Sony Vaio S - Better than X1/X220?

Seems like Sony got it right with the new S series. Discrete graphics, 13.3" screen with 1600x900, Blue ray/DVD/CD drive, Core i7 all in a package that is 0.9" thick with 8hr battery life! Staring prices are around $1000, so it is priced around the X220 and X1 systems.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...0151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644768015

Why can't Lenovo design something like this? Can't wait to see what the Z series has in store although it will sure be more expensive.

 

You might want to re-check those prices. Well loaded it's $2000 USD.

Great feature set though.

 

and they're using 9.5mm height drives

But really though, the 1600x900 and Blu-ray (reader) don't come together in one of those until you pay $1349. And I don't know what this model is like yet, but I was unimpressed by how flimsy the Z series felt, particularly the screen. It gave the impression that if you lift the lid the wrong way, the screen might snap someday.

 

Those Sony Vaio S models are the best looking PC notebooks on the market in my opinion. I really like the case material they use, what ever it is. Is it alloy? Looks very sexy.

I'd never buy a Sony though. Maybe that's irrational since I've never used one. But I'd like to see Crazy Lenovo bring that 1600x900 resolution to their X1. But I'm not entirely sold on the X1 design either.

I'm a little surprised there aren't more PC designs to compete with the extreme thin and lightness of the MacBook Air.

From http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/25/sony-announces-vaio-sa-series-ultraportable-puts-vaio-f-series/

 

i just got one problem... the hinges looks easily breakable..

 

Here's to hoping Lenovo feels threatened and puts a 1600x900 screen in the X1 .

 

For one, you can't really compare Sony to Lenovo. Sony to Apple yes okay.

Secondly, I can tell you as an ASP (Authorized Service Provider) I would rather be stabbed, shot and beaten to death before servicing a Sony anything. They are just that miserable to service. Whenever a Sony get checked into our shop, it is typically the last thing to get pulled. That and Sony's part availability is woeful at best.

Buying Lenovo at least I'll know I can get parts for a 8-9 year old laptop.

 

One thing to note for people looking at the Sony.

Sony has always gimped their BIOS such as to disable Intel VT-x and VT-d. They have no plans on providing hardware virtualization support, nor do they publicize the fact that they blacklist this feature in BIOS.

I only realized this well after my purchase of a Vaio several years ago. My C2D CPU supported VT-x but VMWare was telling me that it couldn't access it. A little googling taught me that they've always blacklisted this feature. Something to take into consideration.

 

Yeah, I don't know how the X1 will compete. Between the Sony SA and the MBAir (not to mention the X220 and T420s), the X1 sits in a very disturbing spot (it doesn't do anything 'best').

@Thors.Hammer, actually the Sony SA is pretty well priced, for $1350 (MSRP) you get the following:
Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor (2.30GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.90GHz
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Jet Black
13.3" LED backlit display (1600x900)
AMD Radeon™ HD 6630M (1GB VRAM) hybrid graphics with Intel® Wireless Display technology
No Mobile Broadband Built-In
500GB (5400rpm) hard drive
4GB (4GB Fixed Onboard + 1 Open SDRAM Slot) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
Blu-ray Disc™ player
Standard capacity battery

Compare to Lenovo X1 @ $1585 (MSRP):
Intel Core i3-2310M Processor (2.1GHz, 3MB L3, 1333MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64
13.3" Premium HD (1366x768) LED Backlit Display
Intel® HD Graphics 3000
4 GB DDR3 - 1333MHz (1 DIMM)
TrackPoint with Fingerprint Reader and Clickpad
320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Integrated RapidCharge Battery
Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters10
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000

So with the SA, you save $200, get a faster CPU, much better GPU, more HDD, higher resolution (1600x900), Blu-ray built-in and more battery life (~7 vs 5). Plus, IMHO, you get a prettier laptop to boot! Why would anyone get the X1? Granted, the X1 is on sale for $1200, but Sony will probably have a sale as well. I'm using standard MSRPs for a fair comparison. BTW, both weigh about the same ~3.7lbs.

Why not? They both cater to business professionals. Sure, Lenovo is more 'work' focused, but my point is that they could've done a much better job with the X1/X220 line of laptops.

The SA uses a metal body. Much more expensive to manufacturer than the plastics in Thinkpads, yet costs much less. They managed to cram the same CPUs into a thinner chassis (compared to the X220) and included discrete graphics and an optical drive. How? Whenever I complained about how the X2xx line barely progressed people stated that heat was an issue. You can't shrink the X220 down below 1". Well Sony basically did that and more. I'm sure Lenovo could have done better; they just somehow choose not to.

EDIT: Quality/ease of service is a valid thing to consider, but I'm looking at this from an engineering standpoint. To me, the SA is a slap in the face. It is simply a (much) better laptop. Consider the fact that Lenovo is bigger than Sony (Lenovo is actually the 4th largest PC manufacturer), it is kinda embarrassing.

 

Wouldn't it be great if a computer maker had Sony's design talent and Lenovo's quality and durability? Whatever happened with that "Apple" company? Seems like they were trying to get the design and the quality right. Oh, I remember now. They made that flop computer, the "Lisa" and that horrible PDA, the "Newton" Too bad, because if they could've executed better they may have built a decent fringe player in the market. But they let those two kids name "Steve" who started it up run it into the ground.

(Ok, was it a little bit funny/nostalgic, at least if you were buying computers in the 80s . Stop reading this post if you hated it. I'm up at 3:30 and can't help it!)

Seriously, I am not a fanboy of Apple or Sony because of their deplorable corporate integrity, but the former sure does know how to both design and make good-to-outstanding product and the latter has shown they can do both, but seems to prefer to make garbage products that look great and sell like hell. I should know, I bought one; the Z: incredible feat of engineering, but after you buy a new one (got mine refurbed, cheap) they send you a personal letter that says " Thanks for buying our incredibly overpriced product, sucker; if anything goes wrong with it, please Don't call us!" And yes, Sony's S series looks pretty good in pictures and spec sheets, but you didn't want it to actually work, did you? If so, it's gonna cost you a whole lot more!

Then there's Lenovo, who is being called "IBM" again, now that people realize they are still headquartered in the same Research Triangle Park, NC formerly known as "IBM" location, with many of the IBM-ers still employed there, with a heritage to protect. Earth to Lenovo: thanks for never abandoning the legendary Thinkpad quality ethic, but didn't anyone tell you, you have to do a redesign at least once a decade? But are they ever kicking butt with those new X series and T series products - this is the real deal, folks: great, durable, incredible value. Once again, if they would just hire a couple of designers, they could mop up the floor with Apple, Sony and just about every one else in the industry.

 

I got some of it. I was born in the late 80's though....

 

I didn't even realize Lenovo was that big. I always thought of them as a pretty small company.. as you don't see that many Thinkpads/Lenovo laptops floating around. (Probably because I'm a student at a 4year university and everyone and their grandmas here have HPs and Dells)

 

I don't look at the lower end configs. I typically look at the top shelf configs. And in the case of the Sony S, it's no where near $1000 so I wanted to make sure people weren't thinking suddenly Sony got benevolent and decided to lower their prices.

They have to pay for the security consultants and fixes somehow. It isn't going to be via PS3.

 

@ chaosphoenix

At the UW, I see some Dells, HPs and Lenovos, about even I presume. Apples are everywhere though. According to some sources:

PC Marketshare (worldwide)
1. HP: 17.8%
2. Acer: 13% (surprising isn't it?)
3. Dell: 12.5%
4. Lenovo: 10.3%
5. Asus: 5.4%

Apple sits around 10.6%, but doesn't 'count' in the PC category for arguable reasons. Can you imagine Sony's market share? These rankings are misleading though. Sony gets a lot of its income from other sources (PS3, cameras, etc).

Revenue/Assets for 2010 (from wikipedia):
Sony: $88 billion/$188 billion
Lenovo: $16 billion/$9 billion
HP: $126 billion/124 billion

Apple (just for fun): $65 billion/$75 billion

So I guess that Sony has a lot more resources to pool, but Lenovo does a much better job selling laptops. Nonetheless, Lenovo shouldn't leave it up to Sony to design a proper 13.3" laptop.

@Thors.Hammer
Top shelf offerings are unfair though. The Sony is much more expandable than any X-series laptop ( dual 512GB SSDs and Blu-ray Burner easily push the SA above $2000, heck, maybe even past $3000). A fully decked X1 may very well break the $2000 barrier too. A fair assessment would be to compare similar offerings (see my previous post).

 

In an administrative stand point, I find Sony VAIO's the most difficult to work with, not just to Lenovo but also in comparison to the likes of Dell, HP and Toshiba. My boss loves Sony VAIO's but should something go wrong he generally hands it to me to fix it, what he doesn't realise is that they generally are the most time consuming. This isn't just a one off, I managed over 4-5 VAIO's over the years and I stand by this.

One thing I noticed about Sony VAIO's are inactive Driver Updates, once the model goes out of production long term support are quite poor. I had a nightmare on one model that uses Vista 32bit and had no other drivers other than the one they come preinstalled with. So if say you wanted to use Windows XP, Windows 7 64 bit or Linux then you're on your own. I only just managed to install Windows 7 32 bit by forcing some original Vista drivers to work - after all thats what you get with proprietary drivers such as the Memory Stick slot for example.

 

I hate to say it, but subpar support for Sony laptops is almost expected. They get a large bulk of revenue from other sources (TVs, PS3s, etc) and their PC market share is around 3%, maybe less. You have to understand that out of the $88 billion in revenue, I bet that only 10% or $8 billion comes from PC sales. Computers are not their #1 priority, unlike Dell, HP, and especially Lenovo which probably make close to 80% of their income on PCs. You can probably say that Sony doesn't even care about providing quality computer service because they don't need to. If their PC branch dies, they probably couldn't care less. Sure, Sony's service is bad, but I still find it amazing that they outdid Lenovo handily from a hardware standpoint.

How the heck did Sony manage to put an optical drive, discrete graphics and room for two 9.5mm SSDs in a chassis that is 13.04" x 8.84" x 0.92" (106in^3)? Compared to the X220: 12.0" x 8.3" x 1.1" (109.5 in^3), the Sony is a miracle! More things in a smaller volume! Maybe the fan will always be on? Maybe reliability will suffer due to constant overheating? Possible, since Sony doesn't care and has horrible service apparently...

BTW, X1 dimensions: 13.26” x 9.1” x 0.65”-0.84” -> 101in^3

 

I've owned various VAIO's over the years. To coin a popular phrase, "they just work!".

Yes, they are not as durable as a ThinkPad, but what is? VAIO's offer performance, style & portability. Yes, they cost a lot, but as ThinkPad owners should know, you get what you pay for when you buy a premium machine.

I think Sony had quite a few problems with older VAIO models several years ago, but the S & Z models are superb.

 

My X200s bought end of 2008 worked fine just for 2 years. I get random sudden shuts with no warning. After months of troublshooting it seems it is down to aging effects of capacitors...so Thinkpad durability is not true anymore IMO.

 

I'd take quality low resolution IPS over high resolution TN.

 

It is very interesting that quality is in reverse proportion to market share. It shows you the immense power of advertising.

http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

AND

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384243,00.asp

 

You might want to check this again...

A BIOS update enabled this in my VAIO SR after the big flap over this omission came out.
Love my SR, just wish it had a better docking station. It's not the most sturdy thing, but I'm fairly meticulous with the care of my laptops anyway.

 

When helping my younger brother buy a laptop two years ago, I simply couldn't persuade him to buy a Thinkpad. His (completely irrational, I'd say) words were to this effect, " I know it is a good laptop but I simply can't get past the black boxiness and besides this, I'm afraid I'd be buying more laptop than I can use." He ended up buying a Sony Vaio Z. It was his first laptop. Since then he moved to South America where he uses his laptop to call home (among other things - ). Most of the time while we're on the VOIP call I can hear the whine of the laptop fan.

Even now, the screen is a revelation. 1600x900 pixels of vibrant pseudo-matte screen in a 13" size is just great for sharing the screen with a whole group of people. Yes, the screen is thin and very flexible, but that does scare me into being careful with it. The reverse logic here is that Lenovo's screens are built stronger and therefore invite more use and abuse, which I give to them. Isn't it so much fun to carry a laptop around by the lid?

Interestingly, at his job in South America, he needs to use a T500 occasionally. Though his Z is still "plenty good for me", he now says his next laptop will be a Thinkpad. I'm not sure what did it, though he mentioned that typing on the T500 feels very good and that he was impressed with the overall machine. Amazingly, he never mentioned the (lack of) screen quality.

All that to say this; he knew up front that he was sacrificing a bit of durability for an otherwise nearly identical Thinkpad laptop. He wanted (and got) a laptop that "just works", that fits in, and that "looks nice" but in a different way than a ThinkPad.

Soon after that I bought my current T410s. In my mind there was no perfect laptop. The three laptops that danced Ring-Around-The-Rosie of perfection were the Vaio Z, Envy 15, and T410s. Each had some quirks that made them worse in some way than the other. Each also had one or more specs that was standout. For example the Envy's Radiance Screen and FHD resolution would be nice to have on my T410s as an optional upgrade. The Vaio Z's FHD screen is also nice and is packed into the smallest form among the 3, proving that this could be done. In the end the T410s won because of several factors, including:
A) price of extended warranty,
B) availability of touchscreen,
C) standard Thinkpad features like TrackPoint, keyboard, and serviceability,
D) my previous experience with Thinkpads.
I'd still like a better screen. . .

OlyScenes

 

Sony does not cater to the business and using a Sony for those purposes is foolish. Sony laptops are classified as high end consumer and that's it. Again, the main problem with Sony is their woeful part availability, super proprietary parts (they use the most weird screen sizes, Sony branded SSDs) and their service takes one of the longest. For businesses a notebook out to the repair depot for 6 weeks = lost revenue.

There is a reason why Dell, HP and Lenovo are the big 3 of business. They carry parts for super old models, they don't refresh their lines with significant chassis designs for a few years and they are built to last.

 

Perhaps you are right, but I still believe that the X1 and S target the same market, and in that sense, the Sony totally trumps the X1. More options, most likely a better TN screen with HD+, etc, almost like Sony's version of a "X302," and that's a good thing. We can talk about Lenovo and Sony as whole companies, if you want, but I'm more interested in the SA as a laptop vs X1 and X220 only. Lenovo's great support (and Sony's lack of) does not provide an excuse for why Sony seems to have made a superior ultraportable laptop.

 

one thing that the SA will lack is the toughness that the X1 or the x220 would provide.

getting parts for a 8-9 year old laptop is of no concern. However the sony service is quite bad, it takes a long long time for them to get it fix, and this is not restricted to one country only.

And the SA is made of carbon fiber, the SB is made of magnesium (chassis) and aluminum (palmrest)

 

I just wished Lenovo had a more competitive offering. The X 13" lines always compromised on something. Why can't Lenovo engineer something like the S series? It drives me nuts. It's pretty obvious Lenovo spent LOTS of money on R&D for both X30x and X1s, but only managed to create subpar products. Sony sells much less laptops and their department is probably famished, yet they manage to do better; lots better? It's been pointed out that Sony goes through major redesigns too often, but they manage to do this with a minuscule budget? What are the engineers of Lenovo doing? Seems to me that we're all paying them to reiterate previously well-established Thinkpad designs, of which the outdated mentality can be traced to the failure of Lenovo's current X1 offering. Where did the "Think" innovation go? Slap the classic Ultra-nav keyboard/trackpoint on the S, get rid of the optical drive, and beef up the exterior with Thinkpad quality. That should result in a 3.5lb, 0.95" X series Thinkpad beast that I'll be all over faster than you can say "Design Matters."

 

While this may be true for large companies with separate IT departments, in a small professional firm like mine, we all get a budget for our notebooks, tablets, phones, etc., and are required to periodically replace them. We have a few Vaios, a couple of Thinkpads, a few Elitebooks, a couple of Latitudes and my Acer . The Vaios have been great. We are permitted to keep our laptops for 2 years only (mandatory replacement policy in our firm after 2 years of use). In fact, the only notebook that has given us any trouble in the past couple of years has been a T410 and we wound up replacing it.

Bronsky

 

It depends on how you use your laptop, I think. Great points have been covered on this discussion, but I'd like to add one thing.

IMO, Thinkpad is as close as the desktop as you can get. Not many manufacturers publicly posted service manual on the internet and allow pretty much anyone to order replacement parts (and tools required to disassemble the laptop) to fix it yourself (or have someone fix it for you.)

From my experience with Sony Vaio, while better looking, it's not worth the hassle with poor warranty service. While not perfect, Lenovo warranty service/support is pretty much streamlined and hassle free comparing to others that I have used. (Fujitsu, Sony, and Apple)

If I have to make a statement, I'd rather spend money on clothes, cars, watches or whatever, not my laptop.

 

Well you are right the X1 is not a real ThinkPad and should be considered a consumer grade notebook.

My personal opinion is that everyone should be using a business oriented notebook even if you have a small business. Business support is much better than consumer because it costs more. Amazing, what a strange concept.

 

aw rings me a bell. Basically charge more and offer a more quality service.

Some of those kinds of costs are already in the notebook itself, so...

 

Kinda reminds me of Apple, no? Overpriced laptops (although they sell boatloads of ipods, iphones, etc), but customer service is one of the best. So, I guess that people that are complaining about the Apple tax are missing something as well.

 

agreed but against apple they dont have next business day visit service.

basically you pay for the premium, so its expected to be that way.

However sony service is quite poor, and while I dont care about if the guy who is going to service the laptop is going to have to work harder to get it done, there is no excuse for the excessive delays.

And no they dont make enterprise class laptops. However the set features of their flagships (basically the 13'' ultra portables) are generally great, with lots of compromises sometimes, like the last year Z

 

Apple doesn't have next business day but mailing to California is absolutely painless. Most Apple repairs are done within 24-48 hours and shipping is overnight.

Sony are typically the most painful, the longest repair in our tech shop out for RMA to Sony was about 4 months. But typical is at least 2-4 weeks. Most Dell and HP's that get RMA'd come back in 1 week, 2 weeks is considered abnormal.

 

It looks like one of the memory sticks is soldered on the motherboard, at least for the models with the premium display. That would be a deal-breaker for me.

I will say that I have been quite pleased with my F12 -- surprisingly it had the best combination of price, features, and performance at the time -- and luckily I have had no problems with it after about a year of continuous use. One thing that bothered me, though, was that they offered a higher quality display in Europe that was not offered in North America. I wonder if that will be the case here.

In any case, I would like to see real-world usage of both models before drawing any firm conclusions as to which is the better value.

 

a lot of assumptions in your post.

ignoring the lenovo assumptions for the time being...sony hasn't proven that their high-end laptops are durable enough to stand up in the field. thus their [sony] engineering is more than a little suspect. of course, you've completely ignored or overlooked sony's poor track record of software [driver] support and their [where is it] support infrastructure.

tell ya what...if you think that highly of the Sony product and believe that their engineering puts Lenovo to shame, put your money up and buy a sony laptop. then come back after a while and let us know how it's workin' for you.

lenovo has faltered a little with some of their product offerings, but sony is not a serious contender (ATM) in my book.

 

If I really needed a new laptop, I probably would get the Sony. Well, actually, I would strongly consider an otherwise simple decision (I'm a big Thinkpad fan). But Lenovo has failed considerably as of late. The esteemed X1 project that Lenovo is so obviously proud of for example is too far from perfect. Low res? Rubber USB cover? 14" footprint? Low battery life? It's not even that thin. It competes against the MBP, not the MBA as Lenovo wanted. The dropping of HD+ resolutions (elimination of X220's'), continued use of crappy TN screens despite numerous protests, ghosting issues that should have been caught before hand and rectified with LG, heck we don't know whether these screens will last, etc. It doesn't bode well with me at all. It just seems that while others innovate, Lenovo just stands there.

With the Sony, all I see is heating issues, which is a big problem. It'll be interesting once the reviews come in to see how it does. Engineers are not responsible for customer support, but they are responsible for reliability (I've been criticizing the R&D team this whole time). It seems to me that the majority of complaints is that if it breaks, you're screwed. Interestingly, according to both PCMag and Squaretrade, Sony laptops are actually more reliable than Lenovos.

SquareTrade Warranties | Extended Warranties for 70% Less Than Retail | Electronics Insurance Alternative

Readers' Choice Awards 2011: Desktops and Laptops - Laptops | PCMag.com

 

What is the point of this thread? I lost track.

 

LOL, I almost lost track as well. It's basically a comparison of the Sony SA and X1/X220. I'm trying to figure out why Lenovo doesn't have a similar offering, or why an apparently shoddy company can produce such great (or really unbelievably unreliable nuclear reactor - we don't know yet) product. Does that answer your sarcastic question?

 

I would note that the squaretrade thing is Lenovo, not Thinkpad and come from people who have purchased warranties from them. Since IdeaPads are crap mostly, this puts Lenovo lower than one would expect.

I have heard several rumors about the X1 having a quad core option soon. Maybe that's why they seem so proud.

Also, maybe Lenovo and Sony are designing with different goals in mind. Sony is trying to fit the most power in the least amount of space, Lenovo seems to be going for durability and ergonomics, which is a better way imho considering ultraportables take a lot of abuse. Though I would have to agree the lack of good screens and the rubber thing are huge missteps, as well as the short battery life.

Anyways, if you think Sony has a better product, by all means buy it.

 

I want to like the X1, but the specs and features of the SA make it hard case for not looking at the X1. I kind of wish Sony would update the G3, because that a fairly sweet machine. Also, beside the 13.1in screen on the Z, what other odd screen size is Sony using?

I have a Sony laptop and maybe its because I live in a city with a Sony Store, but I found their support to be equal to what I get from Apple. When I called tech I actual got a call center in Florida, which was a refreshing change. They just told me if there is a Sony store in my town I could just go there and they will send it in for repair if the parts aren't there. I was with out my TT for 5 days(about the same as Apple for the same service), not bad in my opinion for consumer service.

 

It's a gorgeous and well-equipped machine, and if I was willing to spend double what the e220s cost me, I would have certainly considered it.

 

Lenovo doesn't care what you or I think or want. We aren't the target market.

 

Well, maybe they should.

What I'm trying to say is that their target market is very small then. The X1 is going to do just as well as the X300, which I believe is something that Lenovo wants to avoid. Why can't Lenovo make a perfect laptop? All I'm asking for is a X220 with discrete graphics, decent battery life, and HD+. Sony hits the nail on the head in every category.

Decent quality screen: check
Matte screen: check
HD+: check
6hrs batt life: check
Discrete graphics: check
Thin: check
13" footprint: check

I assume that some Lenovo employees read the forums every now and then right? They should have gotten the above message by now from all of us. I find it hard to believe that all of us are not in the 'target market.' It's just very heartbreaking to witness Lenovo going through all of this R&D only to come up with a product that doesn't hold up to expectations.

There's nothing 'wrong' with the current offerings. They are great products. I never said that the X220 was horrible. It's just that Lenovo, not Sony should be the one offering us more options.

 

Let's see, the X220 has everything on the list except HD+, discrete graphics, and 13" footprint (which imo is detrimental, too big). HD+ is something I agree should be there. I don't think discrete graphics matters that much on an ultraportable, most people buying computers don't even know what a graphics card is. Most business users have no need whatsoever for discrete graphics, at least that's what I'd think.

Then consider the advantages of the Thinkpad, such as sturdy construction, price advantage (after a good coupon), easy to service, replaceable battery, better expansion...it's nearly perfect, they just need to bump the resolution up a little.

Some people complain about the style...well I personally find Thinkpads appealing, and I see too many people buying Macs to be posers.

 

The Samsung Series 9 900X3A meets this criteria except the discrete GPU but it is unneeded.

 

and it lacks a standard voltage cpu

 

Powerful graphics is always nice. When you are traveling, you'll probably not need it, but at home/office, it can be vital/a mighty convenience. Another thing that the X1 and Samsung 9 can't do is dock. The X220 can. Sure, a lot of people live without it, but IMHO the Ultrabase 3 makes the X2xx series shine. Come to/from work, slap your Thinkpad onto a dock connected to a 21" monitor, it charges and you get a desktop experience with laptop portability. Who doesn't want that? That's where discrete graphics have the potential to shine. Lenovo intended the X2xx to be used with multiple monitors, they just need to give it the power to do so well. Anyone with an ultrabase experience (or a one-computer reliance) will tell you that decent graphics are a must have.

 

That's an interesting comment. I was under the impression that intel hd graphics 3000, while not being that great for games, could 'easily' handle a big external monitor, such as 21 to 24". Indeed, it is on par with a GT 320M

Are you implying this is not the case?

 

multiple monitors is the key in that paragraph

 

I don't understand the need for HD+ in X220. HD display has 125 DPI which is quite high IMO. I think I have quite good eyes but 125 DPI feels like maximum I can read comfortably from normal viewing distance. Also, you can set windows font size to higher DPI, make some toolbars smaller (or turn them off) etc. to maximize screen space.