- Typical excellent ThinkPad build quality
- Very good productivity performance
- Great keyboard and touchpad
- Strong security features
- Short battery life
- Hinge is too tight
- Glance feature keeps webcam light turned on
The Lenovo ThinkPad X390 gets some things right. It’s thin and light—especially for a business laptop—and plenty powerful, while maintaining the hefty keyboard for which ThinkPads are known.
Before long, though, the ThinkPad X390’s trade-offs become clear. The matte display’s washed-out tones are tiresome on the eyes, and the keyboard and touchpad—both signature features on most ThinkPads—feel too stiff. While the ThinkPad X390 performs well in benchmarks, fiddling with the power settings causes the speed to suffer. Given the price, we expected fewer drawbacks.
The ThinkPad X390’s price can vary greatly by configuration. It’s possible to spend as little as $899 on this laptop, for which you’ll get a good dollop of RAM (8GB) and a competent Intel Core i5-8265U processor; however, the low-resolution 1366x768 display and meager 128GB SSD are compromises.
Our review unit was closer to the opposite end of the spectrum, with an Intel Core i7-8565U processor and 16GB of DDR4 RAM; a 13.3-inch, 1920x1080p touchscreen, and a roomy 512GB SSD. It also includes a fingerprint reader and an IR camera for Windows Hello. All that brings the price up to $1,689.
Regardless of the model, you get plenty of ports, including two USB-A, two USB-C (one Thunderbolt 3), an ethernet extension, HDMI 1.4, and a Kensington lock slot. There’s even a removable tray around back for both MicroSD card and nano-SIM cards.
Lenovo ThinkPad x390 black right screen open Lenovo presskit
The Lenovo ThinkPad X390 gives you plenty of ports.
Design and display
Unlike its ThinkPad L390 Yoga cousin, the ThinkPad X390 doesn’t have a 360-degree hinge. Instead, it folds 180 degrees, so the screen can lay flat on a table.
Mentioned in this article
In exchange for less flexibility, the X390 is a much slicker machine, with bezels measuring just 0.38 inches. It weighs in at a respectable 2.9 pounds, a little heavier than Dell’s XPS 13 (2.7 pounds), about the same as HP’s Spectre x360, and much lighter than the aforementioned L390 Yoga (3.36 pounds). That’s all without sacrificing durability, as Lenovo puts the X390 through a battery of military-grade shock, sand, humidity, altitude, and temperature tests.
Whether you like the display will come down to personal preference. The X390 uses an IPS panel, which is supposed to provide great viewing angles. Tilting this unit’s display changes brightness dramatically, however. No matter which angle you choose, colors look washed-out and overly cool, and the display starts to feel a bit harsh on the eyes in moderate lighting. Such is the inherent downsides of a matte display, compared to the glossy screens becoming more common on modern laptops.
Lenovo ThinkPad x390 black front-facing right Lenovo
The Lenovo ThinkPad X390’s matte display is definitely not for everyone.
As for the upsides, matte displays are better at cutting down glare. You can also dial down the X390’s brightness to reduce eyestrain in environments such as a fluorescent-lit office. Lenovo notes that matte displays are lighter because they don’t have a sheet of glass running across them.
To me, the benefits of glossy displays—vibrant colors, smoother touch input—outweigh the drawbacks. Either way, it’s something to be aware of before spending upwards of $1,000 on this laptop, especially because Lenovo is planning to release a glossy-display version of the X390 later this year.
Keyboard and touchpad
Typing is supposed to be the best part of owning a ThinkPad. Even as other laptop makers slim down to unbearable levels of travel, Lenovo has been steadfast in supplying its business notebooks with luxuriously thick keyboards. Typing on the ThinkPad L390 Yoga spoiled me for most other laptop keyboards.
The ThinkPad X390's keyboard, however, is a surprising letdown. While it still offers lots of travel, it’s also about a quarter-inch narrower than the L390 between the A and apostrophe keys. Something about that shrunken layout makes it feel stiffer. While my typing speed remained steady—I averaged 101 words per minute, versus 105 on my desktop keyboard—typing felt less comfortable. The keyboard also seemed to produce more mistakes in non-ideal environments (such as on my lap instead of on a table).
Lenovo ThinkPad x390 black birdseye Lenovo
The X390 keyboard looks like that of every other ThinkPad, but it feels stiffer.
Perhaps in pursuit of thinness, Lenovo also compromised on the X390’s touchpad. About halfway up, the click mechanism starts putting up a lot of resistance. Clicking down becomes almost impossible with about a quarter of the pad to spare. As with other ThinkPads, the X390 still provides dedicated left- and right-click buttons below the keyboard, and you can always just tap on the touchpad to select things, but this is not an ideal touchpad for folks who prefer to click down.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X390’s webcam is your typical 720p model, but it does have a physical privacy shutter. Slide it into place, and a subtle red dot covers the lens to confirm that no snooping will occur. Lenovo plans to offer a “PrivacyGuard” display this summer to thwart inquisitive glances, but this wasn’t available on our review unit.
For authentication, the ThinkPad X390 offers both a fingerprint reader and an IR sensor for Windows Hello face recognition. It’s great having both options on one laptop, but keep in mind face recognition won’t work when the privacy shutter is over the webcam.
Sound quality is seldom a priority on business laptops—case in point for the ThinkPad X390, whose speakers are lacking in bass and not particularly loud. Lenovo says it uses a new audio signal processor for noise cancellation on its microphones, though, and here the results were excellent. A voice recording sounded crisp even with heavy-rain sounds playing on a nearby speaker. I tried this with a couple of other laptops (including the ThinkPad L390 Yoga), and the recordings were more muddled.
Performance
It’s no surprise that the fully loaded ThinkPad X390 we received made short work of its benchmarks. The laptop doesn’t get too hot on its underside either, thanks to a vent that blows air out the right side. The system fan mostly stays quiet under basic productivity workloads.
One caveat, though: On Lenovo’s default unplugged power setting (“Better Battery”), performance throttling becomes quite noticeable for certain tasks. While using the Windows app Tweeten, for instance, scrolling seemed choppy, and web links took a while to load. Setting up the X390 side-by-side with Lenovo’s ThinkPad L390 Yoga (with a lesser i5-8265U CPU and half the RAM), the latter routinely loaded webpages faster under the “Better Battery” setting. The X390 reestablished a clear lead only with both laptops on their “Best Performance” setting. Unless you’re plugged into AC or willing to burn more battery life, you may miss some of the extra power you’re paying for.
Now, onto the benchmarks.
PCMark 8’s Work 2.0 benchmark cycles through simulated productivity tasks such as spreadsheet editing and video chat. It’s obviously an important use case for business laptops, and any score over 2,000 is good. The ThinkPad X390’s score of 3,784 topped that of every other thin-and-light laptop we’ve tested. Only HP’s Spectre x360 and Samsung’s Notebook 9 Pro came close.
Lenovo ThinkPad x390 PCMark work 8 Conv Melissa Riofrio/IDG
According to PCMark, the ThinkPad X390 is good at business.
HandBrake was another highlight for the ThinkPad X390, which took about 65 minutes to encode our test.MKV video file to a smaller one.MP4 file. Dell’s XPS 13 fared better, but overall it shows that the laptop makes good use of its quad-core CPU over a prolonged period of heavy use.
Lenovo ThinkPad x390 handbrake Melissa Riofrio/IDG
For a 13-inch Core-i7 laptop, the ThinkPad X390 holds up well over a long period of intensive work.
As for Cinebench, which tests the CPU in short bursts, the X390 fell in the middle of the pack among Core i7-8565U laptops for multi-threaded performance. That said, it did well in the single-threaded test, which better reflects the applications most people use.
While the multi-threaded results are nothing special, the ThinkPad X390 does well in Cinebench’s single-threaded benchmark.
The X390 turned in solid scores on 3DMark Sky Diver 1.0, at least for a laptop with integrated graphics. In practice, this doesn’t mean much, as you’ll still want a dedicated GPU to play modern 3D games, but 2D indie-ish games should be doable.
Lenovo ThinkPad x390 3dmark skydiver Melissa Riofrio/IDG
You’re not buying a ThinkPad for games, but the X390 does nicely against similar laptops in 3DMark’s graphics test.
Battery life is the only significant sore spot. Many other factors can affect battery life, including screen brightness and resolution, and intensity of the workload. The ThinkPad X390 has one obvious challenge: It's capacity of 49,410 mAh is smaller than that of competitors like the HP Spectre x360 (61,000 mAh) and Samsung Notebook 9 Pro (54,050 mAh). Batteries add weight and cost, so they represent one of many trade-offs in thinner, lighter laptops.
Lenovo ThinkPad x390 battery life Melissa Riofrio/IDG
When a small laptop packs in a hefty keyboard, plenty of ports, and a powerful CPU, something’s got to give. In this case, it’s battery life.
Who should buy the Lenovo ThinkPad X390?
The Lenovo ThinkPad X390 is a frustrating laptop to review because it could—and perhaps should—be so much more than it is. It’s an attractive package with impressive performance and lots of helpful business features. For the price, however, we expected better experiences with the display, keyboard, and touchpad.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.
Lenovo ThinkPad X390 Review
“The ThinkPad X390 is the classic ThinkPad design, but it won’t win any new fans.”
Typical excellent ThinkPad build quality
Very good productivity performance
Great keyboard and touchpad
Strong security features
Short battery life
Hinge is too tight
Glance feature keeps webcam light turned on
The ThinkPad series hasn’t always been a trend follower, often bucking modern stylings for tried-and-true conventions. But even the ThinkPad couldn’t resist the wave of change that is thin bezels. Enter the ThinkPad X390, which equips a larger 13.3-inch display and uses smaller bezels to fit into a still-small chassis.
We received a ThinkPad X390 configured with a Core i7-8565U, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe solid-state drive (SSD), and a Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS touch display. Like all ThinkPads, the configuration is priced at a premium, coming in at $1,649 ($1,237 on sale right now). The base model starts at $1,000 for a Core i5, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, and an HD (1,366 x 768) display.
ThinkPad fans should rejoice at the option of a smaller laptop that offers the usual ThinkPad advantages without compromising on screen size. Did Lenovo deliver?
Looks and feels just like every other ThinkPad, only smaller
The ThinkPad has a very specific look, and the X390 doesn’t do anything to change that. It has the same all-black aesthetic with the usual angled ThinkPad logo with red LED dot on one corner of the lid, another (unlit) logo on the keyboard deck, and the same red trim on the touchpad/TrackPoint buttons. ThinkPads remain one of the most recognizable laptop lines around, and the X390 doesn’t buck that trend.
The build quality is also excellent, as expected. You can bend the lid if you try hard enough, but the keyboard deck and chassis bottom are rock-solid and exude durability. Lenovo subjects its ThinkPads to MIL-STD-810g military certification, and the X390 is sure to have passed with flying colors. The military standard is something the laptop shares with the Asus ZenBook 13 UX333, although Asus asks a less premium price for the luxury.
The ThinkPad X390’s build quality is excellent, as expected.
The bottom portion of the laptop’s chassis combines magnesium and aluminum for a good balance between weight and rigidity, with the typical ThinkPad soft-touch, feel to the keyboard deck, and the lid is constructed of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) plastic. The hinge is very tight, though, and you’ll need both hands to open it.
Although this is Lenovo’s ThinkPad entry in the 13-inch laptop sweepstakes, there’s no attempt here to keep up with the Joneses. The display bezels are thinner on the sides than on the top and bottom than the previous version, but Lenovo didn’t even try to make them as tiny in any dimension as the class-leading Dell XPS 13 and Asus ZenBook S13. That makes the ThinkPad X390 a small but not tiny laptop – it’s 12.28 inches wide by 8.55 inches deep compared to the XPS 13, for example, at 11.9 inches by 7.8 inches.
The X390 isn’t extremely thin either. Although it’s 12 percent thinner than the previous version at 0.67 inches, it’s a bit thicker than the XPS 13 (which is 0.46 inches at its thickest point). The ThinkPad weighs 2.84 pounds (5 percent lighter), making it just slightly heavier than the XPS 13 at 2.7 pounds. Note that the slightly larger 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Carbon is just 0.62 inches thick and weighs only 2.49 pounds – meaning that the X390 isn’t the most portable ThinkPad you can buy.
Here’s what’s interesting, though: hold the ThinkPad X390 side-by-side with the XPS 13 and you’ll certainly notice the difference in size and weight. But when simply using the ThinkPad by itself, it’s more than small enough and offers some advantages in its soft-touch and high-quality materials. Unless size and weight are your most important considerations, you’ll probably like the way the ThinkPad X390 feels in hand.
The keyboard borrows from its larger siblings, and that’s a good thing.
The slightly thicker chassis does allow the ThinkPad X390 to have a robust selection of ports. Along the left-hand side, you’ll find two USB-C ports (one with Thunderbolt 3), an Ethernet connection, a USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 port, a full-size HDMI 1.4 port, and an audio combo jack. Along the right-hand side, you’ll find a USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 port, a Kensington lock connection, and an optional smart card reader. A microSD card reader is on the rear of the chassis. An Intel dual-band chip provides gigabit Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, and an optional LTE radio and SIM support are available.
The usual excellent ThinkPad input options
The ThinkPad X390 borrows its keyboard mechanism from its larger siblings (along with the reversed Fn and Ctrl keys that we always trip over at first), and that’s a good thing. We found the keystrokes to be deep and to provide a satisfying click that produced a precise and consistent feel. The keyboard is one of the primary selling points of the ThinkPad line, especially for those coming from a low-travel keyboard like the MacBook Pro.
That being said, the mechanism required slightly more pressure than we’ve experienced on other ThinkPad keyboards, and a lot more than the lighter touch on the XPS 13 and the HP Spectre x360 13. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing comes down to personal preference, but we do wish the keyboard was a bit less stiff.
Lenovo ThinkPad X390 review mark Coppock/Digital Trends
You’ll find the usual bright red TrackPoint nubbin in the middle of the keyboard, along with two buttons at the top of the touchpad that can be used with either cursor control option. The TrackPoint works as smoothly as always, and if you’re a fan, you won’t be disappointed. The touchpad fills the available space on the keyboard deck, and it supports Microsoft’s Precision touchpad protocol. As such, Windows 10 multitouch gestures are precise and a real productivity boost.
The touch display was responsive and nice to have for swiping through long web pages and tapping the occasional on-screen button. There’s no pen support, as is most common with clamshell laptops. If that’s something you want, then Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 2 is one of the few that provides it.
Windows 10 Hello password-less login support is provided by two convenient methods. There’s an optional infrared camera that provides facial recognition support, and if you prefer, an optional fingerprint reader can be configured. The ThinkPad X390 provides for webcam security with Lenovo’s physical ThinkShutter that slides over to keep users safe from prying eyes.
ThinkPad X390’s display is very good and we have nothing to complain about.
In another nod to privacy and security, Lenovo will be offering an optional PrivacyGuard display in the summer that, like HP’s SureView privacy screen, renders the display unviewable from any angle other than straight on. The privacy panel will be augmented by Lenovo’s PrivacyAlert software that will let you know when someone is looking over your shoulder.
But wait, there’s more! Lenovo also implemented a new feature that will lock the laptop when you step away and unlock it via Windows 10 Hello when you return. Also, the Glance software can snap your cursor from window to window and from display to display just by glancing, if you’re connected to an external monitor (or more).
We’ll note that the Glance feature requires the webcam to be constantly active, meaning the webcam light is always on – and it’s quite bright. Also, neither auto-login and lock nor Glance will work if you’ve engaged the ThinkShutter privacy feature.
An average display drags down this laptop’s average
Lenovo offers a few display options for the ThinkPad X390: HD (1,366 x 768) anti-glare, Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS anti-glare, and Full HD anti-glare with touch. Our review unit equipped the latter.
We applied our colorimeter, and the display tested out as completely average. This is becoming a theme in our reviews: A contrast ratio of around 750:1, a brightness level of around 275 nits, around 71 percent coverage of AdobeRGB and 95 percent coverage of sRGB are where many of our latest reviews have fallen.
And that’s almost where the ThinkPad X390 falls as well. Its contrast was 750:1, its brightness was 274 nits, it covers 71 percent of AdobeRGB and 94 percent of sRGB. Look at our comparison group, and you’ll see that some displays are better and some are worse but for the most part, they fall in the same range. Interestingly, the least expensive ZenBook 13 has one of the best displays here.
The thing is, the ThinkPad X390’s display is quite enjoyable in real-life use. It’s plenty colorful, its gamma is perfect at 2.2 and so the video is neither too bright nor too dark, and the display can overcome ambient light in most environments. And so today’s average display, of which this is one, is very good indeed and nothing to complain about.
Lenovo ThinkPad X390 review
If you’re a creative professional who needs very accurate colors and a wide color gamut, then you’ll want to look elsewhere. But for productivity and media consumption, the ThinkPad’s display is very good.
The audio was also average, but that’s less of a compliment. Volume was sufficient for interacting with Windows 10 and playing the occasional YouTube video, but the bass was non-existent, and mids and highs just barely got by. You’ll want to use headphones for listening to music or enjoying Netflix binges.
Excellent productivity performance
The ThinkPad X390 is built around the increasingly popular Intel 8th-generation Whiskey Lake Core i7-8565U. This quad-core processor invariably provides strong productivity performance and good efficiency.
First, we ran the Geekbench 4 synthetic benchmark, and the ThinkPad X390 performed extremely well. It scored 5,331 in the single-core test and 17,704 in the multi-core test. These are strong scores that beat out the other laptops in our comparison group using the same CPU. For example, the closest competitor was the Huawei MateBook 13 that scored 5,041 and 17,070.
Next, we ran our Handbrake test the encodes a 420MB video to H.265. The ThinkPad completed the test in 274 seconds, which is average. The MateBook 13 completed the test in 243 seconds, demonstrating that Huawei did a slightly better job than Lenovo of translating synthetic benchmark results to the real world.
We also tested the ThinkPad X390’s storage speeds using the CrystalDiskMark 6 benchmark. It scored 627 megabytes per second (MB/s) in the reading test and 560 MB/s in the written test. This was in the upper tier of our comparison group, falling in second place behind the Huawei MateBook X Pro at 674 MB/s (read) and 658 MB/s (write).
Lenovo ThinkPad X390 review mark Coppock/Digital Trends
Note that although the ThinkPad X390 was just average in our video encoding test, it’s nevertheless plenty speedy for even demanding productivity tasks. During our testing, we never noticed it slowing down no matter what we threw at it.
Another advantage of the ThinkPad’s materials is that it does a good job of keeping heat away from your body parts. No matter how hard we pushed the laptop, neither the chassis’ bottom nor the keyboard was uncomfortably hot. The highest temperature we registered during our testing was 104 degrees F on the bottom of the chassis directly over the CPU/GPU, and that was during a 3DMark stress test.
Entry-level gaming is in the cards
The ThinkPad X390 is limited to integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics. As usual, that meant we didn’t expect to enjoy playing anything more than casual games or very old titles.
According to the 3DMark Fire Strike test, our expectations were reasonable. The ThinkPad X390 scored 1,173, which was in line with the other laptops in our comparison group using the same integrated graphics.
We then ran Fortnite and recorded the laptop’s performance. At 1080p and both High and Epic graphical detail, the ThinkPad X390 was essentially unplayable. You’ll need to step up to a laptop like the Acer Swift 3 with at least the Nvidia GeForce MX150 GPU if you want to play this or any other modern title.
Lenovo only managed to squeeze in 48 watt-hours of battery capacity into the ThinkPad X390’s chassis. That’s less than the smaller XPS 13’s 52 watt-hours, and the HP Spectre x360 13 makes better use of its own slightly larger chassis to fit in 61 watt-hours worth of battery. The CPU is efficient and the display is only Full HD (as opposed to a more power-hungry 4K resolution), but we weren’t too optimistic about the laptop’s longevity.
As it turns out, our doubts were justified. In our most demanding Basemark web benchmark test, the ThinkPad X390 managed just over three hours. The MateBook X Pro lasted a few minutes less, but the rest of our comparison group lasted longer.
Switching to our web browsing test, the ThinkPad X390’s performance dropped off even further. It lasted just a little over seven hours, almost an hour less than the 2019 MacBook Air and almost five hours less than the Spectre x360. The results in our video test had the ThinkPad X390 lasting for about 11 hours, almost identical to the MateBook X Pro and slightly more than the MacBook Air. The Asus ZenBook 13 UX333, though, lasted for around 13.5 hours while the Spectre x360 lasted for a whopping 17.5 hours.
The ThinkPad X390 would have benefitted from a larger battery. The chassis is big enough, and as it stands, we’re not sure the laptop will get you through a full working day without needing to the plugin. That’s a shame, especially for the price point the X390 fits in.
The ThinkPad X390 is a ThinkPad through and through. It’s built like one, it feels like one, and it’s just as much of a pleasure to work with. If you love ThinkPad but want a smaller version – and the previous 12.5-inch display didn’t excite you – then the ThinkPad X390 is a great alternative.
At the same time, battery life is a real concern for a laptop that’s meant for business-oriented road warriors. And nothing except the ThinkPad brand stands out compared to some better – and less expensive – laptops.
Is there a better alternative?
The most obvious comparison is the Dell XPS 13. This is a tiny 13-inch laptop indeed, and while it’s constructed of different materials, it feels nearly as robust. You’ll get better battery life out of the Dell and similar performance, and you’ll likely pay slightly less depending on your configuration. You’ll pay $1,559 ($1,303 on sale) for a Core i7, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a Full HD touch display.
Another option is the Asus ZenBook 13 UX333. This is a great-looking laptop that’s not nearly as conservatively designed as the ThinkPad X390, and it sports the same military standard testing. You’ll also pay considerably less, at just $850 for a Core i5-8265U, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. There aren’t many configuration options available in North America, though, so your choices will be limited.
Finally, if MacOS can work for you, then the Apple MacBook Air is another option. It’s also a smaller laptop and has its own rock-solid build quality, and it’s also quite premium in spite of its slower, low-power Core Y processor. The MacBook Air costs $1,400 for a Core i5, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD.
How long will it last?
As usual, the ThinkPad X390 feels like it will last forever, and it has the components to match. It should last you for as long as you need it to, and then some. The 1-year warranty is disappointing, though.
Should you buy it?
Not unless you’re a diehard ThinkPad fan. The X390 is a pleasure to use, it’s fast, and it exudes durability, but its battery life is a real concern.
Editors' Recommendations
Review: Lenovo's ThinkPad X390 Is A Step Up
Lenovo has made some smart moves with one of its latest additions to the business-friendly ThinkPad lineup, the ThinkPad X390.
The notebook is a follow-up to the ThinkPad X280, a device that wasn't among our favorites at the CRN Test Center in a tryout a year ago.
[Related: Review: Lenovo's Latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon May Be The Business Laptop To Beat]
The ThinkPad X390 is much improved, with better battery life, a larger display and slimmed-down bezels around the screen.
On battery life, we got 7.5 hours on a charge with heavy usage (multiple browser windows and applications) and the "better battery" setting in Windows. (We think our approach offers a real-world approximation for how notebooks will perform on battery life.)
By contrast, the ThinkPad X280 had yielded just six hours of battery life in our testing last year.
Another key difference between the two notebooks is on screen size, with the ThinkPad X390 moving up to a 13.3-inch display from 12.5 inches on the X280. Having this added screen space can make a big difference for the sort of multi-tasking worker that the ThinkPad series is targeting.
Even with the larger display, Lenovo takes measures to ensure portability on the X390. The most noticeable step is on the bezels around the screen, which are quite small on the left and right sides, and not huge on the top and bottom sides, either.
That allows the overall size of the X390 to be kept to that of a typical 12-inch notebook, according to Lenovo.
The X390 is also thin for a business notebook, at 0.67 of an inch thick, and light, with a starting weight of 2.7 pounds.
The display itself is just OK. While our model thankfully came with FHD resolution rather than the starting HD configuration, the display's appearance is a bit dull. The emphasis seems to be on anti-glare rather than providing vibrant colors. We had the same issue with the ThinkPad X280. The display approach is great for cutting out glare, but overall we're not sure the trade-off is worthwhile.
The touch screen is optional on the X390 but doesn't add too much ($74) to the price.
Our model was configured with a quad-core Intel "Whiskey Lake" Core i5, which offered solid performance in our tryout. Benchmarks via Geekbench 4 revealed scores of 4,295 for single-core and 13,529 for multi-core (putting the X390 above, for instance, the HP EliteBook x360 1030 G3 that we reviewed in December).
We recently took the ThinkPad x390 on a two-week conference road trip and all in all it was a good experience thanks to the battery life, portability, and performance offered by the device.
The X390 is also equipped with key business features such as enhanced security (including a built-in webcam shutter, optional fingerprint reader and optional Windows Hello facial recognition); a variety of ports (USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, microSD, optional smart card reader); deep, fairly comfortable keys; a highly responsive touchpad; and the well-known ThinkPad durability standard.
Users that would love to have a top-of-the-line ThinkPad X1 Carbon, but don't have the budget for it, might want to take a look at the X390. The notebook (as configured in our tryout, with Core i5, touch screen, 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage) is currently priced at $1,166. That's compared to $1,443 for the X1 Carbon (6th gen) in that configuration.
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