If you want a 2-in-1 that is sleek, slim and professional, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is for you. Its understated black design with red accents calls attention to the job being done rather than the machine doing the work. Inside is an island-style keyboard, a trackpad and nub, a fingerprint reader, and a 1920 x 1080 touch-screen display surrounded by a thick, black bezel. A card reader is located on the back of the device, but it’s difficult to access when the X1 is in laptop mode, so you’ll want to close the laptop or switch to tent or tablet mode before using the card reader. The computer features a carbon-fiber lid and a body made from magnesium, and it feels very solid despite how light it is.

At 13.11 x 9.01 x 0.66 inches and 2.8 pounds, the X1 Yoga is slightly larger than the Vaio Z Flip (12.8 x 8.5 x .66 inches) and the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 260 (12.20 x 8.66 x 0.70 inches) but is fractions of a pound lighter than both.

The X1 Yoga’s 360-degree hinge allows it to be used as a laptop, a tablet (when folded all the way back), a tent (in the shape of an upside-down V) or a display (with the keyboard face-down and the screen pointing towards you). When the keyboard is folded toward the back of the screen, the “Lift ‘n’ Lock” keys retract so they don’t click when you hold the machine as a tablet.

The keyboard on the ThinkPad X1 Yoga has 1.67 millimeters of travel and requires 60 grams of force to press, resulting in a comfortable typing experience, though the keys occasionally bottomed out. I typed 100 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com test with an error rate of 1 percent, which is about average for me. Users who want an even-better keyboard should consider Lenovo’s ThinkPad Yoga 260 or ThinkPad T Series laptops, all of which have 2mm of key travel.

The 3.9 x 2.2-inch Synaptics touchpad is smooth to the touch. I comfortably navigated a series of websites while using gestures like two-finger scroll and three-finger swipe, which reveals the desktop. 

 Lenovo’s TrackPoint nub is located in the center of the keyboard amidst the G, H and B keys, and lets you navigate around the desktop very accurately, without moving your hands off the home row.

The right side of the X1 Yoga houses a rechargeable stylus, which is great for when the device is in tablet mode. I gave the laptop and stylus to our in-house artist, who was impressed by the Yoga’s palm rejection, accuracy and speed, which easily matched his strokes.

The stylus is a little thin and short — something like the Apple Pencil is more ergonomically friendly — but it fits into the notebook for easy storage and charging. Lenovo claims that just 15 seconds of charging will provide up to 100 minutes of continuous use.

Lenovo’s WRITEit app allows you to handwrite directly into any text field in any app, rather than using Windows 10’s handwriting keyboard, which sits at the bottom of the screen. I found that this app had some trouble with my handwriting, but our artist had better luck.

Handwriting recognition worked well for me in WordPad, where I could write without size restrictions. The Wacom pen tool is on board to calibrate your pen and assign commands to the pen’s two buttons.

The 14-inch touch screen on the X1 Yoga comes in two flavors. Our Core i5 model had a 1080p display, while the Core i7 config we tested had a sharper, 2560 x 1440 QHD panel. When I watched the trailer for Ghostbusters, the QHD display was sharper, showing more wrinkles in a ghost’s face as it flew toward the screen. But this display  was warmer than the 1080p version, which had better white balance with more-accurate skin tones.

The trailer seemed a bit dim on the 1080p display, especially during indoor scenes, like one in which Kristen Wiig explores a wig closet just to be spooked by Kate McKinnon. In the scene, McKinnon’s wig is engulfed in part by shadow, appearing black instead of purple. Still, the brightest colors and sharp details overcame the dimness, and outdoor scenes and the spectral auras coming from ghosts managed to pop. The spirits appeared brighter on the QHD screen, but they also didn’t look as good with the screen’s warm tint. Both screens had strong viewing angles and were clear at 45 degrees, starting to wash out only at around 80 degrees.

The 1080p display registered 279.2 nits of brightness, and the QHD model displayed 268 nits, both significantly dimmer than the Yoga 260 (328 nits) and the Vaio Z Flip (346 nits).

Colors are vivid and accurate on the 1080p model; the X1 Yoga reproduces an excellent 102 percent of the sRGB color gamut and has a Delta-E accuracy score of 0.55 (the closer to zero, the better). On the QHD display, it covers a larger degree of the gamut (109.3 percent) but is less accurate, with a Delta-E score of 1.02.

If you keep your data under lock and key, you’ll appreciate the fingerprint reader located on the right side of the palm rest. Many laptops require you to swipe your finger over the reader, but the one on the ThinkPad X1 Yoga requires only a quick touch.

I found this to be easier and more accurate than other fingerprint readers I’ve used in the past. In addition, the X1 Yoga uses Trusted Platform Module (TPM) technology to encrypt your data and keep it secure.

Lenovo claims that the laptop passes MIL-STD 810G durability tests required for government and military use, including being able to stand up to bumps, drops, dust and extreme temperatures. Additionally, the company says the keyboard is spill-resistant and should be able to keep on working should you spill a drink on it.

I was surprised when the tiny speakers on the X1 Yoga filled my apartment with the loud, soulful sound of The Weeknd’s “I Love It.” I did find that the music could have an echo-y, hollow mix that buried the vocals. But when I opened the Dolby Audio app and switched to the Dynamic preset, which makes changes based on what you’re playing, the song sounded much better. The music was muffled when I used the laptop on my lap, but sounded fine when the device was on a table or in tent, tablet or stand modes.

Whether you’re using it as a laptop or a tablet, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga and its Core i7-6500U processor, 8GB of RAM and 512GB SSD will be a capable workhorse. I ran Google Chrome and a text editor and didn’t see any lag until I had 10 tabs open in the browser, one of which was streaming 1080p video from YouTube (the Core i5-6200U lagged with eight tabs open).