Kyle Fink | December 11, 2021 December 11, 2021 Hardware Reviews, Reviews

Lenovo’s ThinkBook series of notebooks are still business-oriented machines you know, but they are affordable and suitable for limited budgets or are looking for a suitable product. The ThinkBook 13x body is small, easy to carry, and provides some powerful specifications for those demanding tasks. It has a fingerprint sensor on the power button for quick login at startup.

This year, Lenovo chose to add a two-tone color scheme, up to the 11th generation Intel Core i7-1160G7, 13.3-inch 16:10 WQXGA (2560 x 1600) display, up to 1TB M.2 MVNe, and more. During our review test, this laptop has various specifications and can handle everything well. Keep reading below to see how effective it is.

Lenovo launched the ThinkBook series as early as 2019. Although I gave this design 10 points (out of 10 points), it looks tired now compared to this year's iteration. The top of the ThinkBook 13x uses a two-tone color scheme, much like the Lenovo IdeaPad 5i Chromebook we reviewed recently. Even if the cloud gray all-aluminum top cover has the ThinkBook logo in the lower left corner and the Lenovo logo in the upper right corner, it looks very stylish and clean.

Turn the ThinkBook 13x over and you will see that there is a huge vent on the back, and the speaker grilles on both sides allow sound to pass through. There are two single bars on the front and a long stripe on the back to lift the laptop off the flat feet. It is made of plastic rubber material and can hold the ThinkBook in place during use. Move to the port and you will only get a small part of it. This may seem disturbing, but Lenovo does include a dongle to help alleviate the problem of insufficient ports. There are two USB-C ports and an audio/microphone port on the left, while the fingerprint scanner/power button is on the right.

Finally, the screen part is 13.3 inches, with some bezels and a webcam with a privacy shutter on the top. There is a six-row keyboard below, and each key clicks when pressed and the minimum stroke. The TrackPad is on the smaller end, just like a 5i Chromebook, but those who use a mouse won't even notice it. For those who use TrackPad, it is very good to prevent accidental palm touch, and will not move the cursor with random touches.

Lenovo provides two accessories for users who purchase ThinkBook 13x. A USB-C dongle and a Bluetooth mouse. The dongle is very compact, with a USB-C plugged into the laptop at one end. There is a VGA, HDMI and a USB-A port on the other end. The design of the Bluetooth mouse is very basic. You have an all-gray color scheme with the ThinkBook name on the back of the mouse in your palm. The scroll wheel is responsive, and it does not require much force to use the left and right mouse clickers. The gray button in the middle is used to change the DPI setting. I found that the third DPI setting best suits my needs.

Lenovo’s ThinkBook 13x is equipped with a 13.3-inch 16:10 WQXGA IPS display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600. Thanks to the 16:10 aspect ratio, you can get more screen space than a 16:9 display. Considering that 13.3 inches might look small to some users, I found it to look interesting. To be honest, I didn't even notice the small screen when using a laptop.

I prefer IPS monitors because of their excellent color accuracy. The display does a great job of reproducing red, blue, green, and any colors in between. Black is a solid color, without gray tones. The white is also very clean and not too bright. The brightness level is also good. The maximum brightness is 400 nits, but once the screen brightness reaches about 50%, it becomes a bit too dark in a bright room. However, if you are in a dark environment, the screen is too dark is not a problem at all.

ThinkBook 13x does provide touch screen functionality or no touch screen at all. The touch screen is very sensitive for those who want to get a laptop with this feature.

In terms of software, it runs Windows 10 Professional, which can be upgraded to Windows 11. Lenovo once again kept bloatware to a minimum. Including: Lenovo Vantage, which is very similar to Windows Update. AI Meeting Manager, a speech recognition meeting tool, allows you to use speech-to-text, record meetings, and real-time translation with on-screen captions. You will also get trial versions of McAfee LiveSafe and Office 365. Fortunately, users can uninstall these programs to save some space on the SSD.

One huge annoyance that takes some time to fix is ​​that TrackPad will stop registering my finger on the left side. An example is when I try to move the cursor or scroll up or down the webpage; nothing happens. I completed the basic troubleshooting steps and updated the TrackPad software. By the way, it is not available under Device Manager. I did increase the sensitivity of the touchpad through the Windows settings, and even reset the laptop just to allow the problem to continue. I also checked Lenovo's website to see if there is a newer version of TrackPad software, but the only software is the Wacom driver, zero-touch driver and Fn/function key updates.

However, I resolved the issue by uninstalling the two HID mouse options displayed in the device manager. There may be some issues between TrackPad and Bluetooth mouse hardware mix, but TrackPad does work as expected.

This part of the review is interesting. Lenovo provides up to Intel's 11th-generation Core i7-1160G7 for ThinkBook 13x, but in this evaluation, we are evaluating Intel Core i5-1130G7 @ 1.80GHz with turbo boost up to 4.00GHz. There may be 4 cores and 8 threads, but damn, when this laptop is passed through the wringer, they run very efficiently. Including 16GB of LPDDR4X 4266MHz solder RAM. For those who may need it, it has enough memory and should be the standard amount of memory included in the company's equipment.

When I run Chrome, everything runs smoothly, at least 8 tabs are opened, music from Spotify is played in the background, and the laptop is used for this review. Of course, when multiple things are running in the background, there will be some small problems. There are not many cases where laptops slow down, but they do exist.

This laptop is more work-oriented and I did not test how the game handles Intel's Iris Xe graphics card. However, if you plan to try a low-end game from Stream, it may work well with the lowest settings possible, but I would not recommend it.

Overall, ThinkBook 13x performed well under medium to heavy loads. I don't believe that any user will have any problems with performance.

Although the sound quality of laptops is not the best, they provide great sound. In this case, ThinkBook 13x does provide some good quality until you put it on a flat surface or on your lap. Even if the speaker is located under the ThinkBook, the speaker can emit a lot of sound. The only downside to their location at the bottom is that if you put the laptop on your lap, the sound will be covered, causing you to either adjust your seat or move the device to another place.

Except that the sound becomes muffled when sitting on the lap, it does not sound too low when the volume is at a high level. It can fill an entire room, so if you or multiple people are listening to the video in the same vicinity, everyone will be able to hear what is playing.

Like most built-in webcams today, you will get a standard 720p shooting game. For those who make video calls with colleagues or family members, this is enough. For those who want privacy, privacy shutters are also a good addition.

Entering the battery life category, Lenovo advertises that you can use it for up to 12 hours on a single charge. Unfortunately, the battery life when testing the ThinkBook 13x is tedious. Let me explain. I try to write a review or watch a video or anything else; I will not be close to 12 hours. That was within a day. At most, I will get anywhere between four to five hours. Remember, this is the Windows power mode that uses "better battery". Of course, I set the power mode to "power saving mode", but this is not my favorite power setting.

This is a bit disappointing, but if you plan to use your laptop for something here and there, turn it off and use it later or another day, you may be close to the stipulated 12 hours. I did test this and was able to get a longer battery life from a single charge, but this is not what I want to do.

ThinkBook 13x is equipped with a 65W power adapter, with the help of fast charging function, you can charge the notebook computer quite quickly. If the battery level is 10-15%, the laptop can be fully charged in about an hour and a half. At the same time, Rapid Charge can charge the ThinkBook to 80% in about 45 minutes, which is very useful if you need to quickly charge to complete some work when you are traveling or when you are out, and if you are not near the outlet.

One thing I like about the Lenovo ThinkBook series is the long-lasting battery life. It's a bit disappointing to see the lack of battery life for this year's model. As I mentioned before, using Window's power mode did not help trying to reach anywhere near the advertised battery life. Your battery experience may vary, so keep this in mind.

The price of the Bluetooth mouse is US$24.99, but at the time of writing this review is US$19.99, while the USB-C Travel Hub is priced at US$49.99 and US$39.99.

For users who are interested in buying Lenovo ThinkBook 13x, the starting price is $1315.50 at the time of writing. Considering that this laptop is for business oriented, mainly if you think you don’t need ThinkPad series, the starting price is quite reasonable. Of course, the basic storage is 512GB; there is still enough space to add some programs and save files.

To be honest, I like Lenovo's ThinkBook series, but it didn't work for me this year. This is just because battery life is so mediocre. Even the ThinkBook we reviewed before has better battery life. In addition, I like to review ThinkBook 13x.

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