Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2: A multimedia laptop that succeeds in being worse than its predecessor

[Redaktion]

The second generation of the X1 Extreme introduces new CPUs, a new GPU and a wider choice of displays. However, the X1 Extreme Gen 2 performs worse than its predecessor in some areas, especially in terms of its processor. We would recommend giving the 4K panel a miss too as it decimates battery life.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Extreme-Gen-2-A-multimedia-laptop-that-succeeds-in-being-worse-than-its-predecessor.453861.0.html

[Abdul]

Owned the first gen X1 extreme, was an absolute nightmare with all sorts of hardware issues. Eventually the dgpu became unusable and I got rid of it at a big loss. The thinkpad brand has really gone to sh*t now.

[Jtl]

I would agree that the battery is bad, but I would argue that the bigest problem comes from Nvidia and Intel.
I own the i9 variant with 4k oled.
Stand alone, the nvidia card, without installed drivers, in idle consumes 20W!! Which means 4h total with 80wh battery. With cpu undervolted and restricted power consumption, the laptop consumes 10w. With light load around 15-16W. That makes it 5h on battery. By my calculations the oled consumes around 2-3W, I also assume less than 1W for the memory, so the biggest change of the power consumption when you don't need the egpu is the cpu.
For me it was impossible to go below 10W in idle and 8W with display turned off (with lock screen).

[Scot]

It seems most of the Lenovos released in the last 2 years are worse. They've been having problems with the Intel Thunderbolt 3 onboard chip for at least a year. They push a firmware update that makes it so the laptop no longer recognizes the TB3 dock. The fix? Replace the motherboard.

[AA]

So I need a laptop right now. I've kinda narrowed it down to the XPS 15 or the X1E Gen2.

The X1E Gen 2 would cost me about $300 less. Do you think it's worth even trying out the Lenovo or should I stick to the trusted Dell flagship?

[Kiki]

For those who are thinking to purchase a $2,000+ Lenovo Extreme X1 Gen 2, make sure you go to the Lenovo community forum and check out the current problems we are suffering before you make a decision to purchase.

Here's one very annoying problem among a few other issues - the keyboard misses keystrokes (i.e. registering what you type)!  See what users found and are going through. Search for the phrase "X1 Extreme Gen 2 missing keystrokes".

I must say, I will be stuck with this for the next little while but my next laptop will not be a Lenovo  :(

[Ilia Gilderman]

Using think pad for 25 years this is the worst I ever had. So many problems, battery life of two hours in the best case.

[Lenovo tech]

I work for lenovo repair and i mist admit this is prothe worst company ever. Cheap parts and they don't really care about quality, just call them and yell at them or annoy the hell out of customer service. You will get a replacement laptop, or a new model if you type a long letter with your issues

[Christian Guerra]

I know I am going against most of the comments on here but I must say I really love my 4K UHD model, I purchased it with the lowest specs at 1,300 because I got a 200 dollar rebate using Rakuten when the rebate percentage was high during the holiday season. I upgraded the ram to 64GB and a SSD to 1TB. Its must easier to do the installation yourself and thousands of dollars cheaper.

So far this laptop has been really really good!!! I used to have a MacBook pro and the two don't compare at all, but overall it's a great laptop and happy with my purchase. I am expecting to keep it as long as possible.

[Dan Ridenhour]

Making next generations worse than the last one is unfortunately becoming routine for Lenovo's Thinkpad line...  I currently have 4 thinkpads (t560, p52s, yoga260, x1 tablet...  and would likely have a p53s by now if they hadn't munged it up so badly...  buying Thinkpads used to be an easy decision,  now there isn't a single model in the lineup I'm excited about and the only unique thing they have left is the keyboard+trackpoint...  and it looks like their new thinkbook line is testing the waters of getting rid of that.

[Andrew]

Be aware of Lenovo X1 Extreme gen 2 with 4k OLED touch option. Lenovo has put a touchlayer on top of the OLED that screw up picture quality big time making a 4k UHD screen look like grainy interlaced 1080p at best.

More info can be found on the Lenovo forum. Search for "Small dots on OLED screen"

[boday]

I would agree that the battery is bad, but I would argue that the bigest problem comes from Nvidia and Intel.
I own the i9 variant with 4k oled.
Stand alone, the nvidia card, without installed drivers, in idle consumes 20W!! Which means 4h total with 80wh battery. With cpu undervolted and restricted power consumption, the laptop consumes 10w. With light load around 15-16W. That makes it 5h on battery. By my calculations the oled consumes around 2-3W, I also assume less than 1W for the memory, so the biggest change of the power consumption when you don't need the egpu is the cpu.
For me it was impossible to go below 10W in idle and 8W with display turned off (with lock screen).

I think your problem is totally as expected.

Power management of the dGPU will not work if you don't have the driver installed, which will cause a "default" high power consumption than idle. Also, obviously Optimus won't work either in this case, so the dGPU will never be turned off when not being used. You really need to install the driver.

[Jtl]

I think your problem is totally as expected.

Power management of the dGPU will not work if you don't have the driver installed, which will cause a "default" high power consumption than idle. Also, obviously Optimus won't work either in this case, so the dGPU will never be turned off when not being used. You really need to install the driver.

Yes, sure - it is installed, but by default it uses Nouveau driver with does not support offloading.
Anyway, as I said when everything is installed and nvidia offloaded, then you cannot do much - even with turned off display (because many say - well, but the OLED screen consumes a lot and that is the reason for the power consumption). I would say the issue is with the intel cpu and chipset.