Rounding up the latest high-end 13-inch laptops

Lenovo's new ThinkPad X1.

If Samsung's recent 13-inch Series 9 laptop got you thinking about a laptop upgrade, don't pull the trigger just yet. Lenovo's new entry in the high-end laptop sweepstakes is the very impressive ThinkPad X1, and it's the thinnest ThinkPad ever. These two noteworthy systems are part of an exclusive club of thin, light, 13-inch laptops, which also includes Apple's MacBook Air.

High-end 13-inch laptops

 

The new ThinkPad has plenty going for it, including an excellent backlit keyboard, a fast-charging battery, and a powerful Intel Core i5 CPU. At the same time, it's not quite as thin or light as the competition, and the $1,399 starting price can be deceiving--add extras such an SSD drive and detachable slice-style battery and it can run more than $1,800.

The Samsung Series 9 also requires a significant investment, starting at $1,649 (but we've seen it online for $50 less). It's clearly designed to emulate the style of the MacBook Air, and both systems felt very similar in terms of performance and battery life. In our head-to-head benchmarks, the Lenovo X1 was significantly faster than both of those, but at the expense of middling battery life.      Read More