Lenovo’s ultra-thin X1 Carbon ultrabook will be available August 21st, starts at $1,299 (updated)

Lenovo’s known for making good laptops much more than it’s known for making attractive laptops, but when the company announced the ThinkPad X1 Carbon in May it seemed to have checked both boxes. Now the company’s revealed when you’ll actually be able to get an X1 Carbon into your hands: August 21st. The 14-inch, three-pound ultrabook is all of 18mm thick at its thickest point, and will come in several different configurations ranging from $1,399 to $1,849. The base price gets you a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U processor and a 128GB SSD, and you get more storage and more processing power as you move up the price tiers (there’s also a 3G option available in all but the base model).

Every model comes with 4GB of RAM, a 14-inch, 1600 x 900 display, Lenovo’s excellent ThinkPad Precision keyboard, and Intel’s Integrated graphics. The X1 Carbon also features Lenovo’s nifty Rapid Charge feature, which can fill 80 percent of the battery in 30 minutes. We liked what we saw from the svelte ultrabook when it was first announced, and though its price is certainly premium the X1 Carbon appears to fit its billing.

Update: Lenovo has sent official PR for the X1 Carbon, which it quotes at a lower price than we’d heard before. According to Lenovo, the notebook will start at $1,299 when it launches later in August.