I have gen 1 version of this and the 15W 1130G7 chip throttles. I can't imagine this machine handling 1260p with just a single tiny fan. 1260p is already reported to run very poorly on the regular x1 carbon and that thing has 2 fans and the battery life has halved vs the previous gen. Lenovo needs to use the U series chip in this.
I know everyone on the internet runs their sub 3lb ultrabooks pegged at 100% utilization all the time rendering video and calculating spreadsheets, but back in the real world, you could conceivably want a powerful CPU in this for punchy bursts of power.
They make 'workstation' class laptops for a reason.
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Designed with on-the-go performance and responsiveness in mind
I have gen 1 version of this and the 15W 1130G7 chip throttles. I can't imagine this machine handling 1260p with just a single tiny fan. 1260p is already reported to run very poorly on the regular x1 carbon and that thing has 2 fans and the battery life has halved vs the previous gen. Lenovo needs to use the U series chip in this.
I am also having my doubt too. And remember, 1130G7 is even the lowered power version of the Tiger Lake U series, namely 1135G7. On the other hand, 1260p is a very powerful but power hungry chip. Notebookcheck.net recently has done a comparative analysis among Intel 12th gen P series and Ryzen 5000U and 6000U series processors. They found out that i5-1240p already consuming 64W, maximum allowed by Intel for P series, to sustain its speed during longer workload and i7-1260P was actually throttling as it needs more than that to maintain its "so called higher speed" over 1240p (both are having exact same core counts). And that was happening in Yoga 9i 14 which is thicker, heavier and has superior twin fan cooling solution than this Ultra light X1 Nano. This laptop probably won't be even able to maintain 30W-35W power draw due its super thin profile and a single fan, meaning paying anything over 1240P is waste of money as you're never going to get those extra speed of core i7 1260p. I would save $150-$200 by going for the 1240p version because Processing performance wise, there won't be any difference. May be the 96 EU Iris Xe in 1260p will give sligh GPU performance boost over 80 EU in i5-1240p but I doubt anybody planning to play games on that to see that extra GPU performance boost.
I have a Nano Gen 1 with the 2160x1350 screen and i5-1130G7 CPU.
In a lot of ways, it's a great machine. Extremely tiny and lightweight while still feeling solidly built (doesn't flex or creak), exceptionally bright and colorful screen (wonderful in a world where dim 300 nit screens are the norm), great keyboard for its class of machine, decent trackpad, and its trackpoint is excellent for mousing in cramped situations. Storage is expandable too, with the caveat that you'll need to find a more unusual half-length M.2 SSD to replace the one it came with.
At least when running Windows however, its battery life is middling at best, and doing anything even slightly intensive will kick on its fan. I don't have it plugged into an external display often, but even that is enough to rev its fan up even if it's otherwise idle. The CPU seems just a touch too hot for this laptop's chassis… and this was the lowest end option for its generation.
So I like my Nano, but it's clearly a compromise in many ways. Even though it's larger and more heavy, as time goes on I'm increasingly tempted to sell it or trade it in and get a MacBook Air instead… M1/M2 runs way cooler than Tiger Lake and probably Alder Lake, and anything Windows-only can be run via WINE and Rosetta 2 or Parallels and Windows for ARM with Windows' built in x86 emulation.
I have a Nano Gen 1 with the 2160x1350 screen and i5-1130G7 CPU.
In a lot of ways, it's a great machine. Extremely tiny and lightweight while still feeling solidly built (doesn't flex or creak), exceptionally bright and colorful screen (wonderful in a world where dim 300 nit screens are the norm), great keyboard for its class of machine, decent trackpad, and its trackpoint is excellent for mousing in cramped situations. Storage is expandable too, with the caveat that you'll need to find a more unusual half-length M.2 SSD to replace the one it came with.
At least when running Windows however, its battery life is middling at best, and doing anything even slightly intensive will kick on its fan. I don't have it plugged into an external display often, but even that is enough to rev its fan up even if it's otherwise idle. The CPU seems just a touch too hot for this laptop's chassis… and this was the lowest end option for its generation.
So I like my Nano, but it's clearly a compromise in many ways. Even though it's larger and more heavy, as time goes on I'm increasingly tempted to sell it or trade it in and get a MacBook Air instead… M1/M2 runs way cooler than Tiger Lake and probably Alder Lake, and anything Windows-only can be run via WINE and Rosetta 2 or Parallels and Windows for ARM with Windows' built in x86 emulation.
An X1 nano with Ryzen 6000 series would have been the ideal combo.
Nice! Could you comment on the concerns around throttling / fan always revving in?
Sounds like you are not observing those problems
it does stutter a bit at times when not in performance mode. Fan is perma on if you're actively using the laptop heavily but shouldn't that be expected on such a compact laptop with a high TDP CPU? The fan isn't very loud, nothing like a bigger laptop like my X17.
I know everyone on the internet runs their sub 3lb ultrabooks pegged at 100% utilization all the time rendering video and calculating spreadsheets, but back in the real world, you could conceivably want a powerful CPU in this for punchy bursts of power.
They make 'workstation' class laptops for a reason.
Shocking, I know.
The problem is: the X1 Nano cannot thermally accommodate the power draw and heat output of Alder Lake. I don't know if you've read the reviews of other Alder Lake 'ultrabooks', especially the X1 Carbon 10th gen, but thermals are a big issue. 12th gen Intel stuff is great for desktops where heat output (usually) doesn't matter, but it's pretty terrible for thin and light laptops. Hell, I tried a Yoga 7i 16 with a 1260P in it and it ran at like 70C just doing work in a browser.
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I have a Yoga with a i5 1240p which is more efficient and has a 71wh battery and I feel like battery performance is good but not great.
Lenovo could have lowered the TDP on the chip but it doesn't look like it from the spec sheet.
They make 'workstation' class laptops for a reason.
In a lot of ways, it's a great machine. Extremely tiny and lightweight while still feeling solidly built (doesn't flex or creak), exceptionally bright and colorful screen (wonderful in a world where dim 300 nit screens are the norm), great keyboard for its class of machine, decent trackpad, and its trackpoint is excellent for mousing in cramped situations. Storage is expandable too, with the caveat that you'll need to find a more unusual half-length M.2 SSD to replace the one it came with.
At least when running Windows however, its battery life is middling at best, and doing anything even slightly intensive will kick on its fan. I don't have it plugged into an external display often, but even that is enough to rev its fan up even if it's otherwise idle. The CPU seems just a touch too hot for this laptop's chassis… and this was the lowest end option for its generation.
So I like my Nano, but it's clearly a compromise in many ways. Even though it's larger and more heavy, as time goes on I'm increasingly tempted to sell it or trade it in and get a MacBook Air instead… M1/M2 runs way cooler than Tiger Lake and probably Alder Lake, and anything Windows-only can be run via WINE and Rosetta 2 or Parallels and Windows for ARM with Windows' built in x86 emulation.
In a lot of ways, it's a great machine. Extremely tiny and lightweight while still feeling solidly built (doesn't flex or creak), exceptionally bright and colorful screen (wonderful in a world where dim 300 nit screens are the norm), great keyboard for its class of machine, decent trackpad, and its trackpoint is excellent for mousing in cramped situations. Storage is expandable too, with the caveat that you'll need to find a more unusual half-length M.2 SSD to replace the one it came with.
At least when running Windows however, its battery life is middling at best, and doing anything even slightly intensive will kick on its fan. I don't have it plugged into an external display often, but even that is enough to rev its fan up even if it's otherwise idle. The CPU seems just a touch too hot for this laptop's chassis… and this was the lowest end option for its generation.
So I like my Nano, but it's clearly a compromise in many ways. Even though it's larger and more heavy, as time goes on I'm increasingly tempted to sell it or trade it in and get a MacBook Air instead… M1/M2 runs way cooler than Tiger Lake and probably Alder Lake, and anything Windows-only can be run via WINE and Rosetta 2 or Parallels and Windows for ARM with Windows' built in x86 emulation.
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Awesome little machine. The battery life is around 5 hrs of heavy usage using it as a portable work laptop (I'm a developer).
Awesome little machine. The battery life is around 5 hrs of heavy usage using it as a portable work laptop (I'm a developer).
Nice! Could you comment on the concerns around throttling / fan always revving in?
Sounds like you are not observing those problems
Sounds like you are not observing those problems
They make 'workstation' class laptops for a reason.
Shocking, I know.
I have a Yoga with a i5 1240p which is more efficient and has a 71wh battery and I feel like battery performance is good but not great.
Lenovo could have lowered the TDP on the chip but it doesn't look like it from the spec sheet.