ThinkPad X220 (i/T) Owners Thread

Yes, and I don't like it since it's reflective.

 

I'm in two minds whether to swap my machine for a new one because the light bleed is annoying. It's not just bottom but along sides in a couple of places and top right corner. Otherwise, it's an almost perfect machine, that runs quite cool (around 81 in wprime). Tricky one

 

Head over to Station-Drivers: le site de drivers, bios, firmwares avec un forum d'aide and locate the latest up-to-date drivers and try those. Lenovo are fairly efficient compared to others when it comes to keep their support site up-to-date when it comes to drivers but I tend to find new wireless, graphics, storage and chipset drivers over at Station-Drivers: le site de drivers, bios, firmwares avec un forum d'aide quite often and they are no different from the Lenovo ones besides being newer as Lenovo doesn't do a thing when it comes to these specific drivers.

 

Well, there's a rep somewhere with trousers ablaze... my estimated shipping just went from 5/17 -> 5/23.

 

Just got my X220 i7 with 2GB.

Windows Experience shows Memory at 5.5, that seems awfully low to me. Is it just slow ram they're using since I stuck with the stock 2gb?

Processor = 7.1
Memory = 5.5
Graphics = 4.5
Gaming = 6.1
Hard Disk = 7.6

 

I'm ordering a X220, but wondering about battery selection.

I thought I would get the standard 6-cell and then the slice battery in addition. Do anyone have any experience with the 9-cell (not the slice) instead of the slice, though? Is it clumpy and impractical? How long does it last in normal use? Compared to the 6-cell + slice? Do you have any preferred battery combinations?

Thank you for any help!

 

WEI with 4gb ram:

 

About right for only 2 GB. You do have plans on upping it to at least 4 GB, right ? My below WEI score was with 6 GB of ram. Now I have 8

 

Interesting... I never knew Amount of Ram had anything to do with Ram Speed.

 

What SSD's are you all putting in? I am curious which will HELP battery life?

I am also contemplating the Tablet version...I just cannot imaging using the tablet version though.

 

So I managed to configure it like this:
($1,174.00)
Intel Core i5-2520M Processor (2.5GHz, 3MB L3, 1333MHz FSB) [virtualization]
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
12.5" Premium HD (1366x768) LED Backlit Display, Mobile Broadband Ready, 2x2 Antenna
Intel® HD Graphics 3000
2 GB DDR3 - 1333MHz (1 DIMM)8
Fingerprint Reader
250 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
ThinkPad Battery 29++ (9 cell)
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (2x2 AGN)
Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable
4286 : 1 Year Depot Warranty - TopSeller
3Yr Basic Warranty Extension ($119.00)

$1,174.00 + $119 = $1,293.00
--$117.40 (ECOUPONS10) = $1,175.60

So essentially, I'm getting the warranty upgrade for free. With the stock i5 CPU, it comes to $1,126.10 instead. With stock Wifi (which precludes the use of WiDi), it comes to $1,108.10. (Yesterday, the same config would have cost $1,071, almost $40 less).
Is there anyway to get a similar configuration, with the IPS display, from another vendor?

 

Intel Core i5-2410M Processor (2.3GHz, 3MB L3, 1333MHz FSB)1
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 6412
12.5" HD (1366x768) LED Backlit Display, Mobile Broadband Ready, 2x2 Antenna
Intel® HD Graphics 3000
4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)8
No Fingerprint Reader
250 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm4
ThinkPad Battery 29++ (9 cell)60
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (2x2 AGN)10
Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable65
4286 : 1 Year Depot Warranty - TopSeller7

Subtotal: $1,542.99
Sale price: $862.82
[ULTRA50911] -$50.00
Shipping and handling: $0.00
Estimated tax: $63.99
total: $876.81*
Total savings $730.17


Contemplating what SSD to get .... that is super power saving .

I already have an auto air adapter for my old T60P which will still work!

 

You do know that SSDs tend to drain more battery than regular HDD. SSDs do not shut themselves off when not in use, unlike HDD.

 

Simply not true. Most modern day SSD's can improve battery life, although they vary by make and model.

For example: The SSD in my y460 has helped me gain ~15 to 30 mins when light web surfing compared to the traditional hard disk drive that came with it.

 

When I replaced my 5400rpm hard drive with one of the Intel G2 80gb SSDs it drained my battery a lot quicker. Not sure why, perhaps because I was on Vista?

 

I have a quick question regarding the dimensions of the laptop:

I've been examining the pictures of this laptop and I don't get how the thickness grows from 19mm -> 34.6mm. Are they measuring from the bottom of the feet to the top of the hinges? The laptop LOOKs quite thin - but according to the official specs, it gets thicker than the T420. So is the X220 wedge shaped rather than flat?

NVM. I found my answer in the X220 Specs revealed thread... I guess I didn't Google hard enough...

 

I don't understand how you're getting this price. I just tried configuring everything exactly as in your post, and got $971.10.

Intel Core i5-2410M Processor (2.3GHz, 3MB L3, 1333MHz FSB)1
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 6412
12.5" HD (1366x768) LED Backlit Display, Mobile Broadband Ready, 2x2 Antenna
Intel® HD Graphics 3000
4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)8
No Fingerprint Reader
250 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm4
ThinkPad Battery 29++ (9 cell)60
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (2x2 AGN)10
Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable65
4286 : 1 Year Depot Warranty - TopSeller7

Subtotal: $1,525.00
Sale Price: $1,079.00
[ECOUPONS10] -$107.90
Estimated total: $971.10*
Total savings $553.90

 

My experience with the extended batteries (admittedly, not on the X220, but on other Thinkpads) is that they aren't impractical in the slightest. Yes, the stick out a bit, and add to the weight, but they typically extend battery life ~50% vs the standard ones. According to various reviews, you should be able to get about ~12 hours out of the 9-cell, vs ~7-8 from the 6-cell.
I consider the slice to be impractical. It substantially adds to the weight and size, which IMO defeats the purpose of an ultraportable. That being said, however, the 9-cell + the slice apparently gives ~20+ hours, which is insane IMO.
Although I don't have my X220 yet, my suggestion would be to go for the 9-cell, or the 6-cell if you're looking for the smallest configuration possible (which I'm guessing you aren't, given that you were considering the slice)

The Windows WEI RAM score is based entirely off of how much RAM you have, not the speed. So 8GB of ultra-fast RAM will score below 10 or 12GB of cheap, slow stuff.

 

I have the 9 cell on mine and it doesn't bother me a bit. It actually makes a nice handhold when carrying around the laptop or showing something on the screen to someone else. I've had 9 cells in just about all my Thinkpads so maybe I'm just used to it.

I have more ram on the way so that number will get bumped up then. But I'm really not doing anything that requires gobs of ram anyway.

So I got my X220 and just thought I'd post what I did to set mine up.

First thing upon booting you have quite the wait while Windows does its thing and then you have to go through several Lenovo config screens. Kind of annoying.

After that I burned recovery disks. I have a slim external dvd that draws power from the USB ports, it's one of those dual headed cables. All of my other Thinkpads have had stacked USB ports, but the X220 has them spread out a bit, fortunately the cable still reaches. I also never know they took so long to burn...

Then I installed Acronis and made a backup image to my network server.

Then I copied the drivers from the X220 to a USB Flash Drive.

Next I made an image of my T60p to an external drive and used Acronis w/Universal Restore to restore the image to the X220.

Booted up my X220 after that restore, let it do its auto driver detect for some stuff and then uninstalled the older Lenovo utilities that were installed from my T60p.

Then went into System Devices and pointed all the "unknown" devices to my USB Drivers folder and it found every one of them.

Then I went to Lenovo's site and downloaded and installed select drivers like PM Driver, OSD, Hotkey, etc. etc. Tried to stick with the major ones only.

And that leaves me with where I am now. Everything is running great. I've been running about 5 hours so far with battery set on Max Performance and all turnoffs disabled. I've looped some videos, ran wprime a few times and then have just done a lot of browsing.

I'm very happy with the heat characteristics. That was one of my fears was that this thing would run hot, but it doesn't. Even with Wprime and the cpu hovering around 80/81 it was fairly cool both on the bottom and palm rest area. Very happy indeedy.

I'm also quickly getting used to the lack of palm rest real estate as others have mentioned in another thread. Love this keyboard and trackpoint (always have). Disabled the Touchpad as I keep hitting the damn thing accidentally.

 

You are actually missing bluetooth, little sleeve, and the camera...take off win 7 PRO, bring it down to home will help some ... I had a discount dealio account ... you can make a free one here :
http://shoplenovo.i2.com/SEUILibrar...ovo:EnterStdAffinity?affinity=barnesnoblegold

I just noticed I am missing the premium IPS panel ... I have to add that, so add 42.25$ for that.

I also plan to pop in my 250gb 7200 rpm WD I have .. will that drain the battery faster then the 5400rpm you think? Maybe i'll skip on an SSD....I am trying for ultimate battery life with this thing....unless someone knows of a SSD that actually keeps battery life, or makes it better? I'd love to stick one in it.

And a squaretrade warranty ... they've always been kick ...especially for accidentals, which is why I skimped on the IBM warranty.

I am wondering, what is the best way to condition a battery? I use my laptop maybe once per week ...and when I get it, I want to make sure I train it. Is it a full cycle, drain, full cycle, drain, repeat once or twice? Or just let it run however I wish? I try not to drain batteries passed 30%~ like my iphone.

 

I just wanted to post my WEI score with Windows 7 Pro. This is with a clean install using all drivers from Lenovo.

Here are my specifications:
Core i5 2410m
4GB Ram
Samsung 470 Series SSD 64GB
IPS Screen
720p Webcam

 

Thx, someone else sent me that link and I'm taking advantage of it.
I don't think you'll be able to throw in your WD drive, since it only take special 7mm thick HDDs. Can't help you with the battery.

 

How's the battery life with the samsung 470? Did you have to mod the case it came in at all to fit properly for 7mm?

 

Well I really have nothing to compare it to but the battery life is great. I took out the original HD 10 minutes after receiving my x220. I had to remove the top (orange cover) of the SSD for it to fit. It did not require a tool other than my fingernail and there is no warranty sticker to void.

 

Thank you, kpresler and kevroc! I forgot the larger Thinkpad batteries extend behind the machine rather than propping it up (like my Vaio extended battery)... I can do fine without the 20+ hours, so the 9-cell seems to be a good, and much more affordable, option!

 

The SSD Power Consumption Hoax : Flash SSDs Don?t Improve Your Notebook Battery Runtime ? they Reduce It

You could be right, but I haven't found anything too recent about it.

 

Haven't seen one person linking to that article in over a year now
But anyway, it's inaccurate and they retracted it.

 

No Linux users yet?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/575569-linux-x220.html

 

I am wondering, what is the best way to condition a battery? I use my laptop maybe once per week ...and when I get it, I want to make sure I train it. Is it a full cycle, drain, full cycle, drain, repeat once or twice? Or just let it run however I wish? I try not to drain batteries passed 30%~ like my iphone.


I am still on the fence, whether or not to get an SSD. I would rather get one, if it improved battery, or did not effect it at all.

 

A SSD in addition to the HDD will have a very marginal impact on the battery life. A SSD instead of the HDD will improve battery life--no platters to spin

What I typically do with laptop batteries with success: I use the laptop as normal, trying to stay plugged in most of the time. Then, every couple months, I drain the battery completely, re-charge, and repeat the cycle. So, basically I use the laptop normally, except I drain the battery completely every couple months.

 

Has anyone used the internal mobile broadband card successfully with a UK SIM card (Vodafone in my case)?

I can't get it to recognise the SIM card (not a mini SIM). I know the SIM card works, as it works fine on my other (asus) laptop...

Petrov.

EDIT: Scrap that, I got it recognised. The x220 user guide is incorrect on how it shows to stick in the SIM card.

One niggle: Has anyone got the Intel WiDi application to work? When I run it, I get an error message concerning a missing dll file... I know someone else has reported this error on the forum previously.

Petrov.

 

That was me. I got it fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the widi, display and wireless drivers.

After rebooting:
1) wireless driver reinstalled itself, using lenovo driver version.
2) display driver was installed manually, using lenovo driver version
3) widi was installed manually, using Intel's version which was newer than Lenovo driver version

I do recommend you download these the wireless and display drivers from lenovo support page and the widi from intel before you do this so if there's a problem, you'll have everything you need.

When I rebooted, the wireless adapter driver started to reinstall but it took a long time. While it was reinstalling, I went ahead and ran the setup for the lenovo wireless driver and the install concluded successfully. I wasn't sure if I needed to do it or not but it worked for me.

 

The order page for the X220 shows that only the Core i7 comes with a USB 3.0 port. Is this correct? I wouldn't wanna miss it.

 

Thanks - I think I got it working before I read this by just running the widisetup.exe file in the C:/SWTOOLS/Drivers/widi/ folder. Then when I loaded the Intel Wireless Display application again it didnt come up with the missing dll file - the app seemed to load fine (of course it couldnt find any adapters to connect to, but thats because i dont have any presumably!).

Petrov.

 

Yes, USB 3.0 only on the i7 model.

 

Thanks man!

 

I would recommend getting all three from Intel especially right now since the 2.1 WiDi version enables streaming of protected content and has some other fixes.

Graphics Driver 15.22.1.2361
Wi-Fi Driver 14.0 Make sure to get the larger download since it includes the My WiFi (required for WiDi)
WiDi 2.1.38

 

Nice info!

How do you owners with the IPS displays like them?

 

Compared to a non IPS display the viewing angles are great, but to me it seems like the top brightness level is not quite bright enough, and the some colors look a little off sometimes (like on Neowin). Otherwise it is good.

 

How well does WiDi actually work? I remember reading that it was quite buggy a few months ago. The concept seems really great. Does it stream high-def audio over hdmi too?

 

What the hell!!

I had the same problem. I called and they said my only option was to return and re-order the machine. So I did sent it in and now I find that it's going to take 8-10 days to credit my account with the money. Since I'm not going re-order until I get my refund (obviously) I'll be going on a month from the initial order just to place a new order... not even considering the build/shipping time for the new machine.

I asked customer service if they could just credit my account without doing the refund... nope. Could they expedite the refund process... nope. Could they offer me a free shipping upgrade... nope (ask for that when I re-order). Could they offer me any other discounts... nope. Could they offer me any kind of incentive to want to buy anything from lenovo ever again... nope. Could I speak to a manager... yes, but you're not going to hear anything different.

Anyone else experiencing the same problem? When I dropped off the box at UPS, the clerk told me that she's been seeing a lot of thinkpad boxes in the last week or so... What the hell is going on at lenovo? Why don't they have the same fix policy for everyone?

 

You got hosed. I received recovery disks yesterday without even having the OS language problem.

 

I even called them after reading this thread and told the that they gave me the wrong info regarding the return... but of course they claim they can't do anything.

Seriously reconsidering letting lenovo keep my money, even though I loved the laptop itself.

 

In situations like those call back and talk to another rep. It's too bad you don't still have the machine. Turns out I don't need the recovery disks they sent me, would've been happy to pass them along to you.

Don't miss out on a great notebook just because of one or two foolish support reps. Just reorder, a few weeks from now you'll be enjoying it and won't be thinking about this.

 

ecoli, get used to this kind of attitude from Lenovo. This is my experience every time I called them (even worse, really). They flat out just want to take your money and then shrug you off every time you call afterwards, they don't even try to hide it. Those requests you made are completely reasonable and you can see they don't care.

my honest suggestion is to buy from another company. X220 is not worth it. It also has numerous problems with backlight bleed and fan (fan will hopefully be fixed by BIOS update but not sure, could be many of us received a fan from a bad maker). And it's not X220 only. Before x220 I had x120e and that's not made good either, but probably a better value for the money than x220 is

In all honesty X220 is not worth what I paid for (huge discount too, $714 after tax). Keyboard is nice, cover is nice, trackpoint is very good compared to using the trackpads on other laptops (I even like it better than my older Macbook Pro's touchpad) that's about all the credit I can give it. I would definitely return it and buy from another maker if they didn't have the stupid 15% restocking fee policy. I really suggest you take your refund and put it to good use by not supporting Lenovo

 

I've spoken to 2 reps both online chat and on the phone and they both told me the same thing. I'm hoping that it won't actually take 8-10 days to refund my money (which actually makes no sense if you think about how every store in the country works in terms of refunds).

I will probably re-order, it's just that you'd think that the reps would try a little harder to try and keep business, considering they ed up in the first place...

Meanwhile I'll try a little harder to try and not sound like a hysterical teen! </rant>

 

ecoli, they took that long to refund my x120e, and even longer until it showed up in my account. I like how they can take your money instantly but it takes them that long to refund. Must be nice

 

I didn't notice any fan problems or backlight bleed, but my biggest problem was pathetically quiet speakers. I think there's probably a software fix for that (or just to get real speakers) but I watch a lot of movies on my computer so that's definitely an issue..

 

Yes there is a fix for the low sound actually and it works great (since you don't have the machine I won't list the steps, but it's pretty easy). I'm not an audiophile by miles but the speakers sound good enough or better to me for Netflix and DVDs. The backlight bleed is only noticeable in dark scenes. So if you watch a lot of horror or action movies, you'd definitely notice it in every dark scene. It's pretty distracting but now after 2 or so weeks I've gotten pretty used to it. My eyes still wander to the bleed though no matter how hard I try.

If you look at my post history you'll see I'm very bitter with Lenovo though. I'm more OCD/anal/perfectionist than others, that's for sure. But some things like the backlight bleed others find disturbing as well and there's just no fix other than replacing the LCD yourself or hoping Lenovo will eventually purchase better ones down the road and they'll replace it then if it's still under warranty. Customer service though is just the worst there is though. That I can say with confidence. Just like talking to your health insurance company