IR camera on Thinkpad X1 carbon

[jpb]

I see the new Thinkpad X1 Carbon laptop has the option of an IR camera as well as a standard camera:
http://www3.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-5th-Generation/p/22TP2TXX15G
Unfortunately they give few details apart from to say it is for security (facial recognition for logging on).

It would be interesting to know whether it can be used for photos etc as well and what the resolution is. I'd guess it is not much good as a thermal camera as it is just a cheap option.

[jpb]

It's not a true IR camera that can be used to take thermal photos.
It is merely a normal CMOS camera with IR LED illumination source.
The strong IR source combined with IR filter get rid of visual light noise in background and boost SNR, in order to allow facial recognition algorithm to run more accurately.

Thanks for the explanation - it did seem a little too good to be true to have a proper IR camera.