Lenovo's New Ultraportable ThinkPad Is The Ideal Laptop If You're Anything Like Me

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As a writer who is...sometimes literally...always on the go, I look for a different set of features than most laptop shoppers. Lately, I have been prioritizing size (small) and weight (light). So, it should come as no surprise that my last two laptops that I've tested have both been of the 13-inch variety. The one we're looking at today is the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6, which the company positions as a sort of more affordable X13 Carbon laptop.

The ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 is less expensive than its Carbon cousin, and that price bears out in some of the decisions Lenovo made. The laptop isn't "cheap" per se, but you can definitely tell where some corners were cut. All the same, it definitely checks the two boxes I've been looking for lately, which is why not only have I been using it at home, but I also took the sample Lenovo sent me on the road a couple of times in these past two weeks. This is my full review.

Starting off with the build quality, the deck of the laptop is the most obvious cut in the hardware. Officially, the laptop is made of "CFRP" which is short for "carbon fiber reinforced polymer" which sounds fancy as heck. But where the rubber hits the road, the laptop feels like plastic. I don't have a problem with plastic-feeling laptops, mind, but it's definitely not as premium as an aluminum or magnesium chassis.

Most notably, the trackpad comes off feeling squishy and less tight than I've grown used to of late. With many laptops relying on haptics to register clicks, a mechanical click can't help but feel lesser in some way.

That's not to say the laptop isn't sturdy. Indeed, the ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 follows Lenovo's reputation for toughness with a MIL-STD 810H durability rating. That gives you a fair bit of confidence, even if you have to take this laptop somewhere other than the boardroom.

As for the internals, as reviewed this laptop has an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U processor, along with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It's all powered by a 54.7 Wh battery, and it's all accessible by unscrewing four Philip's Head screws on the bottom, making it easy to even swap out the battery if you ever need to.

The laptop also comes with a fair bit of I/O given its diminutive size. On the right side, some models have a smart card reader and there's also a USB-A port. On the left you get a full HDMI port, two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a headphone jack. Dual speaker grilles adorn the keyboard deck on either side and there's a power button/fingerprint reader in the upper right corner of the keyboard. The touchpad is a little on the small side, made even smaller by ThinkPad's traditional mouse buttons/TrackPoint in the center of the keyboard. People really love that nubbin.

The keyboard itself is very typical of Lenovo — it's great. The keys have a good amount of travel and pitch between them. They are ever so slightly cupped on top. The touchpad is arguably the cheapest-feeling part of the laptop.

The webcam is a 5MP shooter that's fine for Zooms and online meetings. It has Lenovo's traditional physical shutter which is always nice to have. The camera lives in the Communications bar at the top of the laptop, which also makes for a convenient handle to grab to open it. Speaking of which is easily passes the one-finger opening test, which is always a nice bonus, especially for a smaller laptop.

This laptop is not a multimedia machine. As one might guess from the 13.3-inch display, this isn't going to be an entertainment-forward experience. It has a 1,920 x 1200 resolution with a 16:10 aspect ratio that is becoming more and more common. The display maxes out at 400 nits. Color reproduction is good, but you don't get really deep blacks on this IPS panel.

Similarly, Lenovo will tell you that the laptop is Dolby Atmos and Dolby Voice certified. In reality the speakers are...fine. They're not the worst laptop speakers I've ever heard, but they don't get a full range of sound, nor do they get particularly loud. You can watch movies and video on this laptop, but it won't be an amazing experience.

It's surprising that this laptop has a touchscreen, though non-touch options are also available. I would probably go with one of those because I personally have moved on from caring whether a laptop screen has touch or not — my sausage fingers aren't great for accuracy anyway, but some people like that, and this one has it. It's not a 360-degree hinge though, so even the touchscreen feels a tad out of place here.

The Lenovo Thinkpad X13 Gen 6 had an Intel Core — i7 255U processor and 16 GB of RAM. It's not a powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination. I'm able to do most of my normal job tasks on it – writing, research, working in a CMS, etc. in fact, it's quite comfortable to do so.

I did edit one video on it during my review period. It was shot in 1080p with so overlays but no complex transitions. It exported just fine though. On Geekbench the laptop returns 1,133/5,596 single/multi-core scores which are not amazing. But again, the laptop can accomplish most tasks a traveling writer needs.

As for battery life, I was able to get through single 8-hour shifts on a charge, usually before the laptop dropped into power saver mode (at 20%) or just after. My typical work setup involves a dozen or more Edge tabs, Slack, Telegram, and sometimes another app or two depending on what I'm working on at the moment.

If you find yourself working on a commute or at a coffee shop, you'll get a day's worth of work before you need to charge up.

The ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 can be found in Lenovo's own-brand store or at other outlets like Amazon (in Lenovo's Amazon store in similar configurations). As reviewed the laptop checks in at around $1,919 and change. That's a lot for a laptop like this. For me, the size and portability are great. For others it might be a tougher sell.

A 13.3-inch screen is small, a 55 Wh battery is small, the trackpad is small, everything about this laptop is small, except presumably, the price. Don't get me wrong, nearly-$2,000 isn't an out-of-the-question price to pay for a laptop, but it just feels like a laptop with this size, these build materials, and these specifications shouldn't command a price quite this high — not for your average user's needs.

If the extreme portability here has you — and your long-suffering back — intrigued, the good news is that there's a much cheaper configuration of the machine I tested. You sacrifice some power, yes, but not the core aspect of what makes this ThinkPad so appealing. Have a look at the approximately $1,200 version of this machine in Lenovo's online store and see what you make of it.