Going at it wrong
I'm typing this on a Gen 8 X1 right now, having picked one up in November with a mid-range i5 CPU, 1080i non-touchscreen, and 16GB of RAM for only $1000. And it is an absolutely brilliant and lovely machine to monkey around with in your living room -- for not much money at all. My heavy lifting happens on the big box upstairs, and I'm getting the same ridiculously-good build quality for dirt cheap -- with the best battery life of any laptop I've ever owned.
Yeah you can go broke buying the very highest specs Lenovo has to offer...but as a second computer this is just the best.