With its slick and slim design, Lenovo's fourth-gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon ($1,533.60, as tested) is the kind of business laptop you'll gladly show off around the office. It retains the features that we like, including a thin, yet sturdy carbon fiber and magnesium construction, a good selection of I/O ports, and that excellent ThinkPad keyboard. On top of this, it's faster, has a higher-resolution screen, packs a longer-lasting battery, and is a half pound lighter than last year's model. While the latest laptop lacks a touch screen, it does ring up for $300 less. That puts it into the same price range as the reigning champ Lenovo ThinkPad T450s, and it offers enough to make it our latest Editors' Choice for business laptops.

Design and Features
The laptop's carbon fiber and magnesium body is thin, strong, and exceptionally light at 0.65 by 13.1 by 9.0 inches (HWD) and a svelte 2.54 pounds. That's thinner and lighter than last year's touch-enabled X1 Carbon, though the depth and width are about the same. It's also lighter (but larger) than ultraportable competitors like the HP EliteBook Folio 1020 and the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch. Granted, the latter two systems have smaller screens. There's no flex in any panel, which makes the laptop feel luxurious and durable.

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The keyboard is spill-resistant, and the system's hardy frame has been certified for several MIL-STD 801G tests, including high humidity, low temperature, high temperature, blowing sand, vibration, mechanical shock, high altitude, and temperature shock. It's also been subjected to and passed Lenovo's tests for durability, drop tests, and electrostatic shock. Surviving a daily train commute should be a breeze.

The 14-inch screen has a 2,560 by 1,440 (WQHD+) resolution, with far more room than the 1080p HD you get with most mainstream laptops. The extra space can come in handy for viewing large spreadsheets or wide Web layouts. Vibrant colors and details in photos and high-resolution videos look gorgeous on the IPS display, even with the anti-glare coating. In contrast, the HP EliteBook 745 G3 has a much duller display. Viewing angles on The Carbon X1 are excellent; this is a good thing since the screen rotates to 180 degrees, so you can lie the laptop flat on your work surface. This makes the laptop ideal for showing small presentations, say, in a board meeting.

In more than 15 years of reviewing laptops, the backlit keyboard is among the best I've felt. Each chiclet-style key is full-sized, has a solid feel and key travel that's just right. They're shaped with a slight curve that makes the prospect of a long typing session much more attractive than using if you were using the comparatively sparse keyboard on the Apple MacBook or the flappy add-on keyboard case on the Microsoft Surface Pro 4.

While it seems like a 1990s throwback, the eraser-shaped Lenovo TrackPoint controller is a feature that some business users can't live without. It can be used concurrently with, or in place of, the one-piece TrackPad below the keyboard. Two physical mouse buttons and a scroll button sit between the TrackPad and the space bar. There's a biometric fingerprint reader on the right side of the palm rest that dovetails with the system's TPM chip and enterprise-class security.