Lenovo x220 Tablet worth it for engineering student?

I'm going to college for engineering in the fall and I was looking at the lenovo x220 tabet because the tablet mode/handwritting would be useful for equations and diagrams and whatnot, it has good battery life, the reviews show excellent performance and lenovo thinkpads are built like tanks so it should be able to last me all four years. But it's a decently expensive laptop, over $1400 for the i5 model and I know I could get another i5 laptop with decent performance for less without the touchscreen/tablet mode. So would it be worth the extra money for an engineering student to get this tablet?

 

Just wondering have you ever used a tablet? This is something you should first try to play around with, I have found them to be very hit or miss.... (not the laptop, but peoples opinion of them)

 

Any X series tablet with Microsoft OneNote is awesome for handwritten notes. If you end up typing and not using the tablet mode though, it's bigger and heavier than the normal X200/01/20 laptop and a waste.

 

Agree with bogatyr.

If you end up not using the x220t in tablet mode much - you're much better off just getting a non-tablet x200 series.

I had a tablet for a while in college and preferred writing in notebooks. It's not like notebooks are terrible heavy anyway.

 

No I have not personally used a tablet but I love touchscreens in general on phones and such and I've seen videos of people demonstrating with different tablets and I'm pretty positive that I would like it and would make use of the handwriting for equations and diagrams like I said with Microsoft onenote. Just not sure if I want to spend that much money...

 

Please forgive my possible dated advice as I wore a slide rule on my belt in undergraduate school.

However I would think a little more processing power would be helpful. What type of engineering?

Anything that uses software that is calculation intensive needs a bit more power.

Some advice from the school would likely be most helpful. Likely way more helpful than advice from here.

 

I disagree. Even the dual-core i5 has plenty of power for most purposes. If you really are going to run into a truly intensive task, the university most likely will give you access to their computing resources.

Secondly, depends on the task. The i5 and i7 are already clocked at respectable speeds. More power would only come in the form of quad core, which not all software fully takes advantage of (nor will they in the future, for technical reasons).

Also, as someone who's used this for about a month already, it is plenty fast. (Specs below in sig) The pen works for the most part, dead zones near the edges. I mainly use Onenote w/ the tablet and that has worked out. I just need to get used to how to efficiently navigate the onenote menus and choose the appropriate pen/hand tool/lasso/etc. The multitouch is also nice, because of how Windows differentiates between the two types of input. In onenote, the input coming from the pen will default to the pen tool, whereas the input from the multitouch device will default to the hand (drag/zoom) tool, which is nice for quickly navigating your notes without having to explicitly click into a different tool.

Battery life is great. 6 hours or so with regular use (not going for super crazy life so maybe there are tweaks I haven't tried). Its light, tablet screen feels sturdy. All in all no complaints.

 

I'm going into my 3rd year of engineering. Out of the ~200 classmates in my discipline, I've only known 2 people to use a tablet to take notes. It's a personal preference for sure, but a pen and paper just seems easier..

As for how much computing power you really need, it depends on which discipline you are going into, but in general they won't require you to own a powerful computer. You'll likely be doing most computer-related assignments at a computer lab anyway. I'm in ECE (electrical and computer) and the most CPU intensive programs I use are quartus and matlab, and even they ran fine (albeit with some intermittent waiting) on my old T4300 CPU.

 

First of all, I have a lot of friends in engineering, and from what I'm told you don't need a lot of power.

Second of all, ever heard of LaTeX? Typing is faster than writing by hand. I'm doing math, and I plan to TeX all my notes.

 

I like this video from the U of M website in which a med student (yes I know you're engineering, but his words may ring true for you too):

Medical Curriculum for the MD Degree :: University of Michigan Medical School

Basically, he explains how he's a visual learner and found taking notes on a tablet very helpful and efficient. Personally I think if I were in school I'd be old fashioned and take notes on a notepad and use a regular laptop even though I understand the benefits of a electronic pen input with a tablet. You just have to know yourself and preferences, sounds like you might enjoy using a Tablet PC though.

 

I agree with you. However, sometime, being able to write down is nicer. When i just do a math problem, reading a pdf, searching on the internet at the same time, its better with a tablet. But when i just write a math document when i have a clear idea what i am going to write, then a keyboard is enough.

Take a look at this YouTube - ‪Inlage II feature: Math Input Panel to LaTeX‬‏

This really stop me from buying a macbook pro. But waiting for x220t to be ready to ship is very terrible. The note "will be ship in 4 weeks" is so discouraging. And the outdoor option for the screen, i just wonder if it will ever appear again.

 

i personally dont think x220t is that heavy, even compared to my brothers x200s, which was probably the same money when he bought his.

its still much lighter than most other laptops in general, and if you get the smaller batter, its even lighter.

im transferring to college this Fall from community college, and i bought this because i knew i would be able to use it as a main computer, with an external display hookup and stellar specs, and also as my school laptop for notetaking. i love it so far

 

This is my first post here.

I too am thinking of buying this tablet for similar reasons (though I am not an engineer but an earth sciences PhD student). The x220t looks like the best device ever for class/ field work. I have three queries:

1. How does the Wacom digitizer work on the Photoshop? Also how does the notebook handle CS5 in general (not digitizing/ sketching) post processing work (given i5, 8GB ram and SSD boot drive, external display)

2. How is the tablet for reading ebooks/ academic papers, mostly in the form of pdfs?

3. What is the general product cycle for x series? When is the next series expected?

I am debating whether to get X220t or get x220 + Kindle + Wacom Bamboo. The tablet is about $300 more than similar spec'd x220.

thanks,
hrishi