If you can live without 5G, the Dell XPS 13 is a more elegant option, but Lenovo’s own ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 is more complete. Smaller laptops aren’t typically thought of as being powerful because their compact frames are thought to be too small to hold anything spectacular. With the ThinkPad X13s, a feature-rich 13.3-inch ultraportable laptop powered by a Snapdragon Gen 3 Processor, Lenovo hopes to dispel the myth that “larger is better.” also you read our article on Lenovo ThinkPad X13s review. It’s amazing how much power is packed into this tiny frame and how much of it will really be utilized. The 13.3-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X13s is an excellent travel laptop and is more of a workmate for word processing and other routine duties than a device for running heavy programmes or presentations. But given that Snapdragon’s power and 5G integration are now accessible, it seems like a ridiculous waste not to exploit them.
Design
The ThinkPad X13s is easily recognizable as a part of the line when viewed from a distance. All of the components are black (Thunder Black, in fact), with the red TrackPoint nubbin standing out in the center of the keyboard and the red dot on the I in the ThinkPad logo on the lid (albeit without an LED). However, up close, its corners are more rounded than the conventional ThinkPad’s, and the webcam and IR camera are prominently housed in a reverse notch at the top of the display. The ThinkPad X13s stands out on its own thanks to these little adjustments. It definitely stands out more than the dull-looking Dell Latitude 7330. The lid of the ThinkPad X13s is made of a magnesium-aluminum alloy, and the chassis is made of glass fiber reinforced plastic. The bottom of the chassis and the lid were both very strong, however the keyboard deck had a small bend. It wasn’t egregious, but it was enough to keep the ThinkPad’s overall rigidity behind laptops like the MacBook Air M1, Dell XPS 13 Plus, and HP Spectre x360 13.5. Although the lid must be opened with two hands due to the stiffness of the hinge, the display is securely fastened. The ThinkPad X13s weighs 2.35 pounds, making it one of the lighter laptops we’ve tested thanks to its lightweight construction. It is 0.53 inches thin as well. The HP Elite Dragonfly G3 is thinner at 0.64 inches but weighs less at 2.2 pounds. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano is 0.55 to 0.66 inches thinner yet weighs 1.99 pounds less. The ThinkPad X13s is thus among the lightest laptops available, and its chassis is generally thin and small.
Keyboard and touch pad
When the lid is opened, the recognizable ThinkPad keyboard with its big, sculpted keys and generous key spacing is visible. The switches are lighter than those on previous ThinkPads we’ve tried, have quick travel times, and provide pleasant and speedy typing. Although we occasionally dislike ThinkPad keyboards because we think them to be overly stiff, this one can compete with those on HP’s Spectre and Dell’s XPS. The design departs from the standard Windows 11 keyboard layout and is based on the ThinkPad design, which also substitutes the Fn and Ctrl keys on the left. There are a number of specific function keys, two of which may be used for video conferencing, and one of which can be used to launch Lenovo’s Commercial Vantage tool. Despite being wider than on other ThinkPads, the buttons that operate the TrackPoint nubbin still take up some room on the touchpad. Button clicks are secure and silent, and the touchpad’s glass surface is smooth and comfortable. It offers dependable support for Windows 11 multitouch gestures. For those who choose this control, the TrackPoint nubbin continues to function flawlessly. Our review unit’s screen was not touch-enabled, but a touchscreen alternative is available.
Lenovo ThinkPad X13s review: Display
The three display options for the X13s are all 13.3-inch Full HD (1920 x 1200) IPS panels with the perfect 16:10 aspect ratio: a multi-touch panel that supports 72 percent of the NTSC color gamut and emits 300 nits of brightness, a low power panel that supports 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut, is EyeSafe certified, and emits 400 nits of brightness. The latter was included with the review unit, and while it wasn’t particularly bright, it functioned well indoors in all lighting situations. The display does not lay flat, as we would want, but it does lean back to a position that will serve the majority of needs—about 135 degrees. This laptop feels so little because of its 13.3-inch screen’s 16:10 aspect ratio, in case that wasn’t clear: This category’s 16:10 displays typically measure 13.5 inches. This machine would have had a 12- or 12.5-inch display back in the day. For the ThinkPad X13s, three 13.3-inch IPS screens with a 16:10 WUXGA (1920 x 1200) format are offered, according to Lenovo. There are three displays: a 400-nit low-power nonreflective display, a 300-nit non-touch display, and a 300-nit non-reflective touch display. The latter display was used by our review unit and performed admirably in our tests. The screen was sufficiently bright for our typical working settings, the colors were vibrant and realistic, and the blacks did not appear greyish.
Audio
The ThinkPad X13s has a respectable stereo speaker system that is supported with Dolby Atmos audio upgrades. Both music and movies have superb stereo separation, with minimal distortion even at maximum volume (try out the new Mammoth WVH hit, “As Long As You’re Not You”). Oddly, we are not receiving the immersive sound that we have come to anticipate from movies, but the experience is still excellent. With a 5 MP webcam and a set of three far-field microphones, the hybrid workspace appears to be well-equipped. This is particularly true if you configure the optional AI camera at the time of purchase, which enhances the webcam with low-light color and brightness calibration, auto-framing, and user presence capabilities. The latter is really useful, but first it must be enabled in Windows Settings. In addition to Windows Hello facial recognition features, that webcam can be equipped with an optional IR camera, which we strongly advise buying for an even more seamless sign-in process.
Lenovo ThinkPad X13s review: Graphics
Our primary synthetic gaming benchmark, the 3DMark Time Spy test, did not run on the ThinkPad X13s. Our favorite integrated graphics game, Fortnite, was not tested because we saw no reason to. It’s unlikely that the Snapdragon GPU can play anything other than the earliest games at low resolutions and graphics (should they be installed and actually run). And it’s a good thing too, since the ThinkPad X13s isn’t really designed to be a gaming laptop.
Performance
With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD, we tested the ThinkPad X13s. Our testing on the X13s is different from prior Windows on Arm laptops because Windows 11 supports 64-bit software emulation. We were able to execute Handbrake and our Cinebench R23 stress test, which was previously impossible. Emulation-based performance might therefore have both advantages and disadvantages. The apps do function, on the one hand. On the other hand, you are testing the emulator rather than the hardware. Even so, it provides you a general notion of the performance you should expect, which, if you’re simulating software, usually implies sacrificing some performance. in this article we will discuss about Lenovo ThinkPad X13s review. The ThinkPad X13s scored 1,125 on the single-core test and 5,891 on the multi-core test on Geekbench 5, our standard laptop performance test. This is a significant improvement over the HP Elite Folio, which had a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 chip and scored 792 on the single-core test and 3,115 on the multi-core test. The MacBook Air (Apple M2) and Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 (Intel Core i7-1255U) were still much quicker. With a copy speed of 550.95 MBps, Lenovo’s laptop lagged behind the Folio (666.5 MBps) and the MacBook Air in terms of copying 25GB of data (958.85 MBps). The slowest in the group was the Dell Inspiron, with a speed of 404.86 MBps. Previously, Windows on Arm computers couldn’t run Handbrake. There is now a native Arm version available (you could imitate an x86 version, but you shouldn’t!) The X13s needed 18 minutes and 21 seconds to convert a 4K video to a 1080p file. That still lags well behind the Core i7-powered Inspiron laptop (9:49) and the MacBook Air (7:52). We could also conduct our Cinebench R23 stress test, in which we run the rendering 20 times, now that Windows 11 can run 64-bit apps using emulation. We are stress testing the emulation exactly as much as the 8cx Gen 3 itself, of course, as Cinebench R23 is not an Arm-native software. It ran for more than two hours.
Lenovo ThinkPad X13s review: Battery life and heat
You ought to be able to get through an entire workday on the X13s, whether you’re at the office or on the road. On our battery test, it kept up with streaming video, surfing the web, and running OpenGL tests while connected to Wi-Fi and the screen was set to 150 nits for 15 hours and 2 minutes. That decreased to 13:39 when cellular was also activated. That’s not quite the 28 hours Lenovo claims “up to” on its website, but in the real world, it’s still fairly outstanding. The X13s easily outperformed the MacBook Air and the x86-based Dell Inspiron (7:52). However, the HP Elite Folio with a Qualcomm last-generation chipset took first place. The ThinkPad X13s has the advantage of running fanless and being completely silent thanks to the Arm design. The ThinkPad X13s maintained a comfortable temperature during our testing, which is what it was made for—light workloads. However, we also performed our usual Cinebench stress test and measured our skin temperatures, which demonstrated just how hot this fanless machine might go under extreme load. The keyboard’s middle, in between the G and H keys, registered 38.8 degrees Celsius during the stress test (101.84 F). At 30.1 C (86.18 F), the touchpad was substantially colder. The laptop’s bottom heated up to a temperature of 46.7 C. (116.06 F).
Configuration options
Once more, we observe a significant pricing difference between what US buyers of the entry-level ThinkPad X13s pay and what European and Australian buyers may pay. The sole SKUs in the UK and Australia contain 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD space, in contrast to the US first-rung SKU’s 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. That doesn’t make up for the price difference, but in the USA you have to buy a model that costs at least $1,301.40 in order to receive 16GB of RAM, bringing the price closer to other regions. You can also check our article on Lenovo ThinkPad X13s review. The most expensive US SKU costs $1,571.40 and has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G Sub 6 WWAN module together with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Customers in the UK and Australia don’t now have the choice of WWAN, but we anticipate Lenovo will add an SKU with this feature. Customers should be aware that the RAM in these devices is soldered in place, making it impossible to purchase an 8GB or 16GB model and then upgrade it to 32GB.
Conclusion
Although the software on the ThinkPad X13s Gen 1 still needs some work, this is the finest Windows on ARM has ever been. This may be damning this Lenovo with faint praise, but ten years later, it finally brings us closer than ever to Real Windows Laptop performance in a compact, energy-efficient, contemporary package. It greatly helps that the product engineering and design are deserving of the ThinkPad name, making it a pleasant gadget to use and carry. For IT professionals, if your C-suite includes a road warrior, this tiny ThinkPad might be just what they’ve been fantasizing of when dozing in business class. The X13s are the only business computer that can provide what they can on their own; but, before giving them to the team, make sure that all of your mission-critical software is compatible with them. This machine is much less useful to people. There are some folks out there who would love a durable, slim device with integrated 5G, but the competition is fairly fierce.
