Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 vs. Apple MacBook Air: Which is better?

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 vs. MacBook Air: Performance

Apple’s MacBook Air is powered by the original M1 chip that the company debuted a few years ago. While this isn't the most powerful chip in the current M1 lineup, we think it can still compete with many Intel and AMD chips. It's an octa-core chip that combines four high-performance "Firestorm" cores with four high-efficiency "Icestorm" cores. It strikes a good balance between performance and power efficiency.

On the other hand, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 laptop is powered by Intel’s new 12th generation Alder Lake processors. We're looking at 12th generation vPro processors, which means the laptop can deploy a suite of enterprise and security features. Lenovo uses both P-series and U-series processors for this laptop, so you have a variety of processor options to choose from. While the Alder Lake P series stars the Intel Core i7-1280P, the U series features the Intel Core i7-1265U as its top chip.

Although we haven’t had a chance to use it yet with the Alder Lake P Series and U Series chip-powered devices, but we recommend checking out our Alder Lake P-Series vs. U-Series comparison to find out some key differences between the two. We expect Intel's new 28W P-series processors to beat Apple's M1 chips, and it will be interesting to see how the U-series chips fare against the M1.

Beyond raw CPU performance, there are other factors to consider, including the Apple M1's unified memory technology, powerful graphics unit, and more. We think the Apple M1 chip's graphics unit is better than Intel's Iris Xe graphics unit. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 relies on integrated Iris Xe graphics rather than a separate unit. This may be beneficial in terms of overall power efficiency, but we doubt it will be able to keep up with the M1's graphics unit.

In terms of memory, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 has up to 32GB LPDDR5 RAM. MacBook Air powered by the M1 chip comes with up to 16GB of memory. However, Apple is using unified memory technology to significantly increase speeds and reduce latency. The Apple M1 also uses the same memory for graphics workloads. If you're curious about storage options, both laptops can be purchased with up to 2TB of SSD. You can upgrade the storage on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10, but not the MacBook Air.

Unified Memory Architecture on the Apple M1 Chip

We thought this would be a good time to talk about battery life as well. We're looking at a slightly larger 57Whr battery inside the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 laptop, compared to the 49.9Whr battery inside the MacBook Air. While this makes the ThinkPad X1 Carbon look better on paper, we think the MacBook Air will last longer on a charge. The M1 chip is known to deliver impressive performance per watt. In addition to unified memory, better hardware and software integration with macOS, and more, overall battery performance is also better. We haven't gotten our hands on a laptop powered by Intel's new Alder Lake U-series chips yet, though, so we suggest you keep your eyes peeled for when we get a chance to get a detailed breakdown of U-series power efficiency. Test it.

Windows or macOS?

As we've highlighted in some of our other comparison articles involving Apple computers, the operating system also plays a huge role in deciding which one you should buy here. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon can be purchased with Windows 11 Pro, Ubuntu, or Fedora. MacBook Air runs on macOS Monterey out of the box. For those with an older MacBook, the MacBook Air is an obvious choice. Likewise, if you're used to Windows or Linux operating systems, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 may be your best choice.

For beginners, both operating systems are equally great And intuitive, so the choice is yours, really. We’re not going to pick an outright winner here, as that’s a different discussion topic for a separate article in itself. However, if you are a content creator looking to buy a machine to do basic creative work, then consider buying a MacBook Air. This is because the MacBook Air is known to perform better in a variety of content creation workloads, including graphic design, video editing, and more. MacBook Air also benefits from Apple's excellent hardware and software integration, allowing these applications to perform better overall while using less power.

Showcase

All variants of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 come with a 14-inch 16:10 IPS panel, while the MacBook Air comes with a 13.3-inch IPS Retina display. Both laptops have 16:10 IPS panels, but the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 has a slightly larger display. Additionally, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 also has a touchscreen option, something the MacBook Air lacks. If you want a laptop with a larger display and touchscreen options, the choice is pretty obvious. It's worth noting that you also get a higher-resolution panel option with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, while there's no such option available with the MacBook Air. It's also worth pointing out that the ThinkPad comes with privacy protection, while the MacBook has no such privacy features at all.

# Lenovo also has some big numbers when it comes to color accuracy, although the MacBook Air itself is pretty good in terms of picture quality. We didn't have a chance to test these laptops side-by-side for comparison, so we can't say for sure which one is better. If we were to choose one based on the spec sheet, then we would say that the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 definitely has the edge over the MacBook Air. That being said, neither laptop's display is particularly bad. They should both be good enough for most users, as well as for a variety of use cases including day-to-day work, media consumption, and more.

Both laptops have a webcam at the top of the display, but Lenovo offers a 1080p camera option on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 laptop. You still only get a 720p webcam on the base model, but at least there's the option to add an upgraded sensor. Apple's MacBook Air only comes with a 720p HD FaceTime camera, which will be upgraded this year. Lenovo also offers an optional infrared camera variant to support Windows Hello facial recognition. Apple's MacBook Air comes with a TouchID fingerprint scanner for security.

Design and Ports

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 looks exactly like many other ThinkPad notebooks on the market. It has the familiar black chassis. There's another black carbon fiber weave design that looks great too. However, both variants use carbon fiber, hence the name. That being said, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is no longer the lightest laptop out there. This one weighs 1.12kg, making the ThinkPad X1 Nano the lightest ThinkPad laptop under 1kg. We'd still choose the ThinkPad X1 Carbon over the ThinkPad X1 Nano to retain all the legacy ports.

While the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 is thinner, the MacBook Air has an overall smaller profile. The MacBook Air also has a very familiar design, as Apple hasn't changed it in years. The variant with the M1 chip is available in three different colors - silver, space gray and gold - but they all have the same metal chassis. It's a very minimalist design, and many would prefer something flashier like a carbon weave texture, but that's all very subjective.

As for ports, there’s no doubt that the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the clear winner. It has two 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports, two 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one HDMI 2.0b port along with a 3.5mm headphone jack and a nano sim slot. The MacBook Air, on the other hand, only comes with two USB 4/Thunderbolt USB Type-C ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack. While both laptops lack a few ports, including an SD card reader, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 is your best choice if you don't want to deal with adapters.

Connectivity options on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 include support for WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and optional cellular options such as 5G sub-6 Cat2o and 4G LTE Cat16. MacBook Air only supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5, so keep that in mind.

Which one should you buy?

From a comparison point, we think the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 is significantly better than the MacBook Air in some key areas. For starters, the display on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is great. It has a slightly larger display, and Lenovo offers more options, including a higher-resolution panel. However, both laptops have 16:10 aspect ratio displays, so there's no difference. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon also excels when it comes to port selection and connectivity options. Not to mention, the ThinkPad also has a better webcam, with optional infrared support for Windows Hello.

While we can’t judge performance just yet, the MacBook Air has proven to be quite power efficient thanks to the M1 chip. We'll have more to say about the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon's power efficiency once we've had a chance to test the P and U-series chips.

Finally, there is also the price difference factor to consider when making a purchasing decision. The MacBook Air starts at $999, while the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 starts at $1,639. While the base models of both notebooks should be enough to handle just about any day-to-day workload, the MacBook Air is generally considered better in this regard because you essentially get the same general performance on all models. The only thing different about the MacBook is unified memory and storage. This also applies to the display, as even with the base model of the MacBook Air, you get a sharper display compared to the 1920×1200 panel of the base model of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

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