Lenovo ThinkPad X13 G3 laptop review: Endurance in outdoor use with Intel Alder Lake-U

We encounter a typical ThinkPad in anthracite here. The red TrackPoint in the easily replaceable keyboard, a red shining i-dot in the logo, and the classic design give the notebook its recognition value. The case is made of a magnesium alloy. This gives the ThinkPad X13 a lot of stability in the base. The display lid, on the other hand, which unlike the base is not made of magnesium, but of glass-fiber plastic, is relatively easy to deform. However, nothing creaks or scratches. Thus, the entire laptop feels high-quality and resistant.

The ThinkPad X13 has a typical size for notebooks with a 13-inch diagonal. At most, the notebook is a bit thick at almost 2 cm. The laptop does not stand out positively or negatively in terms of weight either. The case made of light metal magnesium does not seem to bring any weight advantage.

Most of the ports on the ThinkPad are on the left side. There is only a USB port and a smartcard reader on the right. The SIM card slot is somewhat hidden on the back of the office laptop. Nano SIM cards fit here. Both USB-C ports offer full features, i.e. Thunderbolt 4.0, DisplayPort, and PowerDelivery. The proprietary port for a docking station from Lenovo has thus been eliminated.

With Wi-Fi 6E, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 is state of the art. The Intel AX211 module delivers very high transfer rates with the GT-AXE11000 in our test device. However, it has to be mentioned here that the installed Windows 10 does not support the 6-GHz bands. Besides that, the laptop also supports Bluetooth 5.2. The installed LTE modem can connect to the Internet apart from the available WLAN. It supports two SIM cards. The connection can be established via a nano-SIM or an eSIM.

The ThinkPad X13 offers many different methods for securing the device. A Kensington lock slot on the right side is available for physical security. Here you will also find the smart card reader, which enables access control. The fingerprint scanner is built into the power button. This can also be activated before booting and thus protect the device from manipulation of the operating system. The device's webcam also has the option of facial recognition. Finally, the security features of the Intel Core i5 are also available.

The ThinkPad X13 comes safely and almost plastic-free packed, with the minimum of accessories. Apart from the included 65-watt USB-C power adapter, only the documentation is found in the box.

Lenovo provides extensive maintenance manuals for many laptops. The Hardware Maintenance Manual (PDF) can also be found for the ThinkPad X13 Gen 3. According to the manual, the laptop is easy to open. Inside, we find a removable SSD as well as a plugged-in LTE module. The working memory is soldered and cannot be expanded. The keyboard of the notebook is particularly easy to replace in case of damage. Two screws on the back of the Lenovo laptop secure it.

Our review sample comes with a warranty of 36 months. The warranty status can be checked at any time via Lenovo's Commercial Vantage program.

Our test device with Intel Core i5-1235U and 16 GB of working memory is one of the few pre-configured versions of the ThinkPad X13 Gen 3. Generally, the ThinkPad can be configured relatively freely. Eight different Intel processors from the Alder Lake generation, with up to 32 GB of working memory, various operating systems, and other hardware options are available.

The ThinkPad's power control is done via Windows' energy options. The familiar slider activates the Eco mode, the automatic power mode, and the power mode known from Lenovo laptops. In all three performance modes, the laptop has a boost performance of around 56 watts. Depending on the mode, the processor performance then drops more or less slowly to around 19 watts. The performance control does not allow more than 70 °C for the processor temperature in the long run.

The benchmarks with PCMark, 3DMark, and the various processor benchmarks were run in performance mode. The runtimes in battery mode were tested in Eco mode. We tested noise emissions and energy consumption according to the different loads in all three Power Smart settings.

As a mid-range CPU from Intel's current Alder-Lake generation, the Core i5-1235U is relatively powerful. A total of ten cores are available here. Two of them are P-cores, which means that 12 threads can work together. Since the processor has a high performance available in the short term, it can show a strong performance in the ThinkPad X13. As it has become typical for Intel processors, the single-core performance is primarily convincing. The new Intel processor in the X13 G3 is significantly stronger in Boost than the one in the X13 G2 but is on the same level in the long run.

Performance management in the small office laptop has its pitfalls. Thus, the performance drops heavily primarily during longer loads, as our Cinebench R15 loop shows.

Even though the working memory and mass storage work quickly in the office laptop, the ThinkPad X13 predominantly lacks processor power to keep up in the system performance comparison. The long-term load, as it occurs in the PCMark and Crossmark, is not handled so well by the slim laptop. Thus, it is noticeable here that the ThinkPad X13 G3 only delivers mediocre results in most areas, but especially achieves a strong score on the Crossmark Responsiveness Test. The memory and the CPU's boost behavior are particularly stressed here.