The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
The woot version came with Windows 10 installed, so I didn't have to think about it.
The way the free upgrade for Win 10 works, you need to upgrade your existing licensed Windows 7 or 8 copy first, and then you can do a clean install and the OS will activate based on the hardware signature. That is, if you just do a clean install on a new SSD my understanding is that Windows 10 won't activate and will eventually complain about being unlicensed.
Anyone know if Yoga's hinge can be had for cheap, and replaced so that these cheap machines can be used in tent mode? Looking at the hinge, it looks like it's a shared design with the Yoga. I almost thought the lid would open past 180 degrees when I first opened the box. Maybe it's not worth the time though.
Another thing weird was that if you right click "This PC", "Properties", it'll say it has 2 input touch screen. It doesn't. I've tried smudging my screen with greasy fingers. After updating the monitor driver, it now shows "no pen or touch input ...".
Interested in upgrading the display to and IPS display. Laptopscreen.com has screen replacements for decent prices, and I've replaced LCDs a bunch. Curious what the board compatibility is between this one and the touch ones are.
FYI, I think the LCD may be using a 40-pin connector or a 30-pin eDP connector. I cannot verify this because my unit hasn't arrived yet! Its already in Chicago as of yesterday so i hope it shows up tomorrow by end of day.
It might just be worth the trouble, if:
this is your primary PC
your eyes can't stand the quality of the TN LCD
you currently do not own or have access to an HDMI IPS display
you plan on keeping it for a long time, like more than a year
you can sell the original TN LCD on eBay, Amazon, Wallapop or Craigslist to recoup some of the expense towards the upgrade
I'm telling you, it may be worth the trouble. You sound pretty dissatisfied with the TN LCD and I don't blame you.
Try this (I'm using
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 10568 and AMD Radeon Crimson 15.11 video and chipset drivers but ultimately this is in the same location for previous Catalyst Control Center drivers or Windows 7):
Right-click the desktop and select AMD Radeon Settings
Click on the Display tab
Click on the Additional Settings tab at the top right corner
Click on Display Color (Built-in Display) under the My Built-in Displays options to the left
Finally, check the box under Color Temperature Control to Use Extended Display Identification Data (EDID)
This should help a little bit; if not, feel free to adjust the color settings to your liking
For those whose 11e (AMD) came with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit (or Windows 10 Pro 64-bit):
Is there a Windows 7 Pro product key or Certificate Of Authenticity anywhere on the case? Maybe underneath the access panel? Or even inside the box printed on stock paper?
Is there a Windows 10 Pro product key or Certificate Of Authenticity anywhere on the case? Maybe underneath the access panel? Or even inside the box printed on stock paper?
The reason I ask is because Lenovo and Adorama claim a free upgrade or even downgrade right for those with Windows 8.1/10 and usually that means they've included a product key in the box.
For comparison, I just ran PassMark Performance Test 8 1052 64-bit on my V5-122P (Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 10568 and AMD Radeon Crimson 15.11 video and chipset drivers) and got the following scores (Complete results with all tests executed). A 15W Beema A4-6210 should definitely beat an 8W Temash A6-1450!
At 1.0 GHz, my scores are:
CPU Single Threaded
504 PassMark Rating 691
CPU Mark 1,377
2D Graphics Mark 125.5
3D Graphics Mark 268.6
Memory Mark 471.0
Disk Mark 2,782
At 1.4 GHz, my scores are:
CPU Single Threaded
563 PassMark Rating 801
CPU Mark 1,717
2D Graphics Mark 150.9
3D Graphics Mark 291.7
Memory Mark 494.7
Disk Mark 3,338
Edit: I made a mistake, I was looking at the wrong score. Its pretty amazing that the A4-6210 scores a little higher than that of my old 14" Lenovo ThinkPad E425 even with a
45W A8-3510MX its CPU Single threaded score is only
691! I don't remember it feeling slow when paired with an old Samsung 470 128 GB SSD. Talk about progress. The A4-6210 should perform fine for my daily needs.
You'll know when you get yours. It's one of the worst TN screen I've seen.
I tried playing with color calibration, but it doesn't do much help. (edited what I said about Radeon app crashing. Somehow the automatic update installed the Windows 8 version. After installing Windows 10 version manually, it's working fine.)
Okay, I'll stop making fun of the crap display. It's okay as long as I don't look at any other screens.
Someone mentioned he'll do a re-paste between the CPU and heatsink. I don't think it'll help much unless they did a really poor job. I'm seeing 53C when idle now that the system has pretty much stabilized. CPU usage is 2-3% when idle. If only there were something like Brazos Tool that was used to undervolt the CPU a bit. But these Beema may already be operating very close to threshold voltage.
I just got home from work and unboxed my unit. For $195, this little rugged ThinkPad rocks!
The OEM HDD is a Seagate ST500LM021-1KJ152, and the OEM RAM is Hynix/Hyundai HMT451S6BFR8A-PB.
I actually don't mind the TN LCD, I like it. The part number is B116XTN02.3. I found this in the preboot Lenovo Diagnostics environment so I didn't even have to physically open up anything. As a matter of fact, that environment is very useful and provides a lot of neat information plus diagnostics utilities. Regardless, I've begun the search for an IPS LCD.
Now I regret not having ordered at least one more (at $195).
If you are interested in extracting your Windows 10 license key, along with a lot of other important system information, try the free version of Belarc Advisor. It creates an HTML file that can be copied elsewhere for backup in case you want to use the license key provided by Lenovo.
Just got this laptop and it's great for the price! I got some Kingston 8gb RAM (the one mentioned earlier in this thread). I plan on getting a larger and faster hard drive.
2. Can anyone point me to a tutorial on what to do once I install the new HD? I would prefer to do a clean install of Windows 10 pro that came with the laptop to avoid all the lenovo crap. But I'm not sure where to begin.
I am so unlucky sometimes. I just found out I am getting a new laptop for Christmas! Now what do I do with the Thinkpad? Should I return in to Woot and pay the restocking fee, or should I sell it at a discount? Any other ideas?
Your link is to a 7mm thick SSD which will work with the 11e. Samsung offers data migration software that will let you clone the current HDD contents to the SSD.
I thought the laptop came with Windows 7 Pro. If you have Windows 10 Pro already installed, download an installable Microsoft image from the Internet and install it as a "new" install. It will retrieve the licence as a part of the install process and you will have a clean install.
if you have Windows 7 Pro, run a free upgrade to Windows 10 (saving the downloaded image somewhere other than the PC), then do a reinstall as new from that image.
Thanks for the reply! I got the Woot version with the 120gb SSD and Windows 10 Pro. I don't have anything of substance on the laptop so I want to start as fresh as I can without all the lenovo stuff. I pretty much want a clean windows install. If I download an installable image from USB will it pick up my key from Bios for sure? I don't want to be stuck with trying to get my windows copy validated. Also, will microsoft be able to find the drivers or should I just grab them from somewhere and install them myself?
Microsoft stores Windows 10 keys on their servers once you've connected to the Internet.
Regarding drivers, Windows 10 is usually good about picking up a wide range of drivers from Microsoft if it has a network interface driver. To be safe, you might want to go to the Lenovo support and save the wired or wireless driver to a USB stick before you begin. Worst case, I would suggest downloading the System Update application from Lenovo and letting it find the appropriate Lenovo supplied drivers
If the Christmas laptop is better than the 11e, I'd say returning it to Woot and paying the restocking fee would probably earn you the most money back. If you tried to sell it on your own, you'd be waiting for a buyer, paying seller fees, paying shipping costs and probably seeing less of a return than if you had just paid the restocking fee.
How much is the restocking fee? 10%, 15%, 20%?
If you sold it at a discount, how much are you realistically thinking?
Has anyone had an issue with their mic? Mine stopped working sometime between installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 and running Windows Update. I re-installed the Realtek driver from Lenovo's website and it was fine:
http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds103405
Nice find, I'm tempted by the Woot deal however I would really prefer the Windows 7 Pro + 500GB HDD deal instead. Its certainly a good deal considering it already comes with an SSD even though I already have a Micron 510 128GB SSD of my own. How long will the Woot deal last? I may bite.
On my current 11e, I temporarily replaced the HDD and installed a Micron 510 128GB SSD and a Corsair Vengeance 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CL9 1.5V RAM stick. Both worked fine.
Last week I used Microsoft's Media Creation Tool to download both 10586 Windows 10 Home/Pro 32-bit ISO, 64-bit ISO and both 32/64-bit ISOs in one. I then created a Windows 10 Home/Pro 32/64-bit UEFI FAT32 GPT installation USB using RUFUS.
After installing the SSD and RAM, I plugged in my installation USB and proceeded with the Windows 10 installation. Because my 11e shipped with Windows 7 Pro, I assumed I would need to input the product key to activate Windows 10 Pro once the installation finished and I got to the Desktop with an active internet connection. Nope. What actually happened was that during the installation the installer must've detected a product key from the UEFI BIOS and automatically selected to install Windows 10 Pro, never even giving me the option to install Home, and then once I connected to the internet activate my copy of Windows 10 Pro. I never had to input a product key. It detected it and did it for me somehow. This would be similar to how if your PC shipped with Windows 10 Pro preinstalled, and you went ahead and did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro it will automatically select the Pro edition and self-activate once connected to the internet because it was able to retrieve the product key in the UEFI BIOS.
Does this make sense? I was surprised to see my unit self-activate Windows 10, when I never provided it a key and it was shipped with Windows 7! It caught me off guard, I wasn't expecting that. I've gone ahead and put back my OEM HDD and OEM RAM, and retrieved the Windows 7 Pro product key for safe keeping.
Initially the Windows 10 Pro install went fine, I was able to connect to the internet, I was able to activate, I was able to install AMD Radeon Crimson video and chipset drivers and Windows Update installed all the remaining missing Device drivers. It was only after I installed Lenovo System Update and it found and installed Lenovo specific drivers that my 11e start acting slow, freezing up, being unable to connect to my WiFi and just acting strange. It was fine just before that, so I believe there are bugs in the Lenovo specific drivers and software causing conflicts in Windows 10. This has not occurred in the factory shipped Windows 7 Pro installation, it just works without issue. Here is an
example of someone describing similarly what I experienced. I also remember reading that people on slickdeals and people on this thread were also having WiFi connectivity issues with the Broadcom WLAN/BT adapter and having to revert back to previous driver versions.
I'm going to contact Lenovo and make them aware of this. Feel free to help the cause and call technical support when you encounter this or these issues. The more incidents and problems related to this that technical support receives, the more likely and quickly these issues can be resolved based on occurrence and severity. In this case, its pretty severe considering it prevents a stable WiFi connection altogether and causes system slowdowns, freezing and a general poor user experience.
Edit:
It appears this WiFi issue is an known issue and the workaround has been posted at the new slickdeals woot deal post. See
here!
COMMUNITY WIKI
You will need to downgraded the wifi driver from version v7.17 to v6.30, it's the only way to get WiFi to work, and it's easy to do.
The driver is already installed on the computer. Simply go into device manager and choose WiFi card, then update driver, then click on the "let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer". There you will see the v6.30 driver. Select that driver, restart the wifi (or reboot the computer) and its all good.
PDF from Lenovo showing how to open the case and upgrade parts. Again very easy.
It was a problem I had until I removed the AMD crimson drivers and reverted to the default Windows Update video drivers. If you have the crimson drivers installed without issue, I may give them a second try.
I have the latest AMD Crimson drivers, but I removed crap like QoS service software (forgot the name of it) which seemed to keep crashing my system.
CPU usage is pretty stable when I let it sit for a while. System and compressed memory usage hovers around 4%. Anywhere between 0% to 10% with total memory usage at 60%.
I can feel that the CPU is definitely slow, but not slow as a Netbook slow
The base of the system must be warped a little bit. I can tap the right palm rest area and make a tap tap noise because the rubber feet is not touching the surface all the time. I remember having this problem with a X220T. Poor quality control. But that's what you get for being cheap.
I'm pretty sure these laptops can be sold on Craigslist for at least $250 once the $200 ebay stocks are all sold out.
Hey guys I bought the Samsung 850 Evo to replace the HDD. It doesn't come with a cable, and when I plugged it into my existing external enclosures, Windows 10 nor the Data Migration software are not recognizing it.
I can see it in Disk Management but it's uninitialized. When I try to initialize it, it says "This device is not ready."
Do you guys have any idea what I should do? Do I need a specific cable? Driver?
For those who upgraded to 8GB RAM just because it is cheap (not because you needed to), do you feel the system became any bit snappier?
For general web surfing and Office, I have never seen the memory usage go over 60% on the 4GB model. I'm thinking there is definitely a bottleneck in the CPU performance more than anything else. (I have the Woot version with the SSD)
Not sure if I should upgrade the RAM since I'm not going to run a VM. The most intense use will probably be Plex server for me.
I've got the Adorama 11e with Windows 7, 4GB RAM, and 500GB 7200RPM HDD. For general web surfing and Office, even 2GB/32eMMC would suffice as shown by what's currently trending with 2in1s, netbooks, Chromebooks, and other cloud connected computers in the market. The developers have done a good job in making OSes that don't require a lot of resources or high end components. Then again, the hardware in modern computers has gotten so powerful and efficient that even basic tasks run great on minimal hardware. A good majority of people get by with just their smartphones for many daily activities.
As we've seen, Windows 10 in particular runs really well with minimal hardware. Microsoft states the most basic minimum hardware requirements are:
Processor:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
RAM:
1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
Hard disk space:
16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS
Graphics card:
DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver
Display:
800x600
It's really no surprise you feel you don't even need to upgrade the 4GB RAM. Also, you have an SSD preinstalled which aids in speeding things up in case you start running low on RAM and have to resort to virtual RAM. In my case, if I start running low on RAM, my virtual RAM will be coming from the HDD. Granted SATA SSDs are not as fast as RAM, SATA SSDs are still much faster than SATA HDDs.
Lastly, if you are not exceeding more than 75% of your RAM at all times then you likely don't need more RAM. If you aren't going to be using more than one virtual machine at one time then you probably don't need more RAM. If you aren't running RAM intensive programs like Photoshop, Excel, and Chrome at once then you likely don't need more RAM.
Increasing the RAM won't make your PC slower, but it will make your wallet and bank account a little shorter on funds. Increasing the RAM should make the system more snappy and responsive since it will be less reliant on virtual RAM from slower HDD/SSD media. I would assume more programs can remain cached in RAM too and not be cleared as quickly. Increasing RAM capacity along with using a lower CAS Latency RAM should provide a little increase in responsiveness too, resulting in a slightly snappier system. It also adds a bit of future proofing in case your workloads change or become more reliant on increased RAM.
Is your CPU utilization more than 75% at all times? Why do you think the CPU, being the fastest component in a modern day computer, is the bottleneck?
I understand the SSD is fast, in fact very fast compared to the HDD especially with the seek time, but it's nowhere near the speed of the RAM nor Cache inside the CPU. Yes, the SSD is the single best upgrade and I've been using SSDs when 80GB was $400. But after that, and you have enough memory, and the system still feels slow, then it's the CPU.
On this Thinkpad 11e, even though data is cached inside the RAM, there's a sluggish stuttering happening now and then even while opening Chrome or Acrobat, or even Windows Explorer. That's how I know the system is slow. It can't be the storage system, and it's definitely not the amount of RAM. I can only imagine it's from the CPU. The CPU or APU is really slow for single process loads, which is most of the work that happens on a laptop. To really check whether it's the CPU, you could look at not the CPU total usage, but the single core CPU usage. If you are looking at the total CPU usage, it'll appear as it's only using 25% CPU while it's actually struggling to jug along. Don't get me wrong, I think it's still a useful laptop and it's way faster (okay, maybe 30% faster at single thread - I don't know) than a Atom, but uses more power doing so since AMD is not good with energy efficiency.
Modern CPUs are much better than before, but nowhere close to replace a desktop or laptop, a proper computer. My Galaxy S6 has a very powerful in the mobile world, but I still think there's a long way to go. Web browsing is jerky, apps often times takes some time to load due to unexpected stuttering, it's not as snappy as it could be. Same goes for Apple's iPhone 6S.
I finally received mine today and started playing around with it. I noticed that when I am downloading a huge file (~3GB) over wired ethernet (50 MB/s), the whole system seems to slow down (mouse becomes jumpy, worse with bluetooth mouse). If I download the same big file over WiFi (16 MB/s), I do not see any system slowdown. Anyone experienced this?
Does anyone know if there might be different displays used for different date production? I have a Woot version (Windows 10, 120GB SSD) which has a manufacture date of September 2015. The screen on this one is really dark and colors are washed out. I just got the Adorama (ebay version, with 500GB HDD), and a manufacture date of April 2015. I didn't open it since I might just sell it unopened.
According to the
FRU List for the ThinkPad 11e (MT 20ED, 20EE), there are 5 FRUs listed under the LCD heading. And according to HWiNFO64 my LCD is an AUO B116XTN02.3. Adorama eBay stated it was a 200 nits but the AUO LCD in the FRU List is listed as 220 nit. A bit confusing no?
00HT600 N DISPLAY,11.6” HD TN AG, flat 220nit INX
00HT716 N DISPLAY,AUO 11.6” HD TN AG, slim 220nit
00PA920 N DISPLAY,11.6” HD AG,nontouch,slim200nit
00HM195 N DISPLAY,IVO 11.6"HD TN AG
00HT593 N DISPLAY,11.6” HD TN AG, flat 220nit BOE
I've got the Adorama eBay 500GB HDD version with a "Manufactured for Lenovo Date: 2015-04-10." If you decide to sell it send me a PM.
I got both my units today. I am amazed at the supply chain that can get these to my home for only $195 including a 7200rpm HDD and a 802.11ac WiFi adapter.
One has a B116XTN02.3 LCD while the other has a N116BGE-EA2 and there isn't a difference visible to my eyes.
I'm used to ThinkPads and am liking these though not having Home/End next to PgUp/PgDn is going to take some getting used to.
It was a little weird that the sticker on the bottom says Windows 8 Pro though the loaded OS is Windows 7 Pro.
I uninstalled the Norton trial and installed Windows Security Essentials instead which I've found to be lighter weight.
Both machines are going to run Windows Update overnight since that seems to be sucking up most of the DRAM. Will upgrade to 8GB once those sticks arrive.
Is that two units from Adorama eBay (W7/HDD) or from Woot (W10/SSD)?
You should definitely save your Windows 7 Pro key. Once you overwrite Windows 7, I am not even sure how you would get the key back. On the bottom of my 11e (Adorama, Windows 7 Pro, 500 GB 7200 RPM HDD, 4 GB RAM) there is a Windows 8 Pro sticker and a sticker on the box itself stating that Windows 7 was preinstalled. This leads me to believe there is actually a Windows 8 Pro key in the UEFI.
When I installed Windows 10 Pro on spare SSD, I didn't have to enter a key at all. The installer selected Pro, and self-activated once connected to the internet. The Windows 7 Pro key is not used to activate Windows 10 Pro on a clean installation. My untested hypothesis is that a clean installation of Windows 10 Pro will use the Windows 8 Pro key in the UEFI instead, and that's how it knew to select Pro edition and self-activate after an internet connection to the MS server was established.
I will test and verify this hypothesis by performing a clean install of Windows 8 Pro on a spare SSD I have laying around. If it auto-selects Pro edition and self-activates Windows 8 Pro, then for sure that is the key in the UEFI, not the Windows 7 Pro key that comes on the HDD. If you care not for Windows 7, then i guess it doesn't really matter. For me however, I require Windows 7 for a computer class I am in right now so I need to keep it.
Edit: In the box of my W7/500GB HDD 11e is included a pamphlet that states; "Windows 8 Pro, Recovery Media Entitlement, Your computer is preinstalled with the Windows 7 Professional operating system through the downgrade rights of the Windows 8 Pro license. If you want to obtain media to replace Windows 7 Professional with Windows 8 Pro on your computer, you can request media from the following Website:
http://www.lenovo.com/lenovorecovery Additional shipping and handling fees might apply."
I just opened the box and the laptop looks really clean. Doesnt look rugged to me at all. Very simple/minimal looking laptop. I am pretty bummed that I cancelled my second order for my fiance since I thought it would be too ugly but it looks totally fine. Maybe ill get her a laptop next year..
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
