Lenovo released the ThinkPad X1 Carbon in 2012 and marked the introduction of the first true “Ultrabook” in the venerable ThinkPad series. Since then, the X1 Carbon has been at the cutting edge of the ThinkPad series’ ultra-portable offerings and is now on its sixth iteration.
Lenovo launched the sixth generation of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon in spring this year, shortly after announcing the device at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2018.
The timing of the sixth generation’s announcement is typical of X1 Carbon launches too. Lenovo has announced all previous iterations of the device at CES except for the first generation, so it would make sense for the seventh X1 Carbon to be announced at CES 2019 in January next year. Speculatively, we expect to see Lenovo unveil the X1 Carbon 2019 in Las Vegas between January 8-11, 2019.
Concrete rumours about the connectivity of the next X1 Carbon are still scarce. Lenovo will likely equip the device with a choice of Intel’s latest “Whiskey Lake” generation processors, probably either the Core i5-8265U or the Core i7-8565U. Notably, these 15 W CPUs will pick an integrated Wi-Fi module, the first Intel Core processors to do so.
Aside from a probable CPU upgrade, Lenovo could also introduce a new design. Lenovo last redesigned the X1 Carbon in 2017, with the 2018 model being more of an updated X1 Carbon 2017. It could be possible that we see another iteration based on the 2017 design, but Lenovo has until now never relied upon the same X1 Carbon design for more than two years. Hence, it is time for a newly designed X1 Carbon.
