Lenovo W510 Owner's Thread

fhd pictures coming!







of course it looks better in person (picture > sharp screen) than here (picture > screen > amateur picture > screen that youve got)

 

correct, you can get it cheaper of ebay and insert it yourself I saw 7.2mb pci for about 50$?! with GPS it goes up to 100+ depending on type."sierra" is the best IMHO.

 

That's very nice, and I agree that for almost all photographs and movies the colors are awesome.
But we still want icc profiles....

 

At this time, in my opinion, "no." Currently the card they have in there is only compatible with AT&T. Though I had one in my W500 for Verizon and loved it, went with an ExpressCard this time for the W510 (still on the Verizon contract) that I got on eBay for about $25.

I'd prefer the internal card and don't like the USB dongles (stick out too far, people clip them - always worried about them snapping off in the port), so went with the ExpressCard as the compromise.

 

As i know, W510 come with 4 Slot for Memory.

My Orginal Config is 1 dimm of 2 GB.

I´m planning to buy 2 stick of 2x2 GB sodimm, since 1x 4gb mem is too expensive.

So, will it work fine with 6gb ( 2 +2 +2 gb )memory well ??

Thanks

 

@aperture science: Those pictures look very nice! At least from the pictures, I don't really see any oversaturation or anything of the sort. Now if only my T500 had that screen...

Yes, that will work fine, and given the price of 4GB single DIMMs, it's probably a better idea.

 

I fail to see a reason to go for 6GB. Unless you are a pro graphics designer, VT tester etc. you don't need more than 4GB.
You can fill 3 slots for sure and it will work (slightly slower though, but you won't notice).

 

Hi all,

Starting medical school in August, so I just ordered a W510 to last me for the next four plus years. I do have a concern and it's regarding the weight of the machine, since I'll be lugging this beast from 9am to 5pm daily as I move from lecture halls to class rooms etc. How heavy is this baby (I know that the Lenovo website has a specified weight, but I'd like to know from real world experience)?

Here is my configuration:
60Y6082 SBB INQUADCORPERFPROC I7 720QM
45M3090 VBB GENUWIN7PROFES.64
45M4918 SBB G.WIN.7PROF64US ENGLISH
45M4595 SBB 15.6HD+ANTI-GLW/LEDBKLIGH
60Y6084 SBB NVNVSXXXD.1GBDDR3W/INAMTCH
75Y0175 VBB COLORSENSOR
42X6306 VBB 2GBPC3-8500 1067MHZ1DIMM
45M4839 SBB KEYBOARDUS ENGLISH
75Y0171 VBB ULNAVTRPOITOUPADFINGREADER
45M4631 SBB CAMERA(2.0 MP)
45M4617 SBB 320GB H.DISKDRIVE7200RPM
45M4608 SBB MULT.RECORD.OPTDRIVE12.7MM
75Y0174 VBB EXPCARSL+5IN1CARREAD
45M4816 SBB 9CELLLI-ION BATTERY
45M4636 SBB CNTPKNRHAMWTLNCR+135WACAD.
45M3043 SBB BLUETOOTH W/ANTENNA
45M4804 SBB IN.CENT.ULTIMATE-N 6300
44C7950 SBB INT WRLSSWDAREANTWRK UPGR
45M4676 SBB LANGUAGEPACK US ENGLISH

My estimated shipping date is 5/7/2010 and I was wondering if it can be any sooner. How much extra is the FHD option should it become avaliable again? Thanks all!

Do you think the reason for this delayed shipping date is because Lenovo is working on a revision to the current W510 motherboard? I've read on many accounts of those who are experiencing technical issues with their W510 due to motherboard malfunctions.

 

Don't worry about the weight, IMHO. 2.76kg is not too heavy to be bothered by.
PLUS the 0.67kg PSU. I'd worry more about the battery life.

 

I've read from various posts in this forum that the expected battery life with a 9-cell is more than 4 hours. Is that accurate?

 

I can't confirm it yet, but since the system doesn't have switchable graphics and the FX880M is quite power hungry + the i7s (45W) - I seriously doubt in 4hrs.
Here they talk about 1hr 20min with just surfing the web.

 

But that's with the 57Wh 6-cell battery. The 9-cell battery is 94Wh - so, extrapolated from their 1 hr 20 minute mark, that would be about 2 hours and 12 minutes.

NBR's review, though, got 4 hours 30 minutes while web surfing at 70% screen brightness, so clearly, YMMV.

@cytochromes: I often carry around my T500 with a 9-cell battery and A/C adapter in a separate laptop bag, and while it's not too bothersome, after a while I do start wishing I had an X200s

Seeing as the W510 has a heavier A/C adapter, I'd imagine that it's probably a bit heavier than my T500 - personally, I wouldn't recommend such a large machine for lugging around to lecture halls every day, but I know a few people who do without too much issue.

 

Still, even with the 9-cell, I find it's hard to believe the 4.5hrs. Anyway, I'm getting my system in 2 days and will make another review, so stay tuned.

 

Looking forward to your review.

@MidnightSun: I need a big screen.

Do any of you know how easy it would be to cancel my order before the estimated ship date? Would I be charged a fee or any sort?

Addendum: The Lenovo W510 product page produces an error page. Strange.... I wonder what's brewing... It is a monday over in China.

 

Canceling the order shouldn't be a problem, not sure about the restocking fee policy in that case though. But let me ask you, do you really need a pro graphics card? Are you gonna work with CAD and similar programs? If not, consider getting a T-series with switchable graphics and much better battery life. And lighter of course.

 

I was looking into the T510 as well, but decided against it because I figured I'd be future proofing myself with the USB 3.0 that is currently in the W510 and not in the T510. Aside from that, I really have no reason to choose W510 over the T510. Kinda silly how one small feature swayed me away.

 

I was swayed by the same little feature, lol. But it's gonna be possible to purchase a usb 3.0 board and replace the older board by yourself,... I hope (ex. Dell Precision M6500)

 

You can always get an express card USB3.0 adapter if the standard ever does become prevalent enough.

For example:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/09/buffalo-outs-usb-3-0-expresscard-adapter-we-see-a-trend-coming/

.

 

You should be able to cancel your order easily anytime before it ships with no consequences. Even if it does ship, you can still return it with no additional charges (although you may have to pay return shipping, not sure on this point) if the package is unopened. Only when it has been opened do you have to pay the 15% restocking fee.

That's a good point, although the T510 is pretty much physically identical to the W510, and will weigh the same. It does not have switchable graphics (only the Tx00 series does, and possibly the T410s), but its weaker less-power-hungry graphics card will give you much better battery life.

Seeing as the T510 has eSATA anyway, and that external hard drives will really be the only devices that can take advantage of USB 3.0's bandwidth at the moment, I don't think not having USB 3.0 is a real dealbreaker. An eSATA external hard drive will work just as fast through the eSATA port as it will through USB 3.0, so you're not losing anything there. Plus, the T510 will give you better battery life (and will be a fair bit cheaper too).

EDIT: pstrisik's suggestion is good too - if you really do find you need USB 3.0 later, you could always use an ExpressCard adapter.

It would be difficult/impossible and very costly to replace the system board with a USB 3.0 capable one, though, if it ever is available for the T510.

 

If that's the case then it's a T510 all the way for me! Let me research some more and will report back if it's possible for the T510 to be upgraded with a USB 3.0. Thanks for the tip!

Thank you guys for your replies!

 

Please stop confusing people by saying less RAM is better (its wrong)

More RAM better! allways was and allways will be!

i.e 2gb was laggy in vista?and 3gb gave enough room.(fact)

same would go for 4GB current mainstream minimum. like it was for 2gb minimum few years back.

so throwing in 6GB will make things snappier. and will give breathing room for other apps.

now I think swapping main board in a laptop is total nonsense only to upgrade the 2 USB 3.0 ports? there are good technicians on this thread that were laughing hard I recon like myself LOL^^

 

of course then you'd have to run a x64 OS to take advantage of all that RAM.

 

Thanks for the answer and the suggestion. i will search some single 4GB cheaper.

 

When you got 4 slots, you can upgrade when it's really necessary. It's gonna be cheaper as well. Most memory demanding apps will also put your i7 on its knees (like virtualization). So don't see a reason for the outburst.

 

How do you figure that "Most memory demanding apps will also put your i7 on its knees"? The i7 is a Nehalem CPU, which are simply amazing at many things. I am running a bunch of dual CPU, quad core Nehalem servers (8 total cores) and they are absolute screamers. On a laptop I don't expect the same performance as a server like that, but they should do very well. Unless you know something I don't?

 

Well, try running 4 VMWare OS instances at once and you will see the limit of the mobile i7s and 4GB of RAM.
I totally agree with you btw, my point was that if you stress the system so much as to make 4GB insufficient you'll probably bring the processor to its knees as well,
- both very unlikely

 

Has anyone figured out away to use a standard (non-usb) headset with the single mic and headphone port?

is there some kind of adapter that would work (or is it totally impossible)

also
what is the best 15" laptop cooler?

 

Well my T60p is going in for repairs for the 3rd time in the last year or so, my Asus is RMA'd and my W510 has no ETA. I'm down to my work Dell.

 

So you ordered one as well?
Join the club,...for now, hehe. What next - HP?

 

Is it possible to configure that ThinkVantage icons on toolbar looks smaller?

Regards

 

ok I forgot about people who buy i7 quad core with 4 DDR3=16GB! ram slots to run windows 98 on it?... my bad

 

I ordered through Laptop Authority hoping they had a predetermined amount already on order. I talked to them today and that is not the case. As soon as I ordered through them they place the order through lenovo which means it's not coming in anytime soon so I canceled it. I have no idea what's next. The only thing I know for sure is it won't have a chiclet keyboard and will have a RGBLED screen.

Applications can force someone's hand. For instance my work VPN client does not support a 64bit OS.

 

maybe but still shocking never the less!

 

W701? M6500?

 

How about the M4500 whenever that gets released.

 

I get a kick out of the pictures posted of the FHD....... you guys realize that a picture of a 95 percent AdobeRGB monitor taken with a (more then likely) sRGB camera and then displayed on your sRGB monitor at home will look NOTHING like it does in person right?

I just don't want people to assume what they are seeing in pictures is accurate. Welcome to the world of color management.

 

You should pretty much be going 64-bit now all the time unless there's a real specific reason not to, like old hardware or really old legacy applications.

If you're talking about the Cisco VPN client, take a look at shrew VPN. It's free, supports 64-bit, and is compatible with IPsec Cisco VPN.

 

I want a FirePro

 

I am using the 64-bit Cisco VPN client for Windows on my W510. It is a beta, but it works perfectly. I was shocked that Cisco would take so long to come out with a 64-bit version.

 

Yeah, it's gotta get approved by our security czar first. Since I'm the only one that's been complaining it's not taking much of a priority.

 

You can always install the 32 bit client in Windows XP mode. There are of course issues with this, as all of the applications you would need to use to access things over the VPN would need to also be installed in the XP Mode environment.

You could just use the 64 bit Cisco VPN client beta. They wouldn't really know, unless they really looked at their logs to see what client version you were using.

 

This, of course, assumes the security czar has granted him the ability to install his own applications, which isn't always the case in a corporate environment! In fact, it's usually NOT the case, unless you're in IT (and even then it can be a huge fight to get those privs).

 

Don't worry about me and my vpn issue. I still have a work laptop that's 32bit. When I put in for the Covet M6500 I'll worry about it.

 

I tried to find an adapter but no avail. Closest thing would be to use a headset from a cellphone (supposedly applephone), but I couldn't find any of those (cable-based) either, at least not locally. They have such cheap headsets at overstock.com and dealextreme, but I didn't try those.

For now, I ended up making by bluetooth headset work.

 

I got a call from Lenovo. Apparently, they're willing to replace my laptop, which has been sitting in the depot since the beginning of the month.

However, the build they're listing is HD+, where mine was FHD.


Of course, I won't downgrade to that....but what's the current state of affairs on FHD non-multitouch? If I have to, I'll fight for the FHD + MT screen just so I can have the FHD.

 

Last time I checked it was still out of stock (this morning). I ordered my system a day after the FHD was gone from the website, so had to go with HD+.Dunno if it worth waiting that long. If their HD+ is not enough for me, - will sell the machine and buy one with a better screen down the road.

 

Etymotic HF2. Fantastic headset in its own right just for stereo listening on a walkman, in adddition to being useful for Skype, iphone or any other 3.5mm jack that combines mic+lineout.
http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/hf2.aspx

 

that thing looks like very invasive drill to me

 

Yup. After multiple flights in the past five weeks 2:15, 2:30 is about right.

 

So any Iphone (type) headset will work?

there must me some way to make this work