REVIEW: ThinkPad X13s is a Windows notebook with 5G

The premium laptop market is one of the most interesting to watch for industry trends, with new technology arriving at a steady pace. Depending on success, features in this upper range may migrate to lower price ranges or disappear altogether. In Brazil, this process ends up being a little more difficult to be noticed. With the price of premium notebooks reaching around R$ 10, not all of them reach the market, and the few that are made available become very curious experiences and well outside the standard of the national market. 

O showmetech had the opportunity to test one of the most unusual experiences in the premium market, with the Lenovo ThinkPadX13s, a notebook that uses a chipset Snapdragon to give users an excellent user experience in addition to 5G connectivity. Check out our impressions below:

Design and canvas

Right off the bat, the first surprise with the ThinkPad x13s was its fine design. I don't know if the reader is as old as I am, but I remember that in 2007 the incredible surprise was the presentation of the first MacBook Air coming out of an envelope – and, curiously, the Lenovo he sent me the device in an envelope, simulating that feeling and creating a whole vibe of a unique experience for the review.

the carcass of ThinkPad x13s is made from 90% recycled magnesium, demonstrating Lenovo's focus on sustainable experiences. At a total of 1,06kg, the lightness of the device is also remarkable – it is lighter than my Shi Tzu puppy, folks!

At the top of the notebook, we have the logo of ThinkPad, always stylish. On the sides, the USB-C and power connections complete the package, taking us to the open device. Your initial setup experience is standard for Windows 11, but it already surprises thanks to the 13,3-inch IPS WUXGA screen with 1.920 x 1.200 resolution and 300 nits of brightness. Honestly, this size is good enough for work, especially considering the overall portability of the device. 

The miniSIM card slot and the 3,5mm headphone port are also available on the device, but one absence, I admit, surprised me: the lack of an HDMI port on it. It's okay that nowadays many televisions have ways of screen mirroring via Wi-Fi, but the port is still very necessary, especially for those who suddenly want to use the notebook as a computer together with a monitor. 

Performance

Part of the novelty of ThinkPad x13s is the fact that it is one of the first notebooks in the world to come with the processor Snapdragon 8cx Gen3, Qualcomm's new notebook platform that is being considered the main player for the Windows 11 notebook market.

Due to compatibility issues, the PCMark 10 can't run on our review unit, but that didn't stop us from using the good ol' CrystalDiskMark to check the device's storage performance, and, considering its 1TB SSD, performance was well within expectations, with standard write and read speeds for this type of device.

In the general day-to-day tests, such as using it for work, surfing the internet, the Office package and the like, the notebook did well, undeniably, but what caught my attention was its performance with games: practically non-existent.

the GPU Adreno 690 it's not exactly very strong, and anyone wanting a laptop to play on will probably be very disappointed with the ThinkPad X13s. But, remembering that the device has a focus on productivity, from that perspective its performance does not disappoint.

Furthermore, the notebook's design and processor's low-power performance allow the ThinkPad X13s to perform all these tasks without fans, leaving its operation extremely silent, but with some problems: during a quick test with 3DMark, the device got hot and I ended up choosing not to complete the fire test, since at that moment I had already understood the focus of the device.

The 5G connection is indeed very interesting, providing a quick way to use the internet even when traveling, for example, but in general it is not such a striking feature for the rest of the package when we analyze its use.

Battery

Returning to day-to-day performance, it is important to emphasize that the notebook's 49,5Wh battery is excellent, and gave us about 19 hours with punctual use of the notebook and standby mode, and about 7h30min in constant use; well, considering that an average working day lasts 8 hours, the battery life does not disappoint at all.

For charging, we observed about 4 hours for a full charge, a considerably good time and that, if you are one of those people who always carry the power supply in your backpack, allows for quick charge cycles for it to withstand the day to day.

Audio

The audio of ThinkPad X13s it is well defined for mid and high frequencies, with little presence in the lower frequencies. However, the two 2W speakers, positioned on the sides of the keyboard, present distortion at higher volumes. In general, this is a rather common nuisance in notebooks, precisely because of the small size of the sound outputs. However, if you are going to use an external speaker, this will not be a problem.

Anyway, for common PC audio use, it doesn't disappoint, whether it's listening to music, watching video lessons or those Zoom conferences. In addition, for the reproduction of compatible contents, the experience with Dolby Audio proved to be extremely satisfactory, practically showing a cinema experience in such a small device.

As for the audio capture, the notebook Lenovo features three microphones which, together with the company's audio package, Qualcomm (which offers AI-based echo cancellation and noise suppression technology) will allow for greater clarity during any type of call, be it audio only or video.

Price

Behold the elephant in the room. the price of ThinkPad X13s in Brazil it is R$ 11.699, and considering everything we've shown and seen of the notebook, it's a little salty for a more everyday-focused device.

The market has notebook options with similar performance at lower prices, and in this price range it is also possible to find devices that run games or can perform heavier actions, such as the Dell XPS 13. Lenovo's device is specifically recommended for anyone who is really interested in the benefits of 5G connectivity.

Anyway, let's see the future. It is possible that the ThinkPad X13s this is just a small taste of what we will experience in the future of notebooks as 5G becomes more popular. 

Technical specifications

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reviewed by Glaucon Vital in 15 / 6 / 23.