ThinkPad X1, X230, X230t, T430, T430s, T530, W530, L430, L530 Official

The 9-cell battery is always a little loose and does not fit 100% like the 6-cell. I have seen this with a couple of W520 myself, a T420 of a friend and now in T430. I am sure there are many people who have/had the 9-cell battery (especially with the 15" models) and can tell you that it is a common problem. See the following threads about this problem in ThinkPad history (along with other issues)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/552749-loose-battery.html
X220 battery sits loose - Lenovo Community
Lenovo ThinkPad T520 Review | Business Laptop Reviews

Just some examples...

 

I use an X220 with 9 cell and I know what you mean. My battery wobbles a good mm in all directions. It's not a problem though. It's so common because it's intentional.

To quote from one of the threads you linked

 

Well, I guess ThinkPad lovers can justify for any defect that it is made for a reason 'by design' but the final product is a complaint and disfavored observation from the end customer. Dell Latitudes extended battery that has the same style does not wobble. The interesting thing is that few years later, the company will come and say, "we have designed a new battery that fits flush without any wobbling". Anyway, it is just my observation and my comment among other things and it is up to people to like it or not.

 

I betcha most users put some tape or paper in the battery bay to overcome that so-called "intention". Wobbling feels cheap and is annoying.

Lousy screens are common and therefore intentional, too.

Can we have a definite list of design "intentions"?

Love is blind.

 

I definitely don't think the "wiggle room" is necessary. I've had many laptops with absolutely no wiggle in the battery. I've never had a single issue with "thermal expansion" or anything else with those laptops. I've also heard of people with no battery wiggle in their x220's. Frankly I think it is just an excuse for poor fit.

 

Could someone explain, how the notebookreview.com tests showed that:

• Battery life for X230 from X220 did not improve
• Battery life for T430 from T420 improved VERY MUCH

Shouldn't the X230 have similar improvements because of the move to Ivy Bridge?

Here are the relavant reviews.
T430 review: T430
X220 review: X220 (6 cell battery)
X230 review: X230 (6 cell battery)

Is there something wrong with the X230 Ivy Bridge implementation?

 

no battery wiggle with 9 cells like people are mentioning?

 

It's not a defect if its by design. Whether or not you like it doesn't matter. I'm not saying you should like it. I'm saying that it's not a defect, but a design choice.

Personally, I would take durability and reliability over solid premium feel any day. Which seems to be the tradeoff of the loose battery. Sure it feels cheap, but if its more durable for it, why not? If you don't like it, a piece of paper in the battery bay makes it wobble a lot less.

btw, I'm not a Thinkpad lover in the way I think you mean it. I like Thinkpads, but generally choose whatever I feel is best for me. Before my X220, my ultraportable was an EliteBook 2510p. I just defend Lenovo's design decisions, generally from a business point of view. Does your hate of a design choice blind you from the fact that it makes sense from their perspective?

btw2, played with the Trackpoint settings yet?

 

Can't comment on 9 cells. But I know people who have 6 cells with no wiggle. My 6 cell has front to back wiggle (like putting it in and out), but no side to side.

I think people are just making justifications, whether designed or not. Personally I think durability and reliability go hand in hand with a tight fit much better than a loose fit. Having play with a battery (I would think) could result in connection problems much quicker than a tight one. When I think durability, I think premium solid feel not loose.

 

hrmmm.. this is news to me. perhaps i'm gonna have to get set up with an online backup service

 

"Import Scan" wt f ?

Code:

Louisville, KY, United States	 06/27/2012	 12:21 P.M.	Import Scan
Louisville, KY, United States	 06/24/2012	 6:21 A.M.	Arrival Scan
Anchorage, AK, United States	 06/23/2012	 8:33 P.M.	Departure Scan
				06/23/2012	 6:11 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Shanghai, China			 06/24/2012	 1:51 A.M.	Departure Scan
Shanghai, China			 06/23/2012	 9:17 P.M.	Export Scan
				06/23/2012	 9:17 P.M.	Origin Scan
China	 06/22/2012	 12:36 A.M.	Order Processed: Ready for UPS

 

From UPS:

Basically, it's going through customs.

 

Hello everyone,


This is my first post here and I am glad I'm now part of this community.

I would like to thank you all for posting here keep up the good work - I just came back from the notebook shop and got my W530 after carefully reading the forums around here for about a week.

Initially I was set on purchasing the T430 but after reading about its screen quality I switched to W530. Also the guy at the shop convinced me about the screen as I had doubts.
Overall I am extremely happy with the purchase, it's not the best of the best but close:

i73610 QM
16GB Kingston 1600 (default was 4GB but for my work that was unacceptable, will be using this for .NET programming, VMs etc)
15.6inch non-glare 1600x900
500gb hdd
quadro k1000m 2GB
9cell akku
...etc.

I made a big effort to get this, money did not suffice for my full wishlist
(FHD screen, ssd) but these I can upgrade next month.

I am simply stunned to read about the prices you guys get in the US for these laptops. I needed to pay 1719 eur as I am in Germany. You guys get the FHD version for 1.4k usd (here I need to pay over 2k for that).


Cheers.

Best regards,
Andrei

 

"....by design" again! Seems like you did not read what everyone posted. Please, let's stop defending cheap companies with cheap products and carelessness because what you and others have been saying or convincing themselves "...by design" is what encouraged those people to care lesser!!

 

You're not getting it. "Defective" means something that is working like B but was intended to work like A. For instance, a warped casing would be a defective product.

But if the battery wiggle is purposefully included, it is a design choice---not a defect.

You can still be upset with it, of course. But it isn't right to call it defective or indicative of cheap products. In fact, the posited reasoning is to make the chassis more durable.

 

3 days to go through customs? and its supposed to arrive tomorrow.. that doesnt seem likely now

 

The fuselage panels on the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird were designed such that they were loose on ground, this caused fuel leaks but what necessary because they expanded once the aircraft took off and achieved significantly hot temperatures. Thermal expansion is a very real thing and I wouldn't be surprised one bit if the batteries are somewhat loose because of that, after all, they're made to withstand a large temperature range

 

It might still be possible. Customs has been known to be a common cause of delay in Lenovo shipments, although recently they appear to have gotten better. I'm in a similar situation as you (but my customs process seems to be moving a bit quicker):

Code:

Louisville, KY, United States	 06/27/2012	 11:44 A.M.	Import Scan
Louisville, KY, United States	 06/26/2012	 12:58 A.M.	Arrival Scan
Anchorage, AK, United States	 06/25/2012	 2:55 P.M.	Departure Scan
06/25/2012	 12:50 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong	 06/25/2012	 7:04 P.M.	Departure Scan
06/25/2012	 2:22 P.M.	Origin Scan
Hong Kong	 06/24/2012	 12:38 P.M.	Order Processed: Ready for UPS

It says it's going to be delivered tomorrow, by end of day. If it hops on a plane before 2am tomorrow, I'd say it's possible. (I'm in MA.)

 

Do I have to sacrifice something anyway with the Windows PC industry?

 

But not when the range of operating temperatures is 70-120F, or so. Lenovo is also calling the 9.5mm Ultrabay caddy as perfect match for their laptops with 12.7mm slot.

Piece of tape/foam fixes both issues. But it really shouldn't be the case.

Yes. And same with Apple, and phones, and everything else.

Worse, the sacrifices often can't be healed with tape, or ThrottleStop, or a little accessory, or faster shipping from factory

 

mine is now in orlando, so it looks like it will be on time for tomorrow after all:

Code:

Orlando, FL, United States	 06/27/2012	 6:24 P.M.	Arrival Scan
				06/27/2012	 6:16 P.M.	Departure Scan
				06/27/2012	 6:06 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Louisville, KY, United States	 06/27/2012	 4:12 P.M.	Departure Scan
				06/27/2012	 12:21 P.M.	Import Scan
Louisville, KY, United States	 06/24/2012	 6:21 A.M.	Arrival Scan
...

 

Lucky! My status hasn't changed... :-( :-(

 

see I am not completely sold on the battery life increase. the notebookreviews t420 review had the souped up version, but the t430 version was just the base model(no dedicated graphics, lower res). I would love to the know the battery life of the t430 with the 6 cell.

 

are you getting the amazing 15 hour battery life?

 

so i'm pretty sure theres only one device thats getting thunderbolt?

which one is it and is it also getting USB 3.0?

 

That's the T430s with Core i7 processor. And there is also USB 3 included (two ports I believe).

 

Any news about T430u? HD+ expected?

 

THIS.

People may choose to accept a "situation" or to fix it somehow. But inventing a rationally-sounding reason to justify for it is strange, to say the least. No need to suck up to Lenovo, or any manufacturer.

 

Since last year they are offering a 12.7 mm adapter for Ultrabay Enhanced:
ThinkPad 12.7mm Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter III | 0A65623 | Lenovo | (US)

 

Third-party vendors have provided quality perfectly-fit UltraBay HDD caddy adapters for much less money and way before last year.

 

Yes, but you can´t judge Lenovo for something they don´t do anymore.

You will have to accept that they listened to their customers in this specific issue.

 

Oh, didn't know that, thanks.

Now just a little 0.5mm stripe of plastic at the bottom of the laptop, and the battery will perfectly match. Some Thinkpad connoisseurs will raise their eyebrows, but for most users it would be a step forward and cause savings of black electrical tape all over the globe

It could be done already in xx30 series too?

 

i just checked out the t430s on lenovo.com and it doesnt offer thunderbolt, just the usb 3.0 ports.

 

Core i7 version has TB.

 

Considering its an intentional durability/reliability feature, would it really be a step forward?

If you want solid premium feel, feel free to buy a MacBook. Or, you know, just put a piece of tape in the battery compartment.

Of course there is no need to accept it as it is if you don't like it. Lenovo made a tradeoff with their battery compartment, they traded solid premium feel for durability and reliability. If you want solid premium feel and don't mind the loss in durability/reliability, feel free to fix it.

 

just got my w530, some initial impressions/questions:

1. good news, chicklet keyboard is largely a non-issue (at least for me). decent key travel. not as good as the old keyboards, but not nearly as bad as most chicklets. much better than my gf's macbook keyboard. i'm coming from a T61 which had a great keyboard, but they did a good job on the chicklet. although i do prefer the 7row layout from the past.

2. love the textured, bumpy mousepad.

3. 1920 screen is very bright with nice viewing angles. very nice.

4. battery life is showing 3 hours on default settings.. seems horrible? but i only ordered the 6cell. ill need to tweak things and see what i can do.

5. ordered the K2000M gfx, but control panels are reporting 2100M ?

6. speakers are quite loud on highest volume.. nice to have that ability

 

is there something wrong with making the factory recovery disks?

the disc creates 100%, then verifies 100% and hangs, finally gives me some Unexpected Error rc=9 and forces me to do it again. at some point earlier they said something about DVD RAM but i just assumed they would instruct me like earlier versions. on my T61 it told me when to input a CD, what to label it, when to put in DVD, what to label it, etc

seems like this is common:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Serie...20-unexpected-error-occurred-rc-9/td-p/443863
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/573404-creating-factory-recovery-discs.html

i've been at this for 2 hours now and fkkn pissed.

 

Hey mikew3456,

How is the back-lighting on your keyboard. For example, on mine, all the keys are lit properly except the top row (number/function keys). On mine, the keys labeled '6' and '7' have bright back-light; however, the other keys in that row do not have that much back-light.

Trying to see if it's the normal behavior or I am special

 

same thing for me.. the top row with F1-F12 keys, only the middle ones are bright. F6-F8 are bright, and it gets decreasingly less bright as it moves outward from the center

other than that the keyboard backlighting works good and i like the two different brightness settings

 

I definitely agree with that in bold.

I've handled a few friends x220s that had rock solid battery fit, no wiggle in any direction. So the fact that people are saying it is a designed for a little wiggle goes out the door. I personally think it is just poor fit/variances. I've had plenty of laptops in the past with tight fit batteries that were perfectly fine. No problems with thermal expansion even when cpu and gpu were stressed for hours. Had a couple machines that got suppppppper hot to the touch and never had an issue. The x220 doesn't get anywhere close to as hot as those other ones.

 

My ESC key on my T430 feel stiffer than the other keys. Does anyone experience this?

 

it was noticable first on ESC and then DELETE. then i realized all the top row keys feel stiffer on my w530.

you can see that the top row is elevated a bit higher too, maybe that gives the illusion of stiffer keys since our fingers are expecting the same keyheight and we are not raising them enough to compensate for the higher elevation.

 

You should write in main topic for unit. Cus when i try to find some info about carbon and u i cant cus is too many posts about thinkpad already relased...

 

^^^ X1 Carbon is not discussed here. Check this thread.

 

Did the experts recover your data?

 

Hi X230t fellows,
Doesn't mean to spam here but for those of you who own the X230t, can you please give me your opinion regarding this phenomena, it happen with couple people own the system that I know, I'm trying to collect more opinion to see if this is some sort of manufacturing flaw or if it is not, then what the reasons are:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...ubber-hinges-one-loose-one-tight-reasons.html

Thanks for your help!

 

Unfortunately, NOT I thought I would send it to another company for a second opinion but I changed my mind and wanted to get out of the denial phase and just move on. The data related to the project I am in the middle of are on a secure server but I have really lost so important information on that SSD. I feel so stupid to be honest that I have wiped my own data (I wish it was even a crash/failure). I am gonna have to play it case by case when I need a file to search for it in my e-mails and people around me will definitely hear a scream every now and then if I cannot find that file

My T530 should ship today but I am not excited anymore with any computer! Thanks for checking on me though. That was nice of you

 

Bummer. On the bright side, you'll never do that again and I bet you'll always have two or more copies of your data.

This almost happened to a project at work. Like everyone, we were backing up the test, dev and production servers. But we weren't testing the backups frequently enough. Something happened, I forget what, and we needed to go to the tapes for a restore. Two weeks worth of tapes were bad. Actually the tapes were fine, but the backup on the tapes were bad.

The last tape we tried was good. Had that tape not been good, we would have lost six months worth of work. Someone would have been fired over it.

I never forgot that.

 

Thanks for sharing this story. I am sure I will never forget this for life!

 

Is it true that one cannot decrease the brightness of the display in ThinkPads until they are completely dimmed?

Also, is this scenario normal? when I had my T430 and I was working on battery then put it to sleep and moved it to the docking station (especially if there was a video/flash running in), when I wake it up, things are messed up such as the resolution on the larger resolution display (HDTV) and the audio source is not automatically and/or quickly switched to the HDTV. This scenario was worse when I used to have W520 with dGPU.