Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano unboxing and first impressions

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano viewed from the top, lid closed

Announced last September, the ThinkPad X1 Nano is Lenovo's lightest ThinkPad yet, and based on what we've seen, it might be the most powerful PC so far in its weight class. This thing weighs in at 1.99 pounds, so clearly, the company was shooting for a milestone of under two pounds. The biggest thing that had me confused when I heard about this, however, was what makes this different from the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. After all, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is known for being the light one in the lineup.

As it turns out, there are plenty of reasons for both to exist. For one thing, this is smaller. While Lenovo did end up putting 16:10 displays in most of its ThinkPad X1 lineup, this was the first, and it's just 13 inches. Traditionally, the rest of the lineup has 14-inch screens. There's also no USB Type-A, and keep in mind that Think is a business brand. Companies need the legacy technology, so taking that away in a popular item like the X1 Carbon would be a big deal. In other words, the X1 Nano is something new.

Also, and this is the part that I personally find particularly interesting, but it includes a Core i7-1160G7. It's a processor that would have been called Y-series in the past (now called UP4), but in the past, Y-series was something to stay away from. It's gotten a lot better, and it has Iris Xe graphics now. Intel first jacked up the TDP with Ice Lake Y, although to my knowledge, Ice Lake Y never shipped aside from in Apple's MacBook Air. From what I've seen so far, the Core i7-1160G7 is actually quite good. Of course, you'll find the more powerful Core i7-1165G7 in the X1 Carbon.

The two ports that it has are Thunderbolt 4, so that means that you can expand on it if you need to. For example, you can plug in an external GPU on one port, or plug in dual 4K monitors on another. With these single-cable solutions, you can use the ThinkPad X1 Nano as a desktop PC, and then just remove the cable and take this super-light laptop on the go.

Check out the unboxing video below: