P71

Performance and portability tradeoff wise, the X1E is positioned in between X1C7 and P71.

The carbon does suffer a bit with heavy workloads, such as some long compilation (eg: GHCJS) tasks, IDE heavylifting (haskell-language-server) or when using complex (bloated) web apps. Some of those, such as Nix compilation, can be offloaded to my P71 workstation at home (via manual ssh, VSCode remote ssh or distributed build).

I keep going back to my P71 as the default machine when working docked (home office), and the Carbon has been relegated to situations where I work from the couch or from elsewhere (but doing bulk of stuff remotely on a powerful machine).

Linux kernel 5.9 or later has the best hardware support. Everything including Thunderbolt and fingerprint reader works on Linux. I was surprised in particular to see that 5k resolution worked in LG Ultrafine 5k, which is a retina-quality Thunderbolt monitor designed specifically for Macbooks. Compared to previous Thinkpads (such as P71), the trackpad is as good as that of a Macbook.

My next computer, if I choose to buy one in ~3 years, would likely be similar to the X1C7 but with a bit more performance (assuming battery life does not suffer); i.e., if I were to make this decision again, I’d consider Thinkpad X1E or P1^* - but with integrated graphics (nvidia has poor support on Linux). That said, I still use the Carbon as my primary computer, and use VSCode remote to shift much of the develoment heavylifting to the P71 workstation at home.