The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 3 uses the same excellent keyboard and trackpad as Lenovo’s other ThinkPads, it performs about as well as the XPS 15 9500, and it’s three-quarters of a pound lighter. The laptop does include a card reader, and it comes with a USB Type-A/HDMI dongle, but we would have liked to see some USB Type-A and HDMI ports built in. The downsides are that it’s heavier than some of its competitors-the 4K version weighs 4.5 pounds, a bit more than anything else we tested this time around-and that it’s limited to only Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C ports.
Its keyboard and trackpad feel nice to use, and its battery lasted longer than others we tested with similar specs. Six- and eight-core Intel processors provide a good amount of speed for encoding video and other CPU-intensive tasks, while the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics hardware offers enough power for running professional 3D apps, enjoying some light gaming, and connecting to multiple high-resolution external monitors.
It’s taller than most of the other screens in the laptops we tested, with a 3840×2400 resolution and a 16:10 ratio that gives your apps more room to spread out. The Dell XPS 15 9500’s screen is its best feature.
