To test the screen, I watched the Bill & Ted Face the Music trailer in both normal and low light conditions. Regardless of how much light was on the screen, the viewing angles were almost complete. I also didn’t notice much glare, even when holding the screen directly next to my lamp.

However, even had it lasted longer off the plug, Lenovo’s own ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 would still be a rosier choice. It has superior features and battery life and can be nearly the same price dependent upon Lenovo’s ever-changing sales. The all-aluminum chassis adds some weight, but the return on rigidity and durability is well worth it. Battery: These systems do not support batteries that are not genuine Lenovo-made or authorised. Systems will continue to boot, but may not charge unauthorised batteries. Lenovo has no responsibility for the performance or safety of unauthorised batteries, and provides no warranties for failures or damage arising out of their use. **Battery life is based on the MobileMark® 2014 methodology and is an estimated maximum. Actual battery life may vary based on many factors, including screen brightness, active applications, features, power management settings, battery age and conditioning, and other customer preferences. The ThinkPad X13 gets somewhat warm during use, though its touchpoints didn’t reflect this during my testing. After streaming YouTube videos for 15 minutes, the underside registered 98.5 degrees Fahrenheit (36.9 degrees Celsius), which made it the hottest area. The second hottest area was the center of the keyboard (between the G and H keys), which was 93.5 degrees Fahrenheit (34.2 degrees Celsius). The touchpad was the coolest area we measured, only hitting 83.5 degrees Fahrenheit (28.6 degrees Celsius). Strong build quality is an X-series hallmark. The ThinkPad X13 Gen 3’s magnesium shell feels cool to the touch and makes an enticing scratchy sound when you run your fingertips across it. No parts of the chassis flex, and the lid is extra stiff. It should stand up to travel and other abuse well.Screen-wise, the ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 holds its own. It’s not the brightest but is close enough to the 400 nits we like to see in this class. Its color coverage is competitive, though the Dell’s OLED screen outdoes them all. I've appeared on CBS News, in USA Today, and at many other outlets to offer analysis on breaking technology news. Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive. We look for 4,000 points in the main test as a sign of competency for the tasks that test simulates.

Swappable parts in the ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 include its battery, M.2 2230 wireless card, and M.2 2280 PCI Express storage drive. The RAM is soldered-down LPDDR5 that can’t be changed out, so configure the laptop with as much as you need from the get-go.This view also shows the ThinkPad’s single large cooling fan, which ran frequently and audibly throughout testing. I can only speculate, but perhaps the fan wouldn’t run so much if the X13 is equipped with a less powerful Intel U-series processor, which should produce less heat. Either way, even with the P-series chip, the X13 doesn't get too warm for general use. Using it in your lap shouldn’t be a problem.

Port selection on the ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 satisfies for a 13.3-inch ultraportable. There are two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) on the left edge, the leftmost of which is used to charge the laptop with its 65-watt adapter. The AMD ThinkPad X13 has a USB 4 and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port in their place. The ThinkPad X13 comes in either traditional clamshell or 2-in-1 convertible (X13 Yoga) varieties. We liked both versions of the first-generation X13, but we noted that it was essentially a rebadged version of 2019's ThinkPad X390, so it wasn't as fresh as its moniker might suggest. The X13 Gen 2, equipped with Intel's latest 11th Generation "Tiger Lake" processor and the newly fashionable 16:10 instead of 16:9 screen aspect ratio, is more modern. Unfortunately, the color and brightness didn’t impress as much. Overall, the colors were accurate but weren’t vivid and didn’t pop, even for the parts of the movie that take place in fantastical locations like Hell. The bigger issue, though, was the brightness, as the whole trailer felt uncomfortably dim. The key sacrifices you’d be making in opting for an X13 over more expensive competitors would be the screen and the battery life - but those are two of the most important parts of a business notebook. The X13’s display (at least the 300-nit model we tested) is unfortunately dim and less vivid than all of its competitors (save for the X1 Carbon having a slightly narrower color spectrum), and the laptop also scored 2 hours less battery life than its nearest competitor on our benchmark. The webcam is also unflattering, though the audio quality is much higher than expected. As for wireless connectivity, you get the cutting-edge Wi-Fi 6E standard as well as Bluetooth 5.2. There are also optional 4G and 5G LTE modems, compatible with either a nano SIM or an eSIM. And IT departments with strict user access control protocols can outfit the ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 with an optional SmartCard reader or a fingerprint reader built into the keyboard.

I find the basic FHD+ non-touch version to be well suited for most people just going about regular work. I measured with my SpyderX Pro colorimeter 100% sRGB, 79% AdobeRGB, and 81% DCI-P3 color reproduction, all solid results. Colors are full and good contrast helps remove any washed appearance. I had no issues using it for photo editing, and for standard productivity work it will be more than enough. If you foresee a lot of work outdoors, something with more brightness is recommended. Lenovo's odd pricing system sees laptops have a "standard price" that's generally hovering somewhere on the edge of outer space. Then, thanks to ecoupons and sales events, it can advertise thousands of dollars off the regular price. However, when those sales aren't active it can be tough to figure out just what to recommend. Whereas the X1 lineup used to not have a 13-inch option, there's now the ThinkPad X1 Nano to sort of steal the spotlight. Granted it does cost more than the X13 (Gen 2), but a discount could change that at any time. And again I would recommend the Nano over the X13 if prices were similar. The AMD-powered ThinkPad X13, like most ThinkPads, has plenty of customization options. Our configuration has a Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U with integrated Radeon graphics, 8GB of DDR4-3200 MHz memory, a 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD and a 1920 x 1080 IPS touchscreen. If you don't like the results we got from our screen, there's also a 500-nit, 1080p screen option.

The ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 universally trails in graphics performance, unfortunately. Though all these laptops use Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics silicon, it’s configured differently depending on the processor. The Core i5-1240P in our X13 has the weakest implementation, with 80 execution units running at 1.45GHz. Pricing changes and discounts will play a big role in how well the X13 (Gen 2) sells. With that out of the way, I can say it's a ThinkPad through and through. The new aluminum build is far more solid and doesn't add enough weight to not be extremely portable. The top-firing speakers remain unmuffled and audio gets loud enough for most use cases. Optional 4G LTE and 5G connectivity will keep you up to date wherever you go, and stellar battery life will keep you from searching for an outlet. Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular tasks ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).The X1 Nano proves faster in Geekbench, but that test takes only a few minutes to run. The Nano falls behind the X13 in the long-running Cinebench and Handbrake tests despite its theoretically stronger Core i7, suggesting the X13 has a more effective cooling system. Graphics and Gaming Tests Typing comfort was once paramount on any ThinkPad, although Lenovo has experimented in recent years with shallower, less comfortable keyboards on thin models like the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga. Typing purists will be glad to find none of those experiments on the X13 Gen 2, which offers a version of the classic, finger-pleasing keyboard that has graced ThinkPads for decades. (Photo: Molly Flores)