Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 14" 21KC00A0US Black 2024

The X1 Carbon Gen 12 is the business travel laptop perfected. Light as a notepad, tough as a ThinkPad, and the keyboard alone is worth the price of admission.

The Core Ultra 5 125U surprised us. It's not a powerhouse on paper, sitting right around the middle of the pack for CPU performance, but in real-world productivity it feels snappier than the specs suggest. The 16GB of LPDDR5X keeps dozens of browser tabs and Office apps humming without breaking a sweat. The integrated Intel Graphics are fine for spreadsheets and streaming, but that's where the party ends. Don't expect to do anything more demanding than light photo editing. The 512GB SSD is adequate but feels a little stingy for a laptop at this price.

The obvious alternative is the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro, which gives you a brighter OLED display and similar portability, but you lose the ThinkPad's legendary keyboard and that three-year Premier Support. The MacBook Pro M4 Max is in a completely different performance league, but it's also heavier, pricier, and overkill for the spreadsheet-and-email crowd. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 and HP OMEN Transcend are gaming machines pretending to be business laptops, and they'll crush this thing in graphics, but they're heavier and their batteries won't last nearly as long. For pure business travel, the X1 Carbon is still the one to beat.

Pricing is all over the place right now. In the US, you'll see it listed anywhere from USD 1,289 to USD 1,499 depending on the vendor, so shop around before you commit. The best US deal we spotted was at the lower end of that range, which makes this a much easier recommendation. In Canada, the spread is even wider, from CAD 2,400 to CAD 2,819. At the low end, this is a solid value for a premium business ultrabook with three years of Premier Support baked in. At the high end, you're paying a premium for the ThinkPad name and that carbon fiber chassis.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is the laptop you buy when you're done messing around. It's 1.07kg of carbon fiber and magnesium that slips into a bag like a magazine, yet still packs a 12-core Core Ultra 5 and a 400-nit display. The one thing to know? This is a business travel machine first, everything else second. If you live on planes, trains, and conference room tables, this is about as good as it gets. If you want to game or edit video, keep walking.

If you need any kind of graphics horsepower, this isn't it. Video editors, 3D modelers, and anyone who wants to game after hours should go get an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 or a MacBook Pro instead. Also, if you're a student on a budget, the premium ThinkPad tax is hard to justify when cheaper ultrabooks cover the same basics.

Buy it. The X1 Carbon Gen 12 is the best business travel laptop we've tested this year, full stop. It's light enough to forget you're carrying it, built like a tank, and the keyboard is still the gold standard. The integrated graphics and 512GB storage are the only real compromises, and for the target audience, those barely matter. Get the best price you can find and don't look back.