My review of dual-core X100e

I got a X100e with a dual-core AMD Neo X2 L335. Reviews by engadget etc all used single-core. Dual-core version's performance is pretty good and way better than a netbook. I have also posted this review on gdgt.

1. Build quality is fantastic. Machine feels solid with no flex in body. Its plastic but does not feel cheap. Matte finish is a plus.

2. Matte screen is a big plus. Screen is good with decent viewing angles. Screen also folds all the way back too.

3. Keyboard is fantastic and best-in-class for this size of laptops. Design is not classic thinkpad but feels fantastic with no flex at all. It feels like a lovechild of a Vaio and a Thinkpad, but trust me, its a good keyboard. A larger thinkpad keyboard will still be better but for this size you cant beat this keyboard currently.

4. Battery life is about 3+ hours on both Win7 and Ubuntu under a combination of web browsing over wifi, writing a report and some CPU-intensive compilation activity. One peculiar thing is that estimates of battery life left vary wildly with the CPU load. The CPU appears to guzzle a LOT of power (comparitively) if running at peak frequency so you want to always limit CPU frequency if battery life is important. So battery life figures from different sources will also vary quite a bit depending on the CPU load they put in the test.

6. Performance under Win7 is a little slow under power saver mode but feels way faster than a netbook (comparing to Eee 1000H). Runs very hot when under stress to the point where I will recommend using a notebook cooler when running CPU intensive activity. Keyboard and palm-rest do not get hot but the underside will cook your lap if you attempt something like gaming. I had a small single-fan Targus "netbook-cooler" laying around and it proved to be really effective.

7. Performance under Ubuntu 10.04 is really good even in power save mode. However, Ubuntu installation is a bit of a pain. You must absolutely install fglrx or the machine may have random lockups. Wifi out-of-the-box does not work, networks are detected and connect but no internet. After installing drivers from realtek site, I still had trouble with WPA2 enterprise while WPA2 personal works fine. Wifi works fine under Windows. I had also blacklisted thinkpad_acpi as it seems to not have support for X100e (I believe a patch is required). One peculiar thing is that powertop freezes the machine.

8. Undervolting using RMClock has not been successful till now and I havent been able to find any stable voltages till now.
I am giving up further undervolting testing for now.

9. Webcam and mic works well. Webcam is 0.3MP but works fine even in somewhat low light. An older 1.3MP webcam displayed very dark images under same conditions but this one was pretty clear.

10. If you are concerned about size, note that it easily slipped into a Eee 1000H sleeve that came free with the eee. Eee 1000H was one of the bulkier netbooks but still the X100e is only slightly larger than a netbook. Its slightly wider but not by much and will fit easily into almost any bag that can fit a netbook unless its a very specific 10'' sleeve.

CONCLUCSIONS:

Overall, its good for people who want an easy-to-carry machine that will still be used mostly plugged in at various locations throughout the day. Ergonomics and build quality are fantastic for size and weight and performance is way better than a netbook so in day-to-day use it will feel adequate. If you want a machine that can browse the web and run youtube only, look at cheaper, cooler running longer lasting Intel CULV machines like the Acer timelines perhaps.

But if you want a machine that will be used for writing reports etc you will find X100e to a better machine due to better ergonomics. Specification-wise the X100e pales due to the power hungry processor. But once you use the machine it grows on you quite a bit and I am very happy with my purchase even given the issues above.

 

Also here are is one shot comparing X100e to a Eee 1000H.


Here is one shot comparing the keyboard of X100e to a USB thinkpad keyboard. The USB keyboard is about 1.5cm or so wider.

 

Nice Review. Thanks.

 

Nice review. Battery life is disappointing as always with this model. Can you report back with the peak life you get at light/normal usage? I'm always surprised by how small the x100e really is. With half an inch smaller screen than my x200s it's actually a lot smaller overall.

 

They should have put an atom or an intel culv in it. It will cure two of x100e's problem. The battery life and the heat.

 

I will try to test this next week. And yes, its quite small and pretty slim too.

Yes. But I am a developer learning OpenGL currently though so I am happy that I didnt get stuck with Intel integrated
Hopefully they will update the model with upcoming 45nm AMD Neos at least.

 

Thank you for the review! i also ordered the X100e yesterday. The reason i chose X100e is because it is capable of playing a HD 1080 movie(when plug-in). Lots of $500 netbook cannot play 1080 movie porperly. Also the built quality and the upgradeability of this machine. And, its a thinkpad!
I wonder if you can improve the heat issue by replaceing the thermal pad by better aftermarket thermal anything! I will try it after the one year warranty.
Question about the ram. Can you install any kind of DDR2 200 pin SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) on it?
Again, thankyou for your review!

 

The heat issue will not be solve by thermal paste. The improvement you will see is pobably around 5 degree. If you notice the heat to be uncomfortably hot the 5 degree probably won't make a difference.

 

and would cause 2 more problems- CPU and GPU deficiency

 

Thank you for the reply! i replaced the factory thermal pad in my T60p for the Arctic silver 5 and lower the cpu temp. by over 10-15 degree. But then the heatsink is copper rather than alumium in X100e(not sure).

I found a video in youtube which shows the start up/shut down time in window 7 and video screening capability.

YouTube - Lenovo X100e VideoReview

Thankyou!

 

Another update. I was able to find stable voltages for undervolting using RMClock. My chip is L335 but of course YMMV as with all things related to chip voltages.
At 4x FID (800MHz) stable voltage is 0.735 (stock at 0.8v) and at 8x FID (1.6GHz) stable voltage is 0.9V (stock at 0.95).
It might be possible to go lower but I have not tested it and I am happy with it as it is.

After undervolting, I did a little web browsing on battery for about 30 minutes using power saver OS settings, about 50% brightness and frequency at 800MHz. Flashblock was running. After 30 minutes OS was showing about 87% battery left and about 3:50 minutes of runtime remaining estimated so I think 4+ hours of web browsing is possible if you undervolt and live at lowest frequency while on battery.

edit: I had turned off desktop compositing, so Aero was off too during this time. So this is really frugal settings.

 

Good to hear that the performance is there. I did a small write up on an x100e I saw at CES. The battery life, however, is a disappointment and I would rather go with a full X series considering this thing is suppose to be super portable.

Heat doesn't sound fantastic either. If the price dropped to $400 I would pick one up for around the house or traveling though.

 

Update about battery life under Ubuntu. I was editing a report under Ubuntu today with wifi disabled. I was also doing source code compilation in between and I got a battery life of total of 4.5 hours under powersave mode which I believe is quite decent.

Lesson learnt: IF you are not using wifi, disable it as under Linux it seems to be eating quite a lot of battery.

 

Appreciate the review, thanks.

 

ill be interested to see how much battery life I can get undervolting it @ 800 mhz. I know a lot of people say to disable the PowerNow or whatever its called in the BIOS to disable the down clocking, but I think 800 mhz would be good for basic web browsing/typing up stuff. When I get it, ill figure it out anyway.

I do want to do some testing to see how the downclocking/undervolting affects battery life.

 

Hope they put the new Neo processor on the Thinkpad soon.

 

I've noticed that Lenovo's US site has dropped the prices rather dramatically, everything at <$500. Don't know how new of a development that is, but hopefully it means an update is coming.

 

Hi, codedivine! How is the 1080p video playback on x100e. I order one last week but now amd just announce the new neo processor. i mainly use this X100e for movie playback.

Thankyou!

 

Wow,
At the new $499 price the Turion model looks very nice. Another $50 off with:
USPLENOVODEALS2

If it just had the battery life of a u150 I would be jumping on it rather than waiting for a u165. Price drop does suggest a re-warm of processors.

 

playing around with some undervolting myself,heres some interesting results. I came home from work, loaded up RMClock and Prime95 (to stress the CPU) while sitting on the couch on battery power, with the CPU power control turned off in the BIOS (having it on seems to lock up the machine when trying to have RMClock change the FID). Going any lower basically threw up a BSOD instantly, but it seems pretty stable on the last one I tried. So heres what I got-

4.0x - .7250 v
8.0x - .9250 v

not sure what the actual battery life is, but I used about half messing with rmclock,lol

 

20% coupon code for 1 day on the x100e.
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How's the heat output when you undervolt?

 

$400 for a dual core model seems like a pretty good deal.

 

worst case scenario on Maximum performance running prime95 hit 104C on one of the cores. Speaking of which, theres like a 4 degree difference in the 2 cores...

 

Difference between cores is not unusual. I meant the laptop temps though. Not the cores themselves. Is the machine cooler at all to the touch? Or on your lap?

 

At the current prices I'm very tempted, evenwith the cost of going up to 4 GB ram. If it only shipped with Win 7 x64 I would probably go for it, as it is I would have shell out to upgrade to Win 7 Pro, then use my Win 7 Pro x64 disks for a clean install, as I have no home premium disks. I think I'll wait to see how the u160 looks.

 

yeah,it stays pretty cool on 4x FID on battery. My worst case scenario with 8x and Prme95 got a lil toasty tho

 

Thanks, good to know. I can settle for having 4hrs of battery life for a netbook style device for on the go but I was concerned with heat.

 

~400 even now for the dual-core is quite interesting...

There is a youtube video of 1080p playing on the single-core, but anybody with dual-core can confirm the play is good on full-screen, etc on the dual-core?

 

No,I have the dual core L665, 3gb ram and i cannot play 1080p movies fluently. But no problems with 720p movies. About the heat issue, it is kind of hot. Can't imagine to put this little thing on my lap in hot summer day.

About battery life, it is not bad. I have it on for 2 hrs with (6 cells battery, 2/15 brightness, energy star mode and using Zune application to play music through ear phone) and still have about 50% battery left. So, 3 and 1/2 hours light use is possible.

About the keyboard, trackpoint and touchpad. I am no expert of typing but the typing experience are very good. I feel better than my W510 Alps keyboard and almost as good as my X201 NMB keyboard. Almost!
The trackpoint is soft and responsive. The touchpad is wider format than x201 and touchpad button is the best of all my thinkpad imo.

Just like everyone said, if the new neo 2 processor can solve the heat and power consumtion problem. Or lenovo can put intel processor into this little guy. It can become the king of low cost ultraportable.
Oh! And Thinklight please!

 

I see... Well on that resolution that's probably not really necessary anyway (well except on an external monitor).

I found that many stores (frys, etc) have this particular model in-store (I guess the Netbook-ish appeal) so I plan to go take a look at my local location over the weekend.

 

do most notebook coolers draw air from underneath the laptop? i'm asking this because it seems like the x100e draws air from underneath the laptop too. so wouldn't both fans be fighting for air? has anyone tried a specific notebook cooler that worked well for the x100e? mine gets too hot for me.

i have the dual core turion with 3gb ram.

 

1080p video files off of your hard drive should be no problem. It should only struggle at 1080p flash video. To hardware decode mkv/mp4 1080p video you need a video player that supports dxva, most popularly MPC-HC. You can also try KM Player. Both require some tweaking to turn on dxva but once you do, 1080p video should take less than 30% cpu usage.

 

Wow.... HORRIBLE battery life considering my ThinkPad W700 lasts abour 3 hours on balanced mode, wireless on, torrent downloading, and the full brightness of the 17"..

 

Do you own a X100e? The battery life is actually ok, about 4 hrs of light use.
I used a W700 for about two weeks before i bought the W510 but i can never get three hours of battery life w/ full brightness. I get maybe 1 hr 45 mins.
The best thing about the X100e are the wonderful typing experience and even the trackpoint feels better than other thinkpad. I also like the small footprint and the traditional thinkpad look. And if you wait for the 15-20% coupon, you can get one w/ dual core for about 400 dollars.

 

nice review. anyone have any news about the refreshed processors? i really want to get one but i dont think 3-4 hrs of battery life is sufficient for my usage. I need 5-6hrs. i can live with the heat issues.

 

Wait so the x100e dual core can not play 1080P video flash from places like youtube and netflix?

 

not real smoothly,no

but it isnt like theres much of a different on the 11.6 inch screen

 

X100e is just a netbook... so don't expect too much from it.

 

Damn shame it runs hot though! Looks like a nifty machine!

 

x100e should have intel ULV processors... then it would be actually worthy of a Thinkpad sticker.

 

Well I have my netbook plugged in about 95% of the time so battery life for me is no big deal. I just expect my netbook to run youtube, netflix and play MKV files etc.. smoothly...

 

it can game better than a CULV,so I cant complain