Benchmarks: Display
Some of the biggest advancements in modern laptops revolve around the capabilities of the display panel. To provide a more meaningful overview of panel characteristics, we're deploying Datacolor's Spyder 4 Elite professional monitor analyser to return a quantitative assessment of display quality.
The FHD display included in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon base specification is a good all-rounder. 95 per cent coverage of the sRGB colour space is solid but not spectacular, though you'd be forgiven for expecting more from a flagship model, and we're intrigued to see how the optional QHD panel compares.
Being able to display a wide gamut of colours is helpful, yet the colours themselves still need to deliver in terms of accuracy. In the above chart, the Delta-E figure corresponds to how close the displayed colours match up with real life and the lower the overall result, the better. Any figure below two is considered very good and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon fits the bill.
Brightness, black level and contrast are all above average, and save for the lack of touchscreen capabilities, there's not a lot wrong with Lenovo's IPS panel. Viewing angles are generous, the standard FHD resolution works well on a display of this size, and the panel's modest ambition is likely to aid battery life.
