They don’t have mobile workstations‘ independent software vendor (ISV) certifications for specialized computer-aided design, rendering, and scientific apps, but elite systems for digital content creators are some of our favorite laptops. The Dell XPS 15 and the Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch are probably the best-known, but everyone from Acer and Asus to Gigabyte, Razer, and MSI competes in this space—as does Lenovo, which has just unveiled a third generation of its 15.6-inch ThinkPad X1 Extreme (starts at $1,479; $2,913 as tested). The new Extreme combines elegant design and solid performance with alluring features led by a gorgeous OLED display. Its battery life is a little disappointing and it can’t double as a gamer as some competitors can, but it’s a first-class creative and productivity partner.
Four Screens, Six or Eight Cores
The $1,479 base model has a six-core Intel Core i7-10750H processor, 8GB of memory, a 256GB solid-state drive, and a 1080p IPS screen rated at 300 nits of brightness. There are three better display options: 500-nit full HD, 600-nit 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) IPS with Dolby Vision, and my test unit’s 400-nit 4K touch screen with OLED technology and Dolby Vision True Black. All X1 Extreme models come with a 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q GPU, which slots in just below the XPS 15’s unthrottled GeForce GTX 1650 Ti and well below some rivals’ GeForce RTX silicon.
Besides the OLED panel, my $2,913 review unit boasted a six-core, 2.7GHz (5.1GHz turbo) Core i7-10850H chip, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. The top CPU choice is an eight-core Core i9-10885H; memory and storage max out at 64GB and 4TB respectively. (The last is a welcome change from the 1TB ceiling we complained about with last year’s Gen 2 model.) Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth are standard; LTE mobile broadband is optional.
The Extreme has the same matte-black-slab styling that has defined ThinkPads forever, though units with 4K screens have a subtle carbon-fiber weave pattern on the lid. Like all ThinkPads, it’s passed MIL-STD 810G torture tests against shock, vibration, and environmental extremes; there’s no flex if you grasp the screen corners or press the keyboard deck. At 0.74 by 14.2 by 9.7 inches, it’s a bit bulkier than the Dell XPS 15 (0.71 by 13.6 by 9.1 inches), though half a pound lighter at 4.0 pounds with the touch screen. The Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED is about the same size, at 0.78 by 14 by 9.8 inches.
Where the Dell has only USB Type-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports (with USB Type-A and HDMI dongles in the box), the Lenovo has two USB 3.2 Type-A ports (one always on) along with SD card and Kensington lock slots on its right side. On the left are an HDMI port, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, an audio jack, and the connector for the coat-pocket AC adapter.
The screen bezels are medium-thin but not vanishingly so; a face-recognition webcam and fingerprint reader give you two ways to skip typing passwords with Windows Hello.
Another Terrific ThinkPad Keyboard
You simply can’t find a better laptop keyboard than those of high-end ThinkPads. The Extreme’s follows the familiar company layout (Home and End keys on the top row, Page Up and Page Down at lower right by the cursor arrows). The Fn and Control keys are arguably in each other’s places at bottom left, but if you can’t adjust to that, you can swap them with the supplied Lenovo Vantage utility, which combines assorted system settings with Wi-Fi security.
Two levels of keyboard backlighting are available; top-row keys serve to place and end calls in Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. The typing feel is quiet but snappy, with firm tactile feedback. Pointing-device fans can choose between the midsize touchpad and the TrackPoint mini joystick embedded in the keyboard, with three mouse buttons located below the space bar. Both work smoothly and accurately.
What’s better than the Extreme’s keyboard? Its OLED display, which combines inky blacks with vibrant colors. Brightness is ample, with snowy white backgrounds, and the contrast is as high as the viewing angles are wide. Fine details and the edges of letters are as sharp as 4K resolution can make them.
The 720p webcam captures bright and colorful images without noise or static, though they’re rather soft-focus. Bottom-firing speakers produce not-too-loud sound, short on bass but with clear highs and midtones; it’s easy to hear overlapping tracks. Dolby software lets you tinker with music, movie, game, voice, and dynamic presets and an equalizer.
Testing the X1 Extreme Gen 3: Creative Stars Hit the Test Bench
The ThinkPad X1 Extreme didn’t feel as blazingly fast as some Core i9 or AMD Ryzen 7 laptops I’ve tried, but very snappy as it sped through multitasking and everyday apps. (See more about how we test laptops.)
For our objective benchmarks, I pitted it against the Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch, the Dell XPS 15, and the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED. That left one slot, which I filled with the Asus ProArt StudioBook 15 to give the ThinkPad some six-core company. (The other laptops have eight-core CPUs.) You can see the contenders’ basic specs in the table below.
Productivity and Media Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the system’s boot drive. Both yield a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better.
The Extreme easily hurdled the 4,000-point mark that we consider excellent productivity in PCMark 10, and all four Windows laptops’ PCI Express solid-state drives sailed through PCMark 8’s storage measurement. (The MacBook Pro, naturally, skipped our Windows-only benchmarks.)
Next is Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing benchmark, in which we put a stopwatch on systems as they transcode a brief movie from 4K resolution down to 1080p. It, too, is a tough test for multi-core, multi-threaded CPUs; lower times are better.
The six-core processors kept surprisingly close to their eight-core counterparts in Cinebench, though raw power won out in Handbrake.
We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image. We time each operation and add up the total (lower times are better). The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but it can also take advantage of most GPUs to speed up the process of applying filters.
The Lenovo’s screen makes it a great platform for image editing, but it disappointingly trailed the field in this exercise, taking a few extra seconds to complete each operation.
Graphics Tests
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and lets high-end PCs and gaming rigs strut their stuff.
The Asus’ and Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX silicon set the pace in this gaming simulation, with the ThinkPad’s Max-Q GPU bringing up the rear in the challenging Fire Strike test.
Next up is another synthetic graphics test, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene, this one rendered in the eponymous Unigine engine for a second opinion on the machine’s graphical prowess.
The Dell balked at this test, leaving the Lenovo puttering in the wake of the Aero 15 and StudioBook 15. The Extreme can handle some light or casual gaming, but serious players need not apply.
Battery Rundown Test
After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) where available and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown test. (We also turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop into airplane mode.) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the Blender Foundation short film Tears of SteelTears of Steel—with screen brightness set at 50 percent and volume at 100 percent until the system quits.
Falling just short of an eight-hour workday (and about 55 minutes short of the other 4K OLED screen in this contest, the Gigabyte), the ThinkPad’s stamina isn’t bad but is less than we like to see from a desktop replacement. The Dell and Apple did much better.
Just Missing the Brass Ring
It’s not really fair to criticize the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 3 for failure to qualify as a gaming rig, but it’s fair to wish for a few more hours of battery life—indeed, that’s the only thing keeping it from an Editors’ Choice nod, since its display and keyboard are both faultless and it weighs less than its XPS 15 rival (which requires adapters or dongles for external monitors or USB-A devices). Even so, the Extreme is a highly desirable laptop that deserves a look from anyone shopping in the premium creative segment.
