ThinkPad X1

Oh yes cold truth is hard aint it, aside the only owner that complained about it, do we have anything more to base on?

such a custom battery, wouldnt be changed on a whim

 

The speakers on the X1 are quite amazing... They're way over the top compared to my T420.
The battery life managed about 5 hours and 30 minutes with Energy Saving mode, screen at 5 out of 15 brightness, wifi and websurfing.

This is a keeper for me.

 

I finally placed my order from cost central for an X1. As I have stated before I do wish the battery lasted a little longer but my 3 year old R61 barely lasts an hour and a half unplugged. Hopefully I can stretch the battery to 3-4 hours, maybe more (I would honestly be perfectly happy with a consistent 3 hours). I doubt I am going to buy the slice battery option regardless because of the bulk factor. It will mainly be at home so I don't see it leaving the house much at all.

I debated going back to the T420 or even the T520/W520 but in the end I decided to take a chance on the X1. The T420 I was looking at was only about $75 cheaper so it was almost a wash at that point. I know a lot of people are pretty down on the X1 but it seems like it will fit the bill for me. Hopefully I am happy when it arrives .

 

Lets talk about this battery some more, shall we?

Notebookcheck does insanely detailed reviews of all the laptops they test. Review Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Subnotebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Battery Life: Idle, no wireless, min. brightness = 5:18
Surfing the web: 3:24

According to this, it would be impossible for NBR to get around 6 hours of surfing the web. Very odd to say the least. (Unless I'm missing something.)

 

After playing around with the X1... Notebookcheck.net seems quite accurate.
With normal use with wifi on, the X1 will most likely get ~3 hours of use.

 

Just seems really odd with the difference in run times. Every site tests battery life slightly differently, even if it's the same test. (Web surfing for example.) But when one site gets better battery life with web surfing vs. one that is completely idle, it makes you double take.

How is your X1 so far? I would LOVE to have that keyboard. That was one thing I loved on my old x100e.

 

Looking at cost central spec., the batt. is a 4-cells.

 

I love the keyboard. After using the X1 for nearly a day now, T420 feels VERY VERRY!! thick...

But I must say, the X1 gets hot very easily and the fan kicks in with a very loud noise almost at all times... Very unfortunately..

 

Well after much thought, I decided to call cost central a few minutes ago and cancel my order before it shipped. The battery life issue really started to worry me even though I discounted it at first as a non issue. Plus saving money and just getting another T420 honestly sounds like the better option at least for me.

I love everything else about the laptop and the glossy screen/resolution really didn't bother me (my current R61 is 1200X800). After thinking about it more this morning, I realize that I do need at least decent battery life which is something that the X1 doesn't seem to have.

 

Lenovo just changed my ship date from 6/24 to 7/1 First 6/10 then 6/17 then 6/24 and now 7/1

 

Is that an 8GB configuration?

 

Could you provide detail on your power settings in the BIOS, the power plan in use in the Windows Control Panel | Power Options, and the Lenovo Power Manager profile settings?

The general statement above isn't a good indicator of why this may be occurring. Thanks.

 

4GB with a 160GB SSD. It has to be the SSD causing the delay.

 

I can see no reason for the delay unless it's hard to get the glass from those Gorillas.

 

unlikely, since the acer ethos line is using the same gorilla glass

 

My X1 was also delayed and I have the 160GB SSD with 4GB RAM so it may indeed be the SSD causing the delay

 

Lenovo currently states that selecting the 160GB SSD will add "more than 4 weeks" to the delivery time. Occasionally this warning will disappear for a day or two only to return again and it doesn't seem that selecting it when the warning isn't there makes a difference.

 

My order shipped yesterday. 8gb ram, 320gb std hard drive. I also confirmed with Lenovo that the internal battery is a 4 cell. I am hoping for 3 hrs battery life. The rapid charge feature of the internal battery may make this tolerable for me.

 

Hello
I m french and i have receive my x1 this week
It s a 4gb 320 Hdd but i had an Intel e310 msata of 80gb
And it s terrific with this less than 30 seconds to load
For the battery i have not tested for the moment
But for the price i really like it 980€ for the x1 170€ for the ssd and 110€ of duty tax
1260€ in France the same with 160 ssd and wann was sale 2500€ ...

 

I forgot
It possible to put a mat film on the screen because of a small gap between the gorille glass and the lid but for me it s not necessary

 

10% off coupon, for anyone who is looking- not sure if it brings the price lower than the b&n pricing though

Best Deal and Coupon Lenovo ThinkPad X1 13-inch Laptop - LogicBUY

 

Is it just me or is the fan on the X1 loud?
Just watching a video on a HD monitor via HDMI makes the fan whine at a high pitch and at full speed with the CPU temperature at 80 degrees celsius.
I updated the bios to the latest one(1.06 I think) from the Lenovo support site.

Any thoughts?

 

Has anyone been able to get this coupon to work on the X1? I just get an error saying it cannot be used with this cart.

 

I agree with you about the fan being loud. It makes worse that it is high pitch. The good thing is it is still less noisy compare to my old laptop. Did you still has the laptop, or have you already sold it? I am personally more concerned about the battery than the noise. I wonder what percentage of original capacity your battery is. If you run Lenovo ThinkVantage Tools, it is under System Health and Diagnostic (then go to the battery). In just a week, I am now at 81%. I wonder when will I need a new battery?

 

Even if it doesn't work, call them anyway. I got mine about a week ago, and I entered a coupon for other Lenovo laptop. Obviously it didn't work, but I called Lenovo and "played" dumb about it. The rep told me it won't work, but he has another one with the same discount that work. So, I ended up getting the discount. It doesn't hurt trying, right?

 

PC PRO Lenovo ThinkPad X1 review up on the website today!
They aren't particularly impressed....

Here.....

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 review | Laptops | Reviews | PC Pro

 

Some give ThinkPad X1 bad reviews, some give OK reviews, and some give excellent reviews. Laptopmag.com and mobiletechreview.com give good reviews. I personally think ThinkPad X1 is a great laptop. It doesn't come often (until today) you have a laptop as powerful as X1, yet thin and light, as well as rugged and tough. Oh, it is a good looking laptop too. I guess nothing is perfect. I wish X1 has a longer battery life. And, surely it does has a little things that "annoy" as mention on the review you give (like the missing touchpad button, etc). But, overall, it is a good laptop. If you would have bought Mac Air, the price would be much more expensive. That doesn't count Windows 7 you have to purchase separately. Mine is around $1230. It comes with Core i5, 320 HD, and I think the rest are all standard. In my opinion, it's not a bad price for what it delivers. If it would have been $1500, I probably wouldn't buy it.

 

Check this out guys! Some dude in Japan opened up the X1

?? ???? ??? ?? - ??? ???? X1? ????
This blog is actually Korean. Does anyone know the difference between 5th gen fan and 4th gen fan???

 

Have had my X1 for about 3 days now. The fan is annoyingly loud but only if you are running at all settings set to high performance does it spin up to the loud level. Setting a balanced powermanagement profile has eliminated this problem for me.

My unit came with win7 64bit pro, 8gb ram, the intel 6300 wifi card, and a standard 320gb hard drive.

I ordered a intel 7mm x25-m SSD separately and immediately replaced the standard hard drive. One surprise was that the hard drive shipped with the unit was a 7200 rpm hitachi, which is a very good drive, I was expecting a 5400 rpm drive.

I disagree with the review above regarding the screen. Mine is sharp (yes glossy) but blacks are black. I use adobe Photoshop quite a bit and the colors are the same as on my desktop. No complaints here
I also disagree with the touch pad complaint, the buttons are simply the left or right lower parts of the touchpad. I adapted to this pretty fast. They seem responsive to me. There is a synaptics update that the thinkvantage software reccomends so maybe the reviewers needed this update?

The keyboard is great, I can type on it very comfortably. The curved keys are well made. The backlighting is also a huge plus, something the review did not even mention.

The ThinkVantage programs are pretty good. I had some issue with the fingerprint scanner as it would not allow me to log in to my work domain.
Tech support at lenovo was helpful although completely wrong, they asked me it activate my security chip in the bios and had me remove and reinstall the fingerprint software. Nothing worked. Lenovo's user community at Lenovo.com had the solution, you simply have to find the biometric scanner option in control panel and in its properties is a box to check to allow domain logins. Worked like a charm after that.

This machine also does some very cool things, you can power it on with a finger print swipe. It also has facial recognition as an option to logon and lock the computer up, in case it gets stolen. I have not used the facial recognition part , but the power up using the fingerprint reader works very well. I disabled this option though as it does require the finger print reader to remain on even after shut down, hence a source of battery drain, albeit probably a small amount.


Battery life, in high performance mode less than 3 hours. In balanced mode: 4 hours 30min. Not too bad.

I don't use a dock so I cannont comment on the absence of this adapter.

Gripes:
Lenovo should include a HDMI-VGA or mini display port-VGA cable with this machine. I bought a mini display port -VGA online and it does the job for powerpoint presentations. I think Lenovo cheaped out on this factor.

So overall, IMHO, the positive things about this laptop totally outweigh the issues regarding the fan or battery life. It seems like a very rugged and usable machine.

 

Having used the X1 for a couple of days, I let it go because of the high-pitched fan noise... Every time the CPU temp rose higher than 45 Celsius(which is not that high), it would kick in almost at full blast.

Of course, loudness is a relative thing. However, relative to my T420, the noise was too disturbing... Adjusting the power settings did no good for me, nor did the bios update...

As much as I wanted to own the X1, I had to let it go.

Screen quality is also a relative/subjective aspect. The screen on the X1 is the same quality of the T420. As I owned both machines, I could compare it side by side. The "griddiness" was even more noticeable in the X1.

Compared to the FHD on the W510, which is BEAUTIFUL, it has a long, long way to go.

These are all features embedded in all new Thinkpad lines. Pretty neat stuff.


This post is by no means an assault. Your post comes from a user satisfied with the X1. I thought readers would be better off reading both sides of the story!

 

No worries. In the end its your money and you have to be satisfied with your purchase. Who knows, maybe the refresh of the X1 will have improvements that make it more appealing to you.

 

I was seriously looking at getting this instead while waiting for my X120e replacement. But in the end, I couldn't live with the glossy screen as I've been spoiled by my matte desktop monitor.

 

can someone run some prime and see how temp goes?

 

would anyone recommend this over an x220? debating between the x1, x220 and the dell xps 15z (not really a contender... but a 13z would be)

 

I've also been debating between the X1 and X220 as well and I can't find any good reason to get the X1 over the X220. They both have the same screen resolution but the X220 has a matte screen and the X1 has a reflective screen due to the gorilla glass. You can get the X220 with an IPS panel which should be better than the panel in the X1. Also every review of the X220 that I've read mentions it's amazing battery life even with just the 6 cell battery. From reading this thread it seems that the X1 battery life has been somewhat disappointing. The X220 has a Display Port instead of the HDMI port in the X1. The X1 is an inch wider and deeper than the X220 and it's also slightly heavier than the X220. Obviously the X1 is thinner than the X220. If the X1 had a higher screen resolution and better battery life with the extra width, depth and weight then it might be worth getting it over the X220 but it doesn't.

This posting from thinkpads.com has a nice summary.

forum.thinkpads.com • View topic - x220 versus x1

 

It's really odd when you look at the pros and cons to the X220, T420s and X1.

Why can't they just take the best from each? Do the product teams at Lenovo talk to each other? Do they listen to costumers? How do they make these odd decisions?

 

so, pros to the x1:

• size (matter of opinion/needs)
• style
• keyboard
• speakers

... i can't see anything else. meanwhile, the x220 wins on

• battery
• touchpad
• screen
• keeps cool
• quieter

both a solidly built...

i think i'll check out the t420, which people seem to be talking about.

(damn, choices. makes me wish i had a $2000. i love the look of the vaio z)

 

Now, theres an i72620 option available and with the 15% off code its under $1400. This is kind of tempting... and with the gobi 3000 option its like $1427.

 

What configuration did you end up getting?

 

I got i7 2620, BT, gobi, 4g ram, intel6300, web cam, and will be getting crucial m4 or samsung 470. They offered 3year warranty with accidental coverage for like $220, which I passed. I thought if anything breaks, I could fix that for less than $220.
So, did you get the code to work???

 

Been using my X1 in an increasing number of tasks. It has not fautered once. I use a max performance battery profile and battery life has settled in at 3 hours 5 minutes. The Intel 320 SSD makes this thing very fast. I used it the last couple of nights to stream soccer from ESPN3 via the HDMI to my tv. The 6300 card works great with my Linksys N router. I checked on the connection properties and it listed the speed at 144 Mbps. Not bad seeing that the router was one story up in my home. The fan does come on to cool the machine but I am not bothered by it. In a 13.3 inch screen I am not really sure higher resolutions would look any better as I often don't have my reading glasses. At 1366 x 768, I can at least read text and the real estate that you get on each web site is fine. The other thing I found is that there is very little bloatware installed on this machine. On mine I only found a Symantec antivirus product, which is not even installed, and Microsoft's Office trial. The thinkpad software is actually pretty useful.

My only gripe is I did have to disable the trackpad buttons, as I would touch them while typing. Other than that, the X1 has delivered what was promised. Now with a core I7 option, I would think other may want to try this machine out. As a former owner of a Sony Vaio Z, I know they build really nice computers, but I also remember having to put a piece to paper under my space bar on my Vaio Z to get it to space when typing, and that the fan was also pretty noisy. So while I know the vaio Z will be a stong laptop, I feel pretty good with my X1 purchase. There is no perfect laptop, so if you find one that is built well and one that actually does what you tell it to, then IMHO, that should be the one you keep. I am very pleased with my X1.

 

MR. hox! you just gave me a total peace of mind : )
Happy to see a positive feedback since there are a lot of non x1 user's negative comments out there.
I ordered the x1 with i7 and crossing my fingers that it won't experience the throttle issue like the x220.
I ordered this machine for mobility and performance. I really don't really care about the screen resolution or the glossy screen. I actually like glossy screen... weird huh?? The glossy screen while you have to set it at the certain right angle, it will give you much better quality than the anti glare.
When I ordered mbp 17 last year I actually thought about not getting the anti glare since the picture quality wasn't there qith the anti glare.
I also don't plan on using the laptop outdoor, with bright sun behind my back.
The only one thing bothers me is the single ram slot and this is actually a real bumber.
I thought about getting the t420s and the new z as well, but everyone says the build quality of the x1 exceeds the t420s.
I will be getting either crucial m4 or samsung 470 (7mm version), and I hope this helps more than getting 1dimm 8g ram.

 

You are welcome madSZuser. I have no experience with the crucial or samsung ssds you are thinking about. I have use OCZ, Kingston, Corsair, and Intel. I like the 320 intel series but you have to remove the black plastic spacer on the drive and then pirate some shorter screws from an old 2.5 inch noteobok hard disk to have it work in the X1. The 7mm options are much wiser. I ordered mine with 8gb ram but a standard hard disk. I already had an intel 320 ssd so this is how I kept my cost down. I would suspect 8gb so dimms will be cheaper soon. Good luck with your X1
hox

Hox

 

Does anyone know who makes the drive for the 128GB option in the X1 by any chance? It says it has a write speed of 180MB/s and a read speed of 250MB/s.

ThinkPad 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive II - Overview

 

^^^

It looks like the OCZ Vertex Series II happens to be 180MB/s write and 250MB/s read but would Lenovo use them as a parts source? Perhaps OCZ just rebadges other SSD or bases their designs on them?

 

I would think its the intel 320

 

The Intel 320 isn't available in 128GB capacity and the read/write speeds don't match up.

 

you are completely right!

 

That's the samsung 470 I'm talking about. They make those in 256g as well.
Check this thread : )
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/589217-anyone-familiar-samsung-470-ssd-one-7mm-high.html

I just put samsung 470 in mbp 17 2010 and this thing is fast.

 

here you go~