °C around the 7,8,U keys.
*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Best Power Efficiency Mode, fans at 0 dB
It also heats up with demanding loads on the Best Performance mode, with a similar hotspot close to 50 °C in the middle of the chassis. You’re not going to touch that with regular use, but this is still a hot running chassis, especialyl considering the low internal temperatures. Somehow, this chassis doesn’t do a good job isolating the hardware from the main case.
The underside stays cooler, though, both with daily use and with sustained loads.
*Gaming – Best Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~35 dB
For connectivity, there’s the latest-gen Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 through an Intel BE201 module on this laptop. Everything performed fine during my time with these laptops. My unit came with an integrated 4G module as well.
Audio is handled by a set of stereo speakers that fire through the keyboard. Physically, they’re quite big units, and the sound is surely loud and punchy, but the quality leaves to be desired in the mids and lows. They sound tiny, perhaps fine for ultrabook speakers, but not on par with the audio quality on the Zenbook S14 or the MacBook Air.
Finally, there’s an FHD camera placed at the top of the screen, with IR and a physical shutter. The image quality is fine in good lighting and still usable in bad light. I also appreciate the wide camera angle.
There’s also an updated 8MPx camera offered on some configurations.
Battery life – excellent runtimes There’s a 57 Wh battery inside this X1 Carbon Aura Edition, smaller than what most other 14-inch laptops offer today.
Here’s what we got in our battery life tests on this configuration with the matte IPS display, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~50 brightness). I’ve also set the Windows 11 power mode to Best Power Efficiency.
5-6 W (~10 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Best Power Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;3.5 W (~15 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Best Power Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;4 W (13+ h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Best Power Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;7-9 W (~6-8 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.
These are excellent runtimes, thanks to the efficiency of the Intel Lunar Lake hardware platform and despite the only average-sized battery. This laptop runs slightly more efficiently than other Lunar Lake models tested in the past, thanks to mature software and the IPS low-power panel. The OLED versions should demand extra energy with streaming and light use, and keep in mind that the Arrow Lake U models won’t run as efficiently either.
The laptop ships with a 65W USB-C charger, a dual-piece design with longer cables. A full charge takes less than 2 hours.
I would have expected a more modern charger design at this level, perhaps a compact single-piece brick with a removable cable, similar to what you get with other brands on their premium devices.
Price and availability- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon The 13th-gen Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Aura Edition is widely available all across the world at the time of this article, although this is a premium business model and it might not be listed in the regular retail shops in some regions.
For the US, the reviewed configuration that comes with Core Ultra 7 258V / 32 GB RAM / 1 TB gen4 SSD configuration goes for around $2350 with the IPS display and $2500 with the OLED panel. 4G, gen5 SSDs, more storage space, that comes on top.
There are also some Core Ultra 5 models starting at under $1900 in the US right now, but more importantly, Lenovo offers all sorts of discounts and coupons, and you could get this for less.
Furthermore, you must be aware that Arrow Lake U configurations (Ultra 5 225U, Ultra 7 255U, etc) are available as well in most markets, and they are more affordable by a couple of hundred USD/EUR. At the same time, though, those are different in quite a few ways, both in performance and in efficiency. Make sure you understand the differences between Lunar Lake 200V and Arrow Lake 200U platforms and choose what’s right for your needs and budget.
Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area .
Final thoughts- ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen 13, Aura Edition The X1 Carbon is still one of the best portable notebooks available out there today. Ergonomics and overall functionality are what set it apart from most other options; it just ticks more of the right boxes than most other devices of its kind. And is also configurable and serviceable in a way most consumer-grade devices are not.
So this X1 Carbon generation is built well, it’s lightweight, and at least on a first look, it doesn’t sacrifice anything important in its quest for portability. But it actually does, and that’s performance with sustained loads, where this is a low-power implementation of a low-power hardware platform. And I’m looking at the Lunar Lake configurations, we’ll discuss the Arrow Lake variants in a bit.
Lunar Lake is an excellent hardware platform for daily use and multitasking, but it is not meant for serious heavy lifting of any kind. And that’s especially the case on this Carbon X1, which only performs at about 80% of the platform’s potential on a higher power model. At the same time, it is a highly efficient platform, allowing for low internal temperatures with quiet fan noise and low power drain on battery power. But the devil is always in the details, especially on a device that’s more expensive than most of the competition, as this one is; so make sure you understand and accept some of the potential culprits of this series, such as the high-pitched fan hiss and potential coil whine, the rather mediocre audio quality, and the particularities of the touchpad and keyboard that might drive ThinkPad purists away.
And back to pricing, sure, this X1 Carbon is hundreds of USD/EUR more expensive than the average Lunar Lake portable option , but compared to other premium and business laptops, it’s not that expensive. The Asus Zenbook S14 is a more affordable premium option, but with some ergonomics flaws, while other devices that come close in ergonomics and configurability, such as the Dell Pro 14 Premium or the HP EliteBook X G1i 14, are also priced fairly similarly and not better products overall. So, this X1 Carbon might actually be a fair buy, ideally somewhere around 2K for the 258V configuration with discounts later this year.
Too bad there’s no ThinkPad T14 series with either Intel Lunar Lake V or AMD Ryzen Strix hardware. That would have been a worthy alternative at a lower cost. There is however a powerful ThinkPad P14s AMD Strix model that sells for less and can be specced up to 96 GB of DRR5 RAM, if you need a more powerful all-rounder, but is heavier at 1.4+ kilos.
There’s also the Yoga 9i Aura Edition to consider, at around $1500 for a Ultra 258V configuration with an OLED touch display. It’s not quite as good as a typer and is a glossy screen finish, though. And then there’s the ThinkPad X9 14 Lunar Lake as well, at around $1600 for the 258V OLED configuration. Haven’t tested the new X9 series, though, so can’t really comment on it first hand.
As for the Core Ultra 200U Arrow Lake configurations of the X1 Carbon, yes, those are cheaper than the Lunar Lake 200V models, but the hardware is not a latest-generation platform and doesn’t offer the same performance in daily use and graphics loads, and especially not the same efficiency on battery power. If you’d rather save the hundreds of dollars and don’t care that much about GPU performance and even runtimes on battery, sure, those could be options worth considering. But for the most part, I’d get a Lunar Lake V model instead.
Anyway, that’s about it for my time with the 13th gen Aura Edition ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Looking for your thoughts and feedback down below in the comments section.
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Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com . I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.
Jeramy
October 26, 2025 at 6:59 pm
Quoting from the article: "What I’ll add is that the fans only seem to idle on the Best Power Efficiency mode, and not on Balanced, even without any use. For light use, this profile is more or less fine, but it might feel slow for multitasking."
Fans is my biggest concern. Has any of you users out there experienced noise in Balanced mode, while working in a quite room, using the Ultra 5 226V Processor with the standard IPS screen?
Altandmain
August 21, 2025 at 9:27 am
The base price is expensive, although I find Lenovo tends to have more aggressive percentage discounts than other brands.
I think the OLED and Sensel haptic touchpad are worth upgrading to.
The two things I wish they would offer are deeper key travel (I wish they would go back to 2.1mm) and a better set of speakers (they don't hold a candle to the Macbook speakers).
The next refresh may offer a tandem OLED, which would be a major upgrade IMO.
Andrei Girbea
August 21, 2025 at 9:32 am
I agree on the speakers. the keyboard is excellent though. 2.1 mm isn't even offered on full size models anymore, not realistic for such a chassis.
Brian Njoroge
August 20, 2025 at 10:37 pm
Hello I do have a Lenovo laptop but unfortunately it couldn't install windows
Andrei Girbea
August 21, 2025 at 9:30 am
what do you mean couldn't install windows?
beroun
August 18, 2025 at 10:03 pm
Just addressing this sentence: "Too bad there’s no ThinkPad T14 series with either Intel Lunar Lake V or AMD Ryzen Strix hardware. That would have been a worthy alternative at a lower cost."
There is L14 and L16 with both Arrow Lake-U and Kracken, T14, T16, T14s with Lunar Lake-V and Kracken. So plenty of choices with Zen 5 and Lunar Lake! There is even P14s and P16s with Kracken and high-end Strix point too (no intel options yet)
Regarding the review/laptop itself: This would be my ideal laptop if it had USB-C charging in both sides, and better speakers. Instead, I am considering the X9-14 (no USB-A sadly), X9-15 (I prefer smaller size and lighter), and Yoga 9i (glossy OLED, no anti-glare coating like thinkpads).
Andrei Girbea
August 19, 2025 at 9:19 am
Hmmm, somehow I missed those. Thanks for the comment and I'll look through the lineup again.
I can't seem to find the T14 with Strix or Lunar Lake (only Krackan and Arrow Lake U).
The P14 is a worth alternative if you're ok with something a little heavier. The Yoga 9i is a good value allarounder as well, with excellent audio, but the typing experience is not quite on par with the ThinkPads. Haven't touched the X9, unfortunately. I saw it's been reviewed positively, but haven't tested it myself