Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

I pointed out near the beginning of this thread the shareholder discount is 15% (at that time they had another 5% on top of that). Buy 1 share in your IRA, no haggling needed.

 

yeah i am very interested to know that too.

my w510 stays silent on certain setting but once load goes up it stays on fan1 with 2000 to 3000 rpm.

i think if they keep fan1 with 1800 rpm which will be difficult to catch even if room is silent. But I am kind of sure graphics card is another source of heat (reading figure shows it goes close to 48 to 50) I think lower the FHD screen brightness also make difference & room temp etc..

 

But how do they verify the shareholder status? They surely do not just believe people stating they are shareholders

 

i think they have website to use the status not sure phone call will do in this case

 

1. How often do you do backups? It's easier. RAID is mostly for techy nerds like us. It isn't a mainstream request but now that there are three potential hdd/ssd targets, it might be used more.
2. There is very little junk installed and you can opt out of the non Lenovo stuff on 1st boot.

 

How important is the data on your PC? The importance of data can go a long way in helping you determine if you need to back it up—as well as when and how it should be backed up. For critical data, such as a database, you'll want to have redundant backup sets that extend back for several backup periods. For less important data, such as daily user files, you won't need such an elaborate backup plan, but you'll need to back up the data regularly and ensure that the data can be recovered easily.

Bottom line: have more than 1 external drive for your backup plan. I set a appointment in Outlook to remind me every 10 days to do my data back-up. I prefer a manual vs a automatic backup plan.

 

That's the config I want too. I need the 2000M for Pro/e and SolidWorks and I plan on using this comp for atleast 5 years. Did you happen to get the Color Sensor upgrade? Need a couple more posts so I can PM you to get your sales rep info.

Cheers,
James

 

I didn't get the color sensor upgrade because I have an external calibration device. I've had 5 people PM me so far and I usually respond within a few hours. The sales rep sent me an email response today reiterating that she'd offer the same deal to others.

 

hrana, Perry

Thanks for the responses/information. I've took the plunge and ordered the W520 from the UK Lenovo reseller Hemini - can post details if any UK users are interested.

Still wondering about the mSATA drive; is it installed in the PCI express WWAN slot inside the machine? And if mobile broadband is added as an option is the slot filled such that the mSATA SSD can't be installed?

Otherwise, any thoughts on what is the best SSD drive to go with? Is there any advantage of using mSATA instead of 2.5" SSD in the primary bay. I am aware of the mSATA 3gbps limitation as opposed to 6gbps 2.5" SATA III max; will this translate into improved performance? I have read poor reviews of the new Intel 320 series SSD drives. I would like to keep noise down on the machine and if the HDD is used in the ultrabay slot I suppose it can be removed when its use is not required.

 

Actually... I do (near) real-time backup (with this stuff)

The reason I asked was that I was curious if there were any known problems with RAID controllers being unreliable or some other obscure reason why so few people in this thread appear to be opting for data redundancy option. To me it's an absolute must.

Thanks, great to know that.

 

Yes, please post your config.

Yes, that is my understanding but I don't have my laptop yet. You either get the WWAN module or the mSATA drive. Maybe the current owners with the machine in hand can verify this information. I don't see this as a huge loss because I usually use my smartphone as a wifi hotspot or I could use a USB dongle for WWAN access.

Anandtech did some great reviews.

Intel 310 mSATA Preview: Intel's SSD 310: G2 Performance in an mSATA Form Factor
Intel 320 SSD Review: The Intel SSD 320 Review: 25nm G3 is Finally Here
Intel 510 SSD Review: The Intel SSD 510 Review

OCZ Vertex 3 Pro: OCZ Vertex 3 Pro Preview: The First SF-2500 SSD
OSZ Vertex 3: The OCZ Vertex 3 Review (120GB)

I'd suggest reading all 5 reviews because it will answer your questions.

The 320 is not a benchmark queen but they work beautifully and are reliable. Read the Anandtech reviews and make up your mind on what's important for you.

 

hrana,

Thanks I will read the reviews. I am tempted to go with an mSATA in the WWAN slot (quite sure it goes there, looks like installation requires removal of the battery pack, DIMM slot cover and keyboard [page 73-75 of the hardware maintenance manual]).

My spec is as follows, and I will be adding 4-8gb RAM and an SSD:

Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Model Type 4276CTO
3 Year Depot Warranty
Processor: Intel Core i7-2720QM Processor (2.20GHz, 6MB L3)
Operating system: Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
Operating system language: Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 English
Display type: 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) LED Backlit Anti-Glare Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
System graphics: NVIDIA Quadro 2000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
Color sensor: No Color Sensor
Total memory: 4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
Keyboard: Keyboard UK English
Pointing device: UltraNav with TrackPoint & touchpad plus Fingerprint reader
Camera: 720p Camera
Storage subsystem: Internal RAID - Not Enabled
Hard drive: 500 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Optical device: DVD recordable multiburner
System expansion slots: Express Card Slot & 4 in 1 Card Reader
Battery: 9 cell Li-Ion Battery - 55++
Power cord: Country Pack United Kingdom with Line cord & 170W AC adapter
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 3.0
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters: Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (3x3 AGN)
Integrated mobile broadband: Integrated Wireless Wide Area Network upgradable
Language pack: Language Pack UK English

Subtotal £1470.00
Delivery £20.00
VAT (20%) £298.00
Total £1,788.00

 

Awesome. What was your Final Out the Door price and estimated time till you receive it? Also what is the TPP you have listed that they threw in?

 

harana can you please pm me the info of the rep. Iam new to this forum and the system is not letting me pm people. Thanks

 

Congrats on the purchase! VAT really kills the price. Based on exchange rates today you paid about $2922.48! Still, it's not a bad deal consider how expensive electronics tend to be in the UK.

Final out the door price was about $1909. Ship date is listed as 4/21/2010 (it slipped by one day). TPP is the accidental damage coverage. I would never buy it if I was paying for it but since they threw it in for free I'll take it. More info here.

I can't PM you just yet. It's probably because your account is too new. Why don't you participate a bit more and I'll happily sent it to you once you're able to PM me.

 

Luckily I will be able to claim the VAT back through my business. Considering that the electronics are bang up to date (Sandybridge; W520 released today in the UK) the price isn't too bad.

I was going to purchase the same spec (would have included an extra 4gb RAM) from newthinkpads eBay seller;

LENOVO THINKPAD W520 i7-2720QM, 1920 x 1080, FHD, 2000M | eBay UK

That would have worked out at; $1999 (£1,223.22 + £244.64 VAT) + $110.45 delivery (£67.58) = £1535.44 ($2509.41)

However they have none in stock at present. So an extra £250.00 ish for a UK machine.

Still got to spend another £400 odd to get the other bits I need - I'm tempted to pull the trigger on a 160gb Vertex 3 drive but not 100% on compatibility.

 

Oki doki. Canadian reality if anyone's interested:

Price on the public web site - $2069
Price over the phone - $1758
Price over the phone with shareholder's discount - $1495

There is 12% tax on top of that, but still - Wow, just wow. These were the most cost-effective 5 minutes I spent on hold ever.

 

Is Quadro 2000M better than 2800M?

 

whats your config what this about a shareholders discount

I recently got a quote over there online chat system debating whether to take it or not (have until 6 tommorow) w520 the quad core version with the following upgrades quadro 2000 500 gig hard drive and 6 gigs of ram 1552.18 (+13% tax on top of it) (website price was 2029)

 

The config:

Processor: Intel Core i7-2720QM (Quad-Core) Processor (2.20GHz, 6MB L3,1333MHz FSB) with Intel Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.3GHz
Operating system: Genuine Windows 7 Professional (64 bit)
Windows XP Mode: Windows 7 XP Mode - English
Display type: 15.6" FHD (1920x1080) LED Backlit Anti-Glare display, with Wireless WAN Antenna
System graphics: NVIDIA Quadro 1000M Optimus Graphics technology (2GB)
Total memory: 4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
Pointing device: UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) Fingerprint Reader, Smart Card Reader
Storage subsystem: Primary SATA RAID 1
Hard drive: RAID HDD, 320GB, 7200rpm
Optical device: RAID via Bay Adapter
Battery: 9 Cell 2.8Ah Li-Ion Battery
Power cord: 170W Slim AC Adapter - North America, Latin America (2pin)
Bluetooth: Broadcom Bluetooth 3.0 with antenna
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters: ThinkPad 1x1 b/g/n

The shareholder discount - I have some IBM shares in my portfolio, so I asked the sales rep if that gives me an access to a discount. He said "yes" and applied the discount.

 

Yea, losing data even one time makes you a little paranoid about the matter. I certainly don't blame you. If my W520 had RAID, I would certainly be testing it, but at the hardware level with the Intel controller, not software based.

 

hmm wonder if it would be worth it to buy a share just to get a discount

 

Are you sure you don't own one already through a mutual fund or an ETF?

 

That's what I'm trying to figure out. Looking through my mutual funds and 401k
right now.

 

I dont know may have to check with my financial guy

I was looking and my deal is not really a deal now if I order through visaperks.ca I get the same price.

visaperks.ca - Lenovo - Pay with your Visa card and save up to 35% says you can save up to 35% of select thinkpads however when I configured my system through the site and inputted the code it gave a 15% discount which actually was the same as the chat quote I was given (although I noticed the upgrades were slightly cheaper so that may equal more) because going through visaperks.ca the configuration was only 1826.10 (1552.18 after using CAXVISASPR11 discount code given on visaperks.ca) MAybe I will see if they can do better

 

Ship date 4/20. What else is everyone going to do when they get theirs? The first on my list is to mess around with OpenGL and the on board tessellation support

 

Nvidia ranks the 2000m below the 2800m

NVIDIA Quadro FX ? Professional workstation graphics cards and solutions for workstations

 

The 2000M supports DX11 while the 2800M only supports DX10.

2800M is based on the Geforce 9800M GT / G92 core while the 2000M is Fermi architecture (probably GF104 or GF106). Plus the 2000M supports Optimus which will help the battery life of the laptop.

 

Hrana: My specs are

4270CTO THINKPAD W520 - 1 YR DEPOT TOPSELLER WARRANTY
0A68541 SBB ICI7-2720QM
45M3090 VBB GENUWIN7PROFES.64
0A68625 SBB GW7P64 E
75Y0162 SBB M W7 XP MD- E
0A68535 SBB 15.6FHD (1900 X 1080) LED
0A68893 SBB NVQ1000M GR
75Y0175 VBB COLORSENSOR
45M4572 VBB 4GBPC3-10600DDR3 1333SODMM
45M4839 SBB KEYBOARDUS ENGLISH
0A68526 VBB FINGERPRINT READER
0A68558 SBB 720P HD CAM INT MICR
0A69620 SBB I RAID-NOT EN
0A68553 SBB 500GB HDD7200RPM
0A68547 SBB DVD RC8XMXDLLRULTEHATA
0A68529 VBB ECS+4IN1CR
45M4816 SBB 9CELLLI-ION BATTERY
0A68904 SBB CPNAMLC+ 170W AC AD
0A68261 SBB BLUETOOTH 3.0
45M4805 SBB IN.CENTADV.-N+WIMAX 6250
44C7950 SBB INT WRLSSWDAREANTWRK UPGR
0A68564 SBB LANG PCK US E

Price: $1,567.40
Tax: $109.72
Total: $1,677.12

The price is with a corporate discount. Now I am wondering if I should have asked about shareholder discount (of course have to check if we own any IBM stock).

 

Please, no pics of you tessellating.

 

Darn, I was just working on those pics too ...

 

I figured I didn't need to state the obvious to someone that has lost data. I learned the lesson a couple of decades ago. In that lesson, we had backups. They just weren't any good and we almost lost an entire YEAR of data. Thankfully I saved our butts and we ended up only losing two weeks worth.

I backup all my machines weekly. I keep redundant copies of my data in the clear as well.

But I don't trust everything to RAID. If you do, you will get burned unless you are careful.

 

Really. There are only two kinds of computer users:

The ones who have needed their backups, and the ones who will.

 

Maybe three I don't store any personal information on my computer. The only information I store is a resume on a thumb drive, never had a problem

 

Apparently you only need 1 share. Does anyone know how much a share costs?

 

For the people that have theirs, how's your keyboards? Are they nice and solid?

 

What if your thumb drive fail on you?

 

Also curious on the battery life with the 9-cell.

 

They believed me. I do own 1 share, but I didn't actually have to prove it (unless they could somehow check with just my name and address...my 1 share is in my IRA account through one of the large online brokers). I chose to buy an HP in end, but I still have the 1 share and I still can login to order through SPP.

 

I did it, got my order in this morning...

4270CT CONFIGURED SYSTEM
0A68541 SBB ICI7-2720QM
45M3090 VBB GENUWIN7PROFES.64
0A68625 SBB GW7P64 E
0A68535 SBB 15.6FHD (1900 X 1080) LED
0A68894 SBB NVQ2000M GR
75Y0175 VBB COLORSENSOR
45M4572 VBB 4GBPC3-10600DDR3 1333SODMM
45M4839 SBB KEYBOARDUS ENGLISH
0A68526 VBB FINGERPRINT READER
0A68558 SBB 720P HD CAM INT MICR
0A69620 SBB I RAID-NOT EN
0A68552 SBB 320GB HDD7200RPM
0A68547 SBB DVD RC8XMXDLLRULTEHATA
0A68528 VBB ECS+4IN1CR+SCR
45M4816 SBB 9CELLLI-ION BATTERY
0A68904 SBB CPNAMLC+ 170W AC AD
0A68261 SBB BLUETOOTH 3.0
45M4804 SBB IN.CENT.ULTIMATE-N 6300
44C7950 SBB INT WRLSSWDAREANTWRK UPGR
0A68564 SBB LANG PCK US E
0A68561 SBB SMART CARD READER
41C9168 3YR Onsite

Final price before tax = $1733.36
Ship date expected in 10 days.

The sales guy was able to apply an additional 15% secret discount code that he would not tell me when asked. He said he didn't know about it at first, until he put me on hold for serveral minutes and came back with the additional discount. It was $2,039.25 when he first quoted me. He said it is a limited time discount code, so it may expire anytime in the near future.

This will be the best laptop I ever have.
Now I can sleep and wait patiently.....

 

That translate to about $2912 USD. That is quit expensive.
.

 

Closed at $163.95 today. I bought mine over a yer ago for $126.27. Of course if you don't want to hold onto it, you can certainly sell it and just be out the transaction costs. I wish I had bought more shares myself.

 

I tried the US Visa deal but the ECOUPONS10 coupon code had it beat. You just have to play with the numbers. As a rule, whenever I order computer equipment I call in. Usually 5-10 minutes on hold and being cordial will net something above the website price.

I'm 4/21. First thing I'm going to do is image the hard drive even before turning it on. That way I can always go back to the "new" state without dealing with recovery disks. Then I'll end up getting everything set up.

That's not bad. I paid $230 more than you and got the 3 year on-site and protection package along with the Quadro 2000.

Agree. RAID is not backup. RAID is a continuity system. Backups are always key and hard drives are so cheap these days that there is no excuse not to do it.

I've posted this link on W520 battery life before. I'm sure we'll get some more real-world data from everyone in this thread soon.

Congrats. I'm sorry we weren't able to PM but it looks like you got almost the same system as me. It sounds like calling in is the trick with the W520. Everyone is getting great discounts.

It's the UK. Electronics are quite pricey there but it's still a good deal. He'll get the VAT back I'm sure.

 

Quadro 2000m benchmarks have been posted on notebookcheck.net

NVIDIA Quadro 2000M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

Their link to my 3DMark 06 score is wrong.

 

is the ultrabay battery iii compatible with w520 and what real world times can we expect.

 

Hey all:

Seriously looking into this notebook for Solidworks - to replace my aging desktop and also because I travel for work a fair bit.

Everything looks well thought out and these posts (this entire thread!) have been reallyinformative. The other notebook that I'm looking into is the Dell M4600, but of course it's not out yet and the spec's on the W520 seem to be really, really dialed (plus, I've broken two sets of hinges on Dell notebooks over the past few years!).

Anyway - one question: Screen resolution:

I see that most people are going with FHD - are their any concerns that at 15.6" it's going to be hard on the eyes? I mean the upgrade to FHD from 1600 x 900 (already a nice resolution at 15.6") is $180 (list of course) and for around $200 - 250 you can buy a decent Samsung 24" FHD monitor. Sure, you can't take it with you, but it's certainly going to be way nicer to use when you're actually doing work.

Anyway, some thoughts on these two options (1600 x 900 vs FHD) would be great if any one has experience.

As I mentioned, the main use is going to be for CAD work, so perhaps the FHD will be better - just worried that the menus are going to be tiny at that resolution @ 15.6" diag.

Oh ya - for Canadian Customers - does calling in generally seem to get the most competitive pricing?

Thanks!

 

I think the first order of business for most people is deciding how much the FHD panel will get used. Mine rarely does when it's docked. My notebook is docked a lot. I use several external monitors connected to the dock.

My opinion on the FHD screen is that it's configurable to the user's taste and the most flexible option.

1920x1080 at 100% DPI is too small for many people. I run mine at a DPI of 115-125% most of the time when using the actual FHD panel.

You can also set the resolution down to 1600x900. It isn't quite as clear since it isn't the native res, but it's still there as an option.

You can't however go up from the 1600x900 native res panel. You are stuck there unless using an external panel. That panel and res is perfectly fine for my eyes when using the laptop panel. If that was the selection my company made I could certainly live with it.

 

That's the problem... it's not out yet. The leaked specs suggest the M4600 will have these video card options:

AMD FirePro M5950 1GB GDDR5
NVIDIA Quadro 1000M 2GB GDDR5
NVIDIA Quadro 2000M 2GB GDDR5

I suspect the nVidia video RAM chip type info is wrong.

Where the M4600 might be better is the "15.6" White-LED and RGB-LED LCD options + Touch-Screen option" but, again, we don't know what Dell will end up releasing. If you can wait another 3 weeks then they might be out by then. I suspect Lenovo is trying to snatch up as many customers as possible with these deals before the Dell release.

I used a Dell Precision M60 for 8 years at 1920x1200. I consider the 1920x1080 resolution to be a bit of a downgrade to be quite honest. For me it's all about screen real estate. For aging eyes, you can always set Windows to 120DPI. It's not perfect but it works. Here's some data on the screens:

15.6" (396mm) HD+ (1600x900) color, anti-glare, LED backlight, 220 nits, 16:9 aspect ratio, 500:1 contrast ratio, 60% Gamut

15.6" (396mm) FHD (1920x1080) color, anti-glare, LED backlight, 270 nits, 16:9 aspect ratio, 500:1 contrast ratio, 95% Gamut

Getting an external monitor is also a great idea but, like you said, it won't be portable.

 

Can anyone clarify again whether those of us ordering the " Integrated Mobile Broadband" will be able to use the WWAN with mSATA? There seems to be a bit of ambiguity on this.