[In-Depth Comparison] ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) vs Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen – a very strong showing from ASUS

High-end business machines are a treat to use thanks to their snappy processors and an abundance of features. Recently, many of them have also started implementing taller screens to help with productivity, as the higher aspect ratio allows for more apps to fit on the screen at once, improving multitasking and speeding up your workflow.

Today we have a 16:9 laptop going against a 16:10 laptop from two rivaling brands. With 14-inch color accurate displays, Tiger Lake U-series chips, and large batteries, these are long-lasting notebooks that can be used for productivity, and even some Creator tasks, thanks to the well-balanced combination of Tiger Lake and the Iris iGPU family.

The ExpertBook B9 from ASUS is a charming device with a certain uniqueness to it. On the other hand, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 presents the engineering ingenuity of Lenovo, combining a plethora of materials to make a durable notebook with a design that is easy on the eyes.

Today we are presenting you with an in-depth comparison between the ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400): Full Specs / In-depth Review

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9: Full Specs / In-depth Review

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) configurations:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 configurations:

Contents


Design and construction

The ExpertBook comes with a unique set of materials, which results in a very tough chassis. The magnesium-lithium alloy does wonders, with the laptop being really well crafted, with no twists, bends, or pops across the entire device. The laptop has also received MIL-STD-810H certification for durability, which is crazy to think about, considering it weighs only 0.88 kg and has a profile of 14.9 mm, which is evidence of the strength of the alloy that is used. The laptop comes in a matte navy color, while the lid has an ErgoLift mechanism. It also opens with one hand.

As for the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, it is also no stranger to extravagant materials. Its base is made out of magnesium, while the lid is entirely crafted from carbon fiber, which is a flexible, but really tough material. Combining them together ensures a durable package that can last a while and sustain some abuse. The notebook is heavier, weighing 1.14 kg, but has the same thickness. It comes in matte black, or with a carbon fiber weave cover for the lid. Speaking of it, it opens easily with one hand but has no lever mechanism.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Keyboard and touchpad

The two laptops present some pretty great keyboards, with even the key travel being decent, despite the thin profile. The feedback is clicky, and there is both a backlight and spill resistance. Both the ExpertBook and the ThinkPad use no NumPad, but the ASUS laptop has a pretty smart, replacement, using the touchpad to simulate one. You can “summon” a NumPad with the press of the upper right corner of the pad. The touchpads come with a glass surface, smooth gliding, and accurate tracking. The ThinkPad also has a red TrackPoint, with three physical buttons.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Ports

The ExpertBook uses two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.0b connector, a micro HDMI port that can be used as a LAN port, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, and a 3.5 mm audio jack.

On the side of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, there also are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, a 3.5 mm audio jack, and a SIM card tray.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 


Dissasemby, upgrade options

Both laptops come with up to 32GB of LPDDR4x RAM that works in quad-channel mode. Sadly, it’s soldered onto the motherboard. Storage-wise, the ExpertBook has two M.2 PCIe x4 slots with RAID support, while the ThinkPad has a single SSD slot.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Spec sheet


Display quality

The ExpertBook B9 uses a single display with a 14-inch diagonal, Full HD resolution, and an IPS panel. It has a pixel density of 157 PPI, a pitch of 0.161 x 0.161 mm, and a Retina distance of 55 cm.

On the other hand, the ThinkPad also uses 14-inch displays, but with a higher 16:10 aspect ratio and either FHD+ or a UHD+ resolution. We tested the latter, which comes with a higher pixel density of 323 PPI, a pitch of 0.08 х 0.08 mm, and a Retina distance of 28 cm.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Both laptops offer excellent viewing angles. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

The ExpertBook’s display has a max brightness of 343 nits in the middle of the screen, 330 nits average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 9%. The contrast ratio is quite high – 1580:1.

The X1 Carbon comes with a higher max brightness of 518 nits in the middle of the screen, 503 nits average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 19%, resulting in an uneven spot in the bottom right corner. The contrast ratio is slightly lower at 1530:1.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Color coverage

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows the color coverage of both the ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9.

Both laptops show high color coverage with 99% sRGB coverage for the ExpertBook and 99% DCI-P3 coverage for the X1 Carbon Gen 9.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Color accuracy

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can check the results from the test of both laptops, with both the factory settings (left) and with our “Design and Gaming” profile applied (right).

The ExpertBook gets a really good dE value of 0.9 with our profile.

On the other side, even with our profile, the dE value of X1 Carbon remains pretty high at around 2.5. However, with a slight adjustment of the white point to D65, it goes down to 0.6, which is great.


Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” methods from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

Both laptops won’t win any awards, but the Lenovo laptop is still a bit faster with a Fall + Rise time of 33.1 ms.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Health Impact / PWM (Blue light)

PWM – Screen flickering

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Both laptops show no PWM usage across all brightness levels.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) 14.0″ AUO B140HAN06.B (AUOA48F) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS: Buy our profiles

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen 14″ AUO B140ZAN02.1 (LEN4038) (UHD, 3840 x 2400) IPS: Buy our profiles

Sound

The ASUS device has two bottom-firing speakers on the bottom, while the Lenovo laptop has four, with two on the front and two on the bottom. The ASUS setup has no deviations across the frequency range while producing sound with a good signature and quality. On the side of the ThinkPad, there are deviations across the entire frequency range, which isn’t good for quality, but the sound itself is loud and clear.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9

Battery

The ExpertBook B9 has a larger battery pack, with 66Wh against the 57Wh unit on the ThinkPad X1. In terms of the battery life itself, the ASUS device has insane leads with 7 hours and 49 minutes more in web browsing and 6 hours and 46 minutes in video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.


Performance

Both laptops come with the same hardware selection, with three Tiger Lake U-series CPUs: the Core i5-1135G7, Core i7-1165G7, and Core i7-1185G7. In terms of graphics, there is the integrated Iris Xe Graphics G7 with either 80EU or 96EU, depending on if you choose the Core i5 or one of the two Core i7 CPUs.

CPU benchmarks

Here we tested the Core i7-1185G7 inside both laptops. There were small differences in the performance, with the ASUS device being faster in both 3D and 2D Rendering, scoring 8% higher in Cinebench 20 and being 0.3 seconds quicker in Photoshop.

Results are from the Cinebench R23 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)

Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)


GPU benchmarks

Here we tested the Iris Xe Graphics G7 with 96 Execution Units. Once again, the ExpertBook showed better results in the synthetic benchmarks, with 11% increased performance in 3DMark Fire Strike and 4% increased performance in Unigine Superposition.

Results are from the 3DMark: Time Spy (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Results are from the 3DMark: Wild Life benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)


Gaming tests

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) – Iris Xe Grapics G7 (96EU)204 fps (+26%)154 fps (+27%)84 fps (+7%)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen – Iris Xe Grapics G7 (96EU)162 fps121 fps69 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) – Iris Xe Grapics G7 (96EU)146 fps96 fps (+26%)74 fps (+28%)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen – Iris Xe Grapics G7 (96EU)146 fps76 fps58 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Both laptops come with a single heat-pipe cooling solution, along with a heatsink. For airflow, the ExpertBook has one fan, while the ThinkPad has two fans neatly packaged together.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i7-1185G7 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)3.51 GHz @ 96°C @ 41W3.09 GHz @ 96°C @ 31W3.05 GHz @ 93°C @ 28W
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th Gen3.53 GHz @ 96°C @ 44W3.23 GHz @ 96°C @ 36W2.78 GHz @ 91°C @ 26W

The CPUs behave pretty similarly in the entry stages of our stress test, maintaining a clock speed of around 3.00GHz while keeping the temperatures high enough, at around 95°C. The ExpertBook does better in the long run, with a clock speed lead of around 300MHz, while not getting significantly hotter.

Comfort during combined load

Despite the single fan, the ExpertBook remains cooler on the outside, with a significant difference of 6°C.

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9

Verdict

For the first time in a while, a ThinkPad device gets handled a defeat. However, this one is pretty justified, as the ExpertBook has its bases covered, with a good display, more performance, and better cooling. The design is lighter and thinner while looking really good. The magnesium and lithium construction is rigid and the dark navy exterior is a nice change of pace from the traditional black or silver.

Both laptops have good input devices, with keyboards with good travel, despite the thin profile, clicky feedback, a backlight, and spill resistance. The touchpads offer smooth gliding and accurate tracking. Unless you really want a TrackPoint, both notebooks will suit you fine.

Upgradeability is lacking on both machines, only SSD upgradeability. Still, the ExpertBook does better, offering two slots, instead of the one on the ThinkPad. Both laptops offer displays with large color coverage and good accuracy with our Design and Gaming profile. If you don’t care about the 16:10 aspect ratio, you can do your work on both of these devices just fine. The Harman/Kardon setup on the ASUS laptop also provides audio with no deviations.

Furthermore, the ExpertBook has a much longer battery life, with close to double the time in our web browsing and video playback. The ExpertBook also showcases higher CPU and GPU performance, despite boasting the same exact chip. Both chips get quite hot, reaching temps above 90°C and maintaining them. On the outside, however, the ExpertBook is significantly cooler, with a difference of 6°C. Truth is, the ExpertBook has its competitor beat, excelling in most tests, while also being lighter and more compact.


Why choose the ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400)?

  • + Longer battery life
  • + Lighter chassis
  • + More CPU and iGPU performance


Why choose the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9?

  • + Higher color coverage
  • + TrackPoint input device
  • + 16:10 display

ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400): Full Specs / In-depth Review

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9: Full Specs / In-depth Review

All ASUS ExpertBook B9 (B9400) configurations:


All Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 configurations:

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