Wow! Lenovo deletes negative feedbacks from their new flagship 6th Gen X1 Laptop.

[TheBlackAdder]

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I was in the market for a new laptop, and was placed on early notice when the X1 went General Availability(GA).


I was very interested in this laptop, as I buy for long-term use, though this model jumped in price and were not being discounted. After a few days, only one positive feedback and one mediocre feedback were submitted. There were four negative feedbacks that hammered the product for throttling, to the point where the one user, using a performance tool, noticed the CPU drop after just 10 minutes, and further reduce to just 1Ghz with a light load. They went into a detailed description of their experience. I stopped by today to see if more users responded and was surprised to see a sanitizing effort underway to scrub its feedback.


Now, most thin laptops are throttled by the manufacturer, so while Apple might tout the CPU speed of the Intel chip, it is actually reduced some to reduce heat and power consumption. It's kind of misleading to sell a computer or laptop touting one level of performance, when the machine is capped at a lower level or immediately throttles after it is warmed up. When temperatures rise, they undergo further throttling to keep the system cool. While manufactures like to tout powerful processors, most will not achieve their benchmarks under load, unless they are water-cooled. Graphics cards are especially prone to throttling, when their temperatures reach 85 degrees centigrade. As an example, water-cooled GTX 1080s are virtually required to prevent throttling when using graphic intensive applications or gaming.


I was visiting the site over the past week, and noticed yesterday's 1.8 Star rating rise to 2.7-Stars. One person wrote:

1 out of 5 stars.
Johnson666 · 7 hours ago
Lenovo deleted negative feedbacks.

Lenovo deleted all the negative feedbacks today. Be aware of serious throttling problems. The system freezes when doing slight works, and makes the performance of this laptop even worse than the 5th generation.

What is the Primary Use of this Product? Work

✘ No, I do not recommend this product.

https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-6th-Gen/p/22TP2TXX16G


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Here is a recent review, from a highly detail-oriented website, that goes the extra mile in evaluating laptops. They just did a preliminary test on their newly arrived X1 and state that the temperature limits have been removed, leading to one hot laptop. This begs the question as to whether the thermal changes were a result of the negative feedback received online. However, the solution has issues too.

With last year's X1 Carbon, Lenovo raised the permanent thermal design power (TDP) to 25 W, while setting a rather conservative 75°C temperature limit. This year, Lenovo have further increased the X1 Carbon's TDP and temperature limits, allowing the processor to boost up to 29 W for 28 seconds. This corresponds with a clock speed of between 3.1 and 3.2 GHz across all four cores. After this time, or once the laptop has reached 90°C, the processor drops to 23 W, and throttles down to 2.8 GHz across all cores. In the benchmarks, the X1 Carbon 2018 positions itself well among its competitors. It is worth bearing in mind that the Core i5-8250U is only marginally slower, especially in tests with multiple passes. While the Core i7-7500U keeps pace to some extent, it has less chance of doing so in multi-tests given that it only has half the number of cores and threads than the i7-8550U.
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Using our Cinebench multi-loop we test the extent to which a laptop can maintain its initial performance. Thin devices such as the X1 Carbon often have problems here, typically thermal throttling by the second pass of the test. The good news is that Lenovo have removed the conservative 75°C temperature limit of last year's X1 Carbon. In our tests we observed that CPU temperatures can reach beyond 90°C. This corresponds to the increase in TDP too.

The processor can stably maintain a clock speed of 2.8 GHz across all cores at 23 W, but at a cost of CPU temperatures reaching up to 99 °C. The following graphic shows the results of almost an hour's stress test. On average, the processor runs at just under 2.9 GHz and draws around 23 W, while consistently maintaining temperatures above 91°C. These high CPU temperatures affect surface temperatures, as demonstrated by our thermal imaging camera. When stress testing we measured the area around the F8 key at 54°C, 50.3°C above the fan grille, and 50.8°C on the bottom case. Given these high temperatures we would recommend avoiding using the X1 Carbon on your lap if you are constantly stressing the system, and to ensure that it has good airflow too.
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We are in two minds though about the changes in temperature limits. While removing the CPU temperature limits from last year's model benefits performance and the system remains stable, surface temperatures reach more than 50°C under load. Perhaps then, Lenovo would have better off not completely removing these temperature limits. We will monitor this closely with further testing, as we cannot definitively conclude after just over half a day's testing.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018-WQHD-HDR-i7-Laptop-review.284682.0.html


Perhaps, in the effort to improve performance, they removed the temperature limits. Since this was a solution, they might have deleted those complaints. However, 99 degrees centigrade approaches upper recommended processor limits and might introduce other long-term operational and life-expectancy issues. I still question sites that pulls negative feedback, especially without an explanation.

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[kimbutgar]

1. They used to make good laptops

I still have ones from the early 2000’s going strong with XP. I brought a new one for my son the hard drive crashed. Spent $200 to get a new hard drive and windows seven. He accident,y dropped it. Got him another one last April hard drive crashed again. Went to Best Buy they said this was common now, paid $160 to get it back up on an external hard drive and then activated the 1 year warranty. Sent it gave to Lenovo in Kentucky. They repaired it and said they replaced the hard drive. I will not buy a dell nor Hp laptop so my choices are limited.

[earthshine]

2. I really don't like these ultra thin laptops.

Too many problems for too little gain (in the reduction of size and weight).

They're made like smart phones -- not meant for the user to open up and service.

The laptops made just a few years ago were not that much thicker and heavier, but one could replace the drive, memory, fan, and other components inside.

I pretty much haul my desktop and monitors when going anywhere for more than a few days.