MacBook Air Vs. Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1: Which Ultralight Laptop Is Better?

The battle of Mac vs. Windows is alive and well, and the top two contenders in the ultralight division are the MacBook Air and the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1. Both offer a premium, portable, featherweight computing experience, but which you choose as the better of the two comes down to a few important distinctions like price, design, features, performance, and battery life. Apple's MacBook Air and the Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 are also both configurable when it comes to aspects like RAM, storage, and more, so for the sake of fairness and simplicity in the comparison, we pulled prices, design, and performance metrics from the most affordable model of each lineup — the base 13-inch MacBook Air and the stock Intel ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 Aura Edition.In terms of price, you might be surprised to learn that the MacBook is actually the significantly cheaper of the two coming in at a starting price of $1,299 compared to the ThinkPad's $2,249.

For the Lenovo's higher price tag, though, you get double the RAM, the choice of a higher refresh rate OLED display, a pinch more battery life (if you choose the stock display), and a slightly lighter build with the ThinkPad Carbon X1's magnesium construction and carbon fiber lid. On the other hand, the base MacBook Air offers outstanding performance, twice the storage, more colorways, and is nearly $1,000 cheaper. It is an outstanding value and the clear overall best pick. However, that's not to say the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is not an excellent choice for some buyers, as we'll explain.

Both notebooks comfortably fall into the ultralight laptop category, with the 13-inch MacBook Air measuring a razor-thin 0.44in (1.13cm) thick and weighing just 2.7lbs (1.23kg). Similarly, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 Aura Edition measures  0.65in (1.64cm) thick and is actually lighter than the MacBook Air at just about 2.2lbs. The ThinkPad comes in one colorway –- black –- whereas the MacBook Air comes in four: Sky Blue, Starlight, Silver, and Midnight.

The 13-inch MacBook Air features a 2560 x 1664 Liquid Retina display at 500 nits of brightness, and the ThinkPad offers a 1920 x 1200 WUXGA IPS touchscreen by default, also at 500 nits brightness. Both displays top out at a 60Hz refresh rate. It's important to note, however, that you can swap the ThinkPad X1 Carbon's base display to an impressive 2.8K OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate at no extra charge if you prefer. This is a huge upgrade to visual fidelity, but it will come at the cost of significantly higher battery usage. 

There's no clear winner when compared to Apple's Liquid Retina display; the ThinkPad has a slight edge when it comes to size and resolution, but the MacBook doesn't have OLED care to worry about, and its Liquid Retina display (using mini-LED technology) offers superior brightness (which is great for working outdoors). The ThinkPad handily takes the win when it comes to ports, though; the Air features just a MagSafe charging port, two USB-C ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, whereas the ThinkPad features three USB-C ports, one USB-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

As for performance, the most affordable MacBook Air comes equipped with the powerhouse M5 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.  Meanwhile, the base ThinkPad Carbon X1 Gen 14 Aura Edition features an Intel Core Ultra 5 335 processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD in the base model. However, you can further upgrade the CPU, RAM, and storage for additional charges. Both will comfortably cover almost any creative or productivity task you throw at them.

Using Tom's Hardware's 3DMark Steel Nomad graphics performance benchmarks, the 13-inch MacBook Air (M5, 2026) earned a score of 1,005, compared to the ThinkPad's 596, meaning the MacBook Air performed 41% better. This was despite the ThinkPad in the test featuring an upgraded Ultra 7 355 CPU. It's a similar story with Geekbench 6, where the MacBook scored 17,926 — over 6,000 points better than the Lenovo. Also, watch out for the storage size on the ThinkPad; 256GB is a bit scant when you consider the size of modern applications, and a significant chunk will be eaten by Windows.

When it comes to battery life, the ThinkPad Carbon X1 has a 58Whr battery, which earned up to 19.2 hours in MobileMark 30 tests for the WUXGA display and 13.3 hours for the OLED variant , while the MacBook Air has a 53.8Whr battery  offering up to 18 hours of video streaming. The ThinkPad supports Rapid Charging with a 65W charger or better, and the MacBook is Fast-Charge capable at up to 70W through the MagSafe charging port. Ultimately, the 13-inch MacBook Air is the better ultralight laptop when it comes to the price-to-performance ratio. But if you want Windows and a greater degree of customization and remote security courtesy of vPro CPUs, the ThinkPad is the way to go.