ThinkPad X1

CDW is already listing the Thinkpad X1 for sale:

LVO TP X1 I5-2520M 320GB 4GB W7P - 12932CU - Notebook Computers - CDW.com

As you can see on the link this is a i5-2520M processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD and their asking price is $1684

Another model:

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/LVO-TP-X1-2.50HGZ-160GB-8GB-W7P/2378234.aspx

Looks like the price bump is from the 8GB stick and the 160GB SSD.

 

$1,684 for the X1 with HD resolution only, no IPS display and a conventional hard drive? (looks lovingly at his 3820TG) There's not enough here to tempt me to get rid of my Acer for a computer that will underperform it and doesn't provide a better display. The X220/IPS is a much better option. Shame too cause it's a beautiful notebook. It was love at first sight. But, like many other romances, it doesn't stand the test of time.

Bronsky

 

Then again CDW is the most expensive place on the planet.

 

Really? Some of their prices looked pretty comparable to others. At least on some lenovos and macbooks. But who knows I didn't really look at the specs.

 

The 8GB and 160SSD combo is a killer on the wallet. 8GB modules go from $200-$300. I think it was a bad design decision to go with a single channel (from both a cost and performance standpoint), but I guess there wasn't enough room. Why would a person need 8GB in an ultrathin laptop anyways. People looking at the X1 should consider getting the cheapest ram/HDD option and then upgrading themselves. At least Thinkpads are upgrade friendly (this is assuming that the "Edgey" X1 inherits this trait). Hopefully Lenovo won't solder the RAM into the MB like other companies. If they did that then I'll give up hope on all future lines.

Regarding pricing, we still have to wait to find out. Usually pre-order pricing is speculative at best. Remember the $3000 original quote? May 17th is announcement and the 20th is when the X1 will be out. Until then, I won't believe what companies post.

6 months from now, I bet Lenovo will have these on sale. Despite what I have just said, we all know that the X1 will not be as good as a deal as the X220 or the T420s. Lots of them (X1) will show up on eBay as well (for cheap!) since the people that buy these tend to be the ones that always have to be on the "cutting edge." Just my thoughts.

 

who, Computer Discount Warehouse?   no...

 

The CTO from Lenovo should be cheaper and you can't forget about couple if you are going to get it couple of the release.

 

Oh you're right, that would be "Best"buy

 

Yep agree with most on here, at first the x1 looks like a real wow but when you look at the compromised specification in order to get a notebook that thin it really starts to pale. x220 looks much better value both in cost and specification.

I've never quite understood this urge to make laptops so thin, after all they are still the same length and width, you ultimately still need the same size laptop bag and in real terms they take up the same footprint on your desk and in your bag. Marketing I guess?

It's not like the x220 isn't a thin laptop, a little over an inch in depth? It's also smaller in width and length. Just seems silly to pay extra for a lower spec.

 

Wow that really is expensive you're knocking on the door of being able to buy an X220 with IPS and a W520 for your desktop replacement for similar money.

I used to own an x300, absolutely loved it despite it being a deeply compromised laptop. x1 seems to be very much a spiritual successor.

 

After loving the X1 at first site, I eventually decided against it and ordered a X220 yesterday. The deal breaker in the end for me was the much higher price and shorter battery life.

I could get a X220 fully spec'ed the way I want it plus Microsoft Office and a 2-year full warranty for $200 less than the starting price of the X1.

Oh well, maybe in a couple years they will make the X1 more of a competitor.

 

if only they have a 1440x900 option or similar for the X1, it'd be brilliant. more so if it was an IPS panel.

looking at the "wedge" battery, it dosent seem to make the X1 that thick, so i reckon battery life isnt so much of an issue. i could be wrong, but it dont look thicker than the X220 with that wedge on.

 

Agree on the screen resolution point. Yeah if I would have gotten the X1 I would have had to get the wedge, which is an extra $150. For the X220 I just upgraded to the 9-cell for an extra $20, which will give me like 12 hrs of usable time. The X1 with wedge battery was stated to give 10 hrs, but I'm guessing it won't be able to get more than eight or so.

Just too much money for a machine that should have had more things with it

 

congrats on ur new X220, i'm jealous of the IPS screen lol. I got my X201 as a cheap portable to carry around while working on my master's thesis, but i had to send my M4400 back to dell for a while as there was a phantom issue with its SD card reader that seemed to not go away even after onsite service replaced the mobo and the card reader, and even the cable. been using the X201 as my main machine while it's away and the screen really is a big weak point.

hopefully the non-IPS X1 screen is better than the past thinkpad screens.

i really miss a proper backlit keyboard too actually, i dint realise how much i'd miss it.

 

IPS is only good if engineered properly. Seems like ghosting issues are appearing now? I thought Lenovo got a home run with the introduction of IPS, but now I have other thoughts...

The X1 can't dock either, a major disadvantage that the X300 shared as well. Docking, hi-res, IPS (non-ghosting!) would have been really good.

 

to be honest its not too much of an issue for me, my reason for IPS is colour accuracy of static images as i'm in marketing and i have to proof print materials and design mockups etc on a regular basis. neither is the dock a big problem for me if there is HDMI/Displayport

but yea, its a shame that there are reports of the ghosting, i wonder if its just a faulty batch of panels, on my M4400 i had a faulty panel that made it look like it had plasma burn lol, even at the BIOS screen i could see a faint image of the taskbar, but it was solved with a replacement screen

 

I like IPS due to the viewing angles. I couldn't stand the X30x display. Hopefully the 'minor' ghosting issues stay that way. Imagine if the problems got worse. It would be really bad for Lenovo if they had to issue a recall on the displays since everyone I know got the IPS version of the X220. That would amount to a large number of computers... Maybe Lenovo will even get rid of IPS in the future. That would be bad.

I'm just hoping that with these new IPS screens Lenovo didn't take a step forward only to take 2 steps back. Seems that quality control isn't up to par. Personally, I can't imagine how these screens got into the hands of the consumer.

 

Sincerely the only advantage of IPS against TN are the viewing angles, which is not something of concern for most people. The quality of the screen is another matter, if its going to have a good brightness settings or have good color accuracy, it all depends on the ''effort'' of the screen maker.

I really dont care if its IPS or TN, it should be a good panel, only that. There are only 2 notebook panels that are IPS right now, the x220, and the dreamcolor 2, even the high end segment seens to abandon IPS, the dell 30'' and the cinemadisplay are both TN now, and it appears that only NEC still makes high quality IPS panels for professional use. Basically what I want to say is this, IPS vs TN is a non issue, the quality of the panel that is another matter

 

Maybe in the IPS vs TN the issue more about cost saving more than anything else?

 

What?

The Dell 3011 is S-IPS. The 27" Cinema Display is IPS of some type. Which has the same panel (but glossy) as the Dell 27". I'm typing this on an HP ZR30w which is available now, came out last year, and I assure you is a professional quality IPS display. It doesn't have some of the features of the NEC displays, but it is comparable to them in display output (It has three controls. Power, brightness, and switch from one input to another).

It's not a non-issue. I have a very good Samsung TN panel which is difficult to edit on. The color gamut is reasonable, but it does suffer from some banding. That it is a TN means that no matter where I look on the screen, at that size, there is distortion in the color. It's a fact of life on a TN panel. The contrast is very good, the colors are acceptable, if not great, but the killer is the viewing angle, even at the 24" size.

There are good TN panels that are fine for general usage, but if you're working on photos, IPS is definitely preferable, and if you use the display at odd angles in general for any reason, it's far preferable.

 

The dell and the cinemadisplay are now both made by LG (including that they are the same panel), they are TN since last year. And indeed I forgot about the HP display my bad. So my point is still valid IPS is a rare breed.

And you are comparing a samsung panel with +1000 dollars worth of panel? aint it a little too skewed? Or even the NEC panels that cost +4000?

 

The Dell U3011 and U2711 are IPS. See UltraSharp U3011 30" Monitor with PremierColor Details for the 30"

This is off topic of the X1.

 

I haven't seen many IPS displays, but my Vaio TT make a great case in favor of TN displays. Trying to find my next upgrade has kind of been hard because of it. I want to like the X1 but the screen quality(and lesser extent footprint) are what are holding me back for being sold on it. I may just get a X220 tablet once once Ivy comes out.

 

Ick! Glossy screen.

 

hummmm really my bad, *searches the internet where he read it*

 

To make this partly on topic, it's simply unlikely that Lenovo would have an available supplier for a 13" IPS display. As far as I know there isn't a single laptop available with a 13" IPS screen. 12.5, 15, and 17" only.

There are plenty of high end desktop displays that are IPS, Mr. MM - Viewsonic even makes a 27" 1080p IPS display which is much cheaper than the $1k+ 30" models - and yes, $1k is a typical price for a 30" IPS. You can get a good 24" IPS display for about $500 not on sale (Asus makes one, HP, Dell, etc). While there are certainly less IPS displays than there used to be, it is more or less because of the consumer desire for inexepensive medium sized displays (20-24") that supplanted the supply of IPS panels in that size range.

Odds are the same thing happened in the laptop world. Laptops are cheaper than they were a few years ago, so the marginal cost of putting an IPS panel in is significantly higher. There is an insane amount of consumer demand for lower pricing, quality be damned, and so the result is that most laptop manufacturers don't have the space in the budget for an IPS panel. This causes screen manufacturers to make less of them, which pushes the costs up (economy of scale). Good TN panels exist, but it's still TN and suffers from the same limitations of other TN panels.

Thus I will predict that a 1366x768 or 1600x900 IPS display at 13" for the X1 is beyond unlikely - it is highly unrealistic. The best you can hope for is a decent quality TN panel.

 

Agree with you on all accounts and thanks for the info

 

It's really too bad that that is the case. Uninformed people (like me) just assumed that if Lenovo could find 12.5" IPS suppliers, that it should have been logically extended to the flagship 13.3" X1 as well. I guess you learn something everyday.

As others have already said, if the X1's screen is as good as some of Sony's, or even Apple's, I'll be fine with that (in terms of viewing angles). Although 1600x900 is kinda rare amoung 13.3" panels, it shouldn't be a stretch to Lenovo to put it in their flagship. It would have been a good reason for some to get the X1 over the X220. Even more importantly, the MBA (X1's direct competitor) as 900 vertical pixels. It would have been logical to at least match these specs.

IPS can be expensive, but if seems to pay off. The X220 is one of a few to offer it, and it seems to be a bestseller. I don't have the numbers (and the public probably never will) but I'm willing to be that there is a very high percentage of IPS equipped X220s being sold relative to non-IPS. Everyone I know has the IPS option. Maybe someone can get the offical numbers in? It would be rather interesting.

 

I would rather doubt that in terms of enterprise purchase the IPS version is the most sought after. However in terms of customer purchase I would also be very wary about it, since this implies a highly educated consumer.

Currently we have a cry for higher resolutions, and thats it, a few people want more screen quality.

 

You don't have to be well educated to buy IPS. You just have to be able to tell the difference when both laptops are sitting side by side. It's really like buying TVs. I heard that it is possible to tell the difference between IPS and TNs, but does anyone have side by side shots of X220s with both screens?

 

Even better, a video!

 

and really there are that many stores that have thinkpads on display?

 

If there is no IPS display for the 13in market, then maybe Lenovo should go with the TN panel that is in the Vaio Z and that way we could have a high gamut 1600x900 res screen(even as an option). Couldn't that work?

 

Pretty good demo, even in German which I don't speak. It's apparent right away which screen is IPS and becomes strikingly apparent when the gentleman moves the screens to show the difference on screen angles.

Now, why doesn't the X1 have one?

#FAIL

 

The problem is that most people couldn't care less about screen quality. An IPS is a huge advantage on tablets that need wide viewing angles, but on a laptop, how often do you really need it?

I personally find a high quality TN panel more than enough, and am more than willing to buy a low quality TN panel for my work machine. My work is text based, and a good screen doesn't help me.

For IPS vs TN panels on the X220. I bet most don't have IPS. Most consumers will probably buy the IPS option, but few businesses will. It's a work laptop, if an IPS screen doesn't benefit work, why buy it?

That said, having a 1600x900 screen in a 13 inch would definitely be something I'd pay a lot extra for. More pixels ftw.

 

Well in the case of the X1, the lack of an IPS screen is just one of several things that make you go hmmm.

Or put another way, if it offered a 1600x900 IPS screen for $200 more, would you buy it? I would.

But apparently I am a minority.

 

I have to argue with that. There's a reason why those glossy screens have become so popular. People look at side by side laptops and notice that the glossy ones seem to be brihgter and have better colors. If you were shopping around and looked at the X301, I'm willing to bet that 9/10 people will be turned off by the screen.

I loved the X300 and X301 that I had, but the screen was just intolerable. You had to be within a very small sweet spot to see everything clearly. The window as like 5 degrees. Even then, the edges would be contrasted. I ended up selling them within the year and I'm a pretty die hard Thinkpad lover.

What do people notice when shopping/using a laptop? Inputs (keyboard/trackpad and screen). If you fail on either, you won't be able to sell anything.

 

At least there is 2 of us

Best laptop ever would be a X300/X220/T420 mix up with a 13" 16:10 1440x900 IPS. And yes, I would pay $200 extra for the screen.

 

See Teff's comments (which I agree with). Even if Lenovo wanted to put an IPS panel in they probably can't because suppliers won't provide it for the kind of small scale the X1 will sell on. If Lenovo could promise they'd be able to move millions of units of the X1 like Apple can with the iPad then they could get a supplier on board even if they used some non-standard screen size. But the reality is they'll sell maybe tens of thousands of the X1 if things go well, it's a halo product, generates lots of discussion and brand building but not a whole lot of sales.

 

Okay, what about the high quality TN display in the Vaio Z, couldn't they use that if its to small of a scale for IPS? I know the Vaio Z is kind of a small scale machine, so couldn't that work for the X1, specially with the 1600x900 res screen as a standard feature?

 

The average person looking at laptops will probably choose the IPS screen. Most Thinkpads are bought by large companies though. Unless the work that needs to be done requires or benefits from a good screen, IT probably won't buy good screens.

People who buy Thinkpads for themselves are a definite minority.

 

I really wonder why that is the case *sarcasm*.

If a company gives you a laptop with a bad screen, would you consider getting it as your home machine? Nope. But if the company handed you a great computer, I'm willing to bet that you'll inform you friends and family of it.

 

Wait is this right, Engadget is reporting that the X1 will have USB 3.0, but more importantly a screen built using IPS technology?
Lenovo adds ThinkPad X1 to laptop comparison guide, outs IPS screen, USB 3.0, and optional SSD -- Engadget
http://shopap.lenovo.com/SEUILibrar...48C7B92711C8CB84C886&tabname=Compare#tabstart

 

IPS is standard on the X1

 

IPS is nice, but the resolution is too low and the screen is glossy.

 

Would have been a great 13"mba alternative if it wasn't for the 1366x768 screen vs the 1440x900 ... although the IPS is good.

 

According to that link there was SuperBright display with Corning® Gorilla® Glass protection for X201s?
Was there really?

 

looks like you were wrong about the first bit. but hopefully in the near future the second bit as well

 

Logic be damned, I'm happy to eat crow here. The highly unlikely has occurred! Now they need 1600x900, and it'll be fantastic.

Also, due to this, look out for other laptops to come with the same screen. While not a guarantee, it is quite possible that that will happen in the near future. Had there been another 13" IPS model, I would have been willing to bet the X1 had the option, but this is a new screen for sure.

 

IPS is nice. It makes the X1 a lot more tempting. HD resolution is fine for a 13".

Fudzilla is anouncing that Ivy Bridge will transcode media 4x faster than HD 3000 IGPU. That makes an Ivy Bridge X1, a nearly perfect portable media/presentation device. If the first run of these are successful (and I think they will be), maybe we'll get HD+ resolution by next refresh. As much as I like the X1, I think I will be holding onto my Acer until next refresh.

Bronsky