Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Review: High-End-Business-Convertible with Intel EVO and Titanium chassis

With a height of 11.5 mm, the X1 Titanium Yoga is clearly the thinnest device in our comparison, but it is also the deepest model and it looks like it was pressed flat. It has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, so it is obviously deeper than convertibles with 16:9 or 16:10 screens, but the HP Spectre x360 14 (also 3:2) is about 1.3 cm shorter at virtually the same width. This means the ThinkPad has a pretty big footprint. The weight of ~1.2 kg is average; both the Fujitsu LifeBook as well as the HP Elite Dragonfly are lighter.

Just like the ThinkPad X1 Nano, Lenovo only implements two USB-C ports on the left side. They support Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4, but you will probably need adapters in practice. You can drive a total of three displays (1x internally, 2x externally) with a maximum resolution of 5120 x 3200 pixels (60 Hz).

ThinkPads with the model year 2021 are supposed to get a power button above the keyboard, which is also a fingerprint scanner at the same time. The latter is already included, but the power button is still located at the right side and occupies important space, which could have been used for another port. Finally, you get a 3.5 mm stereo jack.

In addition to the modern Wi-Fi module from Intel (AX201), which supports all important standards including 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) as well as Bluetooth 5.2, the X1 Titanium Yoga also offers a slot for a WWAN module (M.2-2242). You can either get a 4G module from Fibocom (L850-GL, LTE Cat.9) in combination with a Nano-SIM slot, or a 5G module (Snapdragon X55, LTE Cat.20) in combination with an eSIM.

The Wi-Fi connection was very stable in our tests with Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 5 routers and our standardized test with the Netgear router Nighthawk RAX120 determined very good transfer rates. It was not problem to use a SIM-card from T-Mobile with the test unit.

There are two cameras above the display: The IR camera for facial recognition via Windows Hello and the standard webcam with the 720p resolution (0.9 MP) including mechanical shutter (Think Shutter). The quality of the webcam is low, as expected for this resolution. It seems that webcams are still pretty unimportant for manufacturers. Considering the pretty thick bezel, we are pretty sure it could have accommodated a better sensor.

In addition to the IR camera for facial recognition, you can also use your fingerprint to log in. The ThinkPad x1 Titanium Yoga is one of the first ThinkPads where the fingerprint scanner is located above the keyboard and it should be combined with the power button (but this is not the case here). The scanner works very well in our tests. As per usual, you get a TPM 2.0 chip and you can set different password in the BIOS, but there is no SmartCard reader. You do get a slot for a Kensington Lock (Nano Security) on the right side to protect the device against theft.

The box only includes the convertible itself, the compact 65W power adapter, and some service brochures. Some models are shipped with an active pen (Lenovo Precision Pen), but our test unit was not shipped with it.

The touchpad (9 x 6.5 cm) reveals the next build quality issue, because the upper right corner is sitting slightly lower inside the chassis. We are not happy with the controls, either. Contrary to many other clickpads, you can click down the whole pad, but the travel is extremely shallow, which results in a strange feeling. The haptic feedback is just odd and the clicking noise also appears pretty cheap. The pad is also extremely sensitive and often recognizes clicks even though you did not want to click (the Windows settings was the default medium setting). The gliding capabilities are not perfect, either, because small movements are often not recognized correctly or the cursor just stops moving, so you have to lift the finger again. All in all, the touchpad is disappointing.

You can obviously use the TrackPoint with the dedicated mouse buttons instead. It works as expected and is therefore the better input method. The dedicated buttons are well integrated into the base unit, there is no clatter, and they provide a consistent clicking sound.

Finally, there is the capacitive touchscreen, which recognizes up to 10 fingers simultaneously and we did not experience any issues.

Most high-end business convertibles are exclusively available with Intel processors, currently Tiger Lake chips with optional vPro support. Similar to the ThinkPad X1 Nano, Lenovo does not use the common UP3 chips, but more efficient UP4 chips that are also smaller in terms of physical size. The TDP is lower as well, although the manufacturers do not have to follow Intel’s recommendations. The X1 Titanium Yoga is only available with 16 GB RAM (LPDDR4x-4266) in the EMEA region, but other regions also get models with 8 GB. You cannot expand the memory, so we definitely recommend 16 GB models.

Contrary to the consumer models, Lenovo implemented the power profiles from the Vantage software into the standard Windows performance slider on their ThinkPads, which is very comfortable in practice.

Our Cinebench R15 Multi loop shows that the processor consumes ~33W for a couple of seconds, but the core temperature immediately reaches 90 °C, so the performance has to be reduced. A new iteration will let the consumption spike for a short time, but it quickly stabilizes at 12W again, which is sufficient for 4x 2.0 GHz. The X1 Nano manages 4x 2.6-2.7 GHz at 19W, so the cooling performance of the X1 Titanium Yoga is definitely less powerful.

All in all, the performance is comparable with the regular X1 Yoga and the Fujitsu LifeBook U9310X with the older Comet Lake chips. The HP Elite Dragonfly is a bit slower, but this is a result of the old Whiskey Lake CPU. The cooling performance is actually a little bit better (12.5W), so the Dragonfly would be comparable with a current processor. Both the ThinkPad X1 Nano as well as the HP Spectre x360 14 offer more CPU performance.

So what does this mean for everyday use? There is still plenty of CPU performance for common workloads (meetings, Office suite, web applications) and the device benefits from the high clocks in short peak load situations. The device is obviously not designed for sustained CPU load scenarios. It can still handle them, but there are better solutions on the market. The CPU performance is not reduced on battery power. Considering the low TDP limitations, the cheaper Core i5-1130G7 should not be much slower. More benchmarks and data for the Core i7-1160G7 are available in our Tech section.

Thanks to the modern processor, the fast iGPU, sufficient amount of RAM, and the PCIe-SSD, the X1 Titanium Yoga is a very responsive system and we did not notice any problems during our review period. Inputs are executed without noticeable delays and it is enjoyable to use in everyday situations. The benchmark results are decent and confirm that the comparatively slow CPU performance is no bottleneck in practice.

Lenovo uses a compact M.2-2242 SSD, which is attached via PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. Our test unit was equipped with a 512 GB drive from Toshiba (434 GB are usable after the initial set-up) and the transfer rates are decent. There are faster PCIe 3.0 drives on the market, but you will not notice the difference in practice.

Like the ThinkPad X1 Nano, the X1 Titanium Yoga is still a model year 2020 device, so it does not get a PCIe 4.0 interface, despite the modern Tiger Lake CPU. More benchmarks for the Toshiba drive and other SSD models are available in our database.

The new Iris Xe Graphics G7 can handle some games, but the performance will drop a bit after a couple of minutes. You should focus on less demanding or older titles. F1 2020, for example, only runs smoothly at low settings, while you can use our medium preset for Witcher 3 and DOTA 2. More gaming benchmarks for the Iris Xe Graphics are available in our tech section.

Both the X1 Nano as well as the X1 Titanium Yoga use one fan, but the heat pipe of the X1 Titanium Yoga is much smaller. The lower cooling solution is therefore not surprising, but it also affects the fan. Depending on the performance profile, the fan will spin up pretty quickly in short peak load situations, even though the murmur is not annoying. The overall noise level is even a bit lower compared to the X1 Nano, and the maximum noise during the stress test is not sustained for a long time. As soon as the TDP has leveled off at 12W, the fan noise drops from 35.8 dB(A) to 32.7 dB(A). We did not hear any other electronic noises.

The thin chassis is a factor when we look at the surface temperatures, because the area around the mainboard (above the key F2-F8) is already a couple of degrees warmer than the rest of the chassis while idling. This is also the hot spot under load. We can measure slightly more than 45 °C, which is clearly perceptible, but there are still no limitations. You can still put the device on your lap and both the kayboard as well as the palm rests stay much cooler. Overall, the surface temperatures are quite high considering the low TDP, it looks like Lenovo prefers a quieter fan noise.

There is also a bit difference in terms of speakers between the X1 Nano (4 speakers) and the X1 Titanium Yoga, where Lenovo only uses two speakers. They are located next to the keyboard and direct the sound towards the user, at least when you are using the convertible as a laptop. The will direct the sound towards the back in tent mode and you will probably cover them with your hands when you use it as a tablet.

The lack of two additional speakers is also clearly noticeable. The Xi Titanium Yoga is quieter than the X1 Nano and the sound is just not as rich and powerful. The result is not bad and still superior to many business laptops, but it could have been better.