While other ultrabook manufacturers strive to mimic the aluminum casing of Apple's MacBook Air, Lenovo is sticking to its timeless ThinkPad design, but updating it to be thinner and lighter. The company on Tuesday unveiled its new 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Carbon, an updated X1 ultrabook made with carbon fiber underpinnings.

Lenovo's latest ultrabook has a bigger screen than its predecessor, the 13-inch X1, but is actually lighter thanks to its carbon fiber "roll cage" – the skeletal chassis into which the notebook's components are inserted. The X1 Carbon weighs 3 pounds compared to the 3.8 pounds of the X1. This also makes the ThinkPad X1 Carbon the lightest 14-inch, business-class ultrabook around, Lenovo says.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with built-in 3G connectivity, a 1600x900 screen, Dolby Home Theater v4, a 720p HD camera with face-tracking capabilities, and a backlit keyboard. It'll pack Intel's third-generation Ivy Bridge processors.

When we reviewed the ThinkPad X1, one of our biggest complaints concerned the notebook's battery life – it lasted a meager 2 hours and 44 minutes in our testing. Unfortunately, Lenovo hasn't yet released any battery-life stats for the X1 Carbon, but we're hoping that it does better than the X1. The company did note that it will make a "Rapid Charge" battery option available to users, which will charge the battery to 80 percent in half an hour.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon will be available this summer, but there's still no word on the price. We did get a chance, however, to see Lenovo's new ultrabook in person. It was incredibly good-looking and light. At the right price, this could be a killer ultrabook option.