ThinkPad X220 (i/T) Owners Thread

Can any Owner of the X220T tell me wether the IPS multitouch dispay can be used outside without problems?

Are there any videos or reviews concerning this?


i would like to use it outside so i dont know if i should wait for the outdoor gorilla display

 

As I was about to transfer files from my other computer, I realized this doesn't have an eSATA port, which I previously thought would be there They did cram every last inch with ports though, so I guess I can't expect much more (although honestly eSATA is probably more useful than that extra USB...maybe).

 

not sure about the multitouch, but i used the non touchpad x220 IPS screen outside this memorial day weekend and it was great to use. even with my sunglasses on, i could see and read the screen very well.

 

If my x220 came with Broadcom Bluetooth 3.0 with antenna...
can i use my cell phone's bluetooth to connect to my laptop so i dont have to use the laptop mic when using skype for example? its a Samsung WEP460 from Fido.

thanks

 

Probably. First set up your cell phone in bluettooth. (Control Panel|Bluetooth|blah||blah|blah)

Then right click the speaker icon on the taskbar, select Recording devices, and and make the phone the default Communication sdevie input.

 

I have the multitouch and I can use it outdoors just fine on the highest brightness setting. Indoors, I typically set mine at about 3-4 brightness. Outdoors, all the way up to 14-15. I'm not that picky about display quality outdoors though, so what might be okay for me might not be for others...

 

Thanks for your answer.

Does anybody use the Ultrabsase Serie 3 Docking Station?

Im seeing that it only supports VGA connection, will it go up to 1920 x 1080 ?

 

Just opened it today at work.

First impressions:

Sitting in my overhead lit office with a west facing full wall window on this sunny June day, no problems with the screen viewing.
I don't see this supposed grain or grid patterns people were worried about. Screen is matte with a slight off-angle gloss, its just like my TV at home and no reflection when you actually use it.

For reference, I am PICKY about my monitors, high end are the only ones I use now.
Home: 30" + 27" ips, newest TV is 55" ips led local dim (they exist)
Work: 27" + 2x24" all ips (we are awesome)

Tested the displayport, works at >1080p and passes audio.

Glad I didn't wait for outdoor screen, the touchscreen works well and 6 weeks was painful enough. I was worried I would be stuck with the pen for anything but giant icons since a lot of capacitive touch I've tried in the past is terrible.

Finger touch sensitivity is more than enough for all the couch and table surfing I plan to do like clicking on single character links in forums to get to a certain page

Keyboard is great for any laptop, let alone a small one: nice full size main keys and not chicklet. Though nothing can touch the mechanical ones I swear by on desktops they would add a couple pounds

Some quirks with their software, one of the utilities managed to completely disable the touchscreen at one point. I plan to clean install on a SSD anyways though.

Fingerprint reader is a bit slow but nice for unlocking the screen in tablet mode.

Expresscard slot is a bit tight but it holds my flush esata card well, better than loose since I can unplug cables without removing it.

I have the fitted tablet specific carry bag, its not really all that fitted but it won't fall out and doesn't block anything important in tablet mode.

On list to do:
-test express card port w/ vidock, I bought an extra short high speed cable to try and get x1 2.0 speeds.
-test cheap displayport to hdmi dongle with a couple tvs
install more ram + ssd

 

anyone else have awful download speeds with the centrino N 6205? connected to my router at 130mbps, speedtest.net shows 16MBps down, but downloading files at around 100kbps, and a 90 sec 720p youtube video takes 10 minutes to buffer... issue?

 

Yea I've noticed that. I have another laptop with an intel 4965agn and I can stream the same content with no lag, however on the x220 performance is CRAP. I blame drivers...

I'm really dissapointed. The x220 is beautiful hardware.. plagued by GARBAGE drivers.

Hopefully I can remove the whitelisting in BIOS and swap in a Killer 1102 N wifi card.

 

It massages your packets better than the rest

It would be interesting to know what actual chipset they use. broadcom would be my guess since they are all into that proprietary driver stuff, but atheros, ralink etc is still a possibility.

 

I mean.. everything seems to point to the driver of the 6205 being the problem. My connection can handle streaming that video.. the i7 is way faster than the 2.2Ghz C2D in my old vaio.. yet the video streaming lags like no tomorrow..

I switch over to my vaio, try the streaming.. no problems. I doubt that my internet connection suddenly craps out everytime my x220 tries to stream.

 

so my x220t is set to ship next week, and i already got my intel 320 series ssd and a 16 GB usb flash drive. my g.skill ram comes in a few days. what steps will i need to take to install everything correctly?

-use acronis true image home to take image of drive and all apps
-install ssd to laptop, take out hdd. simultaneously install new ram, take out old ram
-install recovery disk of win 7 and install drivers
-install apps from acronis virtual image

anything else im missing? does the order sound good?
any help appreciated

 

It has 2 DVI out, 2 displayport out and one VGA out and will support 2 monitors on my W520. I think it may support 3 on the X220 but that isn't here yet, so I don't know.

Yes, also to the 1920 x 1080

Perry

 

I would probably make the recovery disks and recover from them for the factory image installation. Do this right after you go to Win 7 SP 1 and update the drivers.

I also would not install ram and the SSD at the same time. Go ahead and do each separately and make sure that install works before you do the other.

Perry

 

Ok finally got my x220 here are my impressions
im not going to name anything positive, or anything that we expect. since this laptop retails for >1000, i would expect a quality machine (even though actual purchase price is ~800)

"Pros"
- Even without the IPS the laptop screen is acceptable. Pretty much like any other laptop. So it wasnt worht my 150 dollars canadian.

- the fan's noise is noticeable and high pitch, but doesnt really bother me

-sound is acceptable

Cons

- The mute, volume buttons are hard to press. they are soft and dented in. Very poor choice, I much rather them be consistent with the key board with the other bbuttons, or have it like the other laptops and have it as touch-screen like buttons

-The battery after placed in, locked, it is loose, when i lift the laptop and then place it down I hear it shift into place

-touch pad was ok at first, then disappointing on other applications

-after hibernate, the screen birghtness button doesnt work, I read that theres a fix earlier on the post i think

-An annoying feature is that during capslock or whatever, it just stays on top.

-Internet switch on side seems pointless and cheap

- for such a new computer with i5 sandy bridge, the speed of the comp is a disappointment. The time that i take to download a file then open Word/Excel, it takes a while. Doesnt feel as snappy as it should. Feel some laggy, sometimes temp freezing etc. The think vantage thing is slow and sluggish.
I love to multitask, leave multi tabs and have mulit excel and word opened the whole time. My operation slaughtered the HP DM1Z, and disppointingly gives x220 trouble. I expect instantaneous response and open and close, and siwthcing over etc.......

Overall for the price you pay...... 6.5/10 maybe 7?

 

Does anyone else have an issue with ethernet? When I remove or plug in my ethernet cable, the computer freezes for a few seconds.

 

Yeah, I thought my previous laptops had good displays. The IPS display blows them out of the water. It's amazingly clear, and unlike mnay laptops, it's not too blue. Just looking at it is a pleasure.

 

haha i guess its good that i havent been ruined by IPS, either way 150 is too steep a price.

 

Hi all,

Just completed some tests regarding i7 throttling and wanted to post my findings. Tested using OCCT and watching HWiNFO32 at the same time. Using Maximum Performance preset set to default settings. X220 i7, 80GB Intel 310, 320GB Hitachi 7200RPM, 8GB RAM, Intel 6205, Bluetooth, fingerprint reader, IPS, 6-cell, just updated to 1.16 BIOS.

65Watt PSU
Throttling to 800/650MHz (CPU/GPU) happens almost instantly as soon as the GPU goes for 1300MHz turbo. Seems to recover after about 10 seconds, CPU goes into turbo and shortly after the GPU tries to ramp up with 800/650 throttling being the result. This just keeps on going. Haven't seen it perma-throttle yet.

One interesting observation: When lowering the screen brightness from its default 15 to 0, both CPU and GPU are able to keep the 3200/1300 up for about 5 seconds before the above mentioned effect kicks in.

90Watt PSU (came with docking station, plugged in directly)
System starts of at 3200/1300 and then slowly (over a period of maybe 10 minutes) slows down to 2700/1250 (the GPU actually jumps between 1250 and 1300). CPU temps reach about 84 Celsius. This behavior seems acceptable to me.

No PSU connected
Couldn't find the same throttling as with the PSUs, but here the frequencies seem all over the place. Not so much the CPU, seems to be jumping anywhere between 2700 and 3200, but more so the GPU, jumping between all available states in the range of 650 to 1300, staying closer to 1200 for the most part.

On the X220
Loving the experience so far (moving up from my Dell D430, crippled by its 80GB 1.8" 4200 RPM PATA HDD). Yes there is a lot of tweaking and especially driver updating that had to take place first, but especially after updating to the 1.16 BIOS all I am hearing is the sound of this beautiful keyboard (it's my first ThinkPad by the way).
Build quality is superb (the only thing I'd like taken care of is the large amount of flex around the ThinkVantage button that so many others have reported, hints on how to get this fixed myself are welcome).
Really digging the screen. Yes a bit more brightness wouldn't be too bad, but thats only for though situations. Seems that I can live quite well with the 16:9 aspect ratio.
Having the ability to run both SSD and HDD is perfect. The 7200RPM HDD has quite a swoosh noise, so not needing it to run permanently due to OS and all programs living on the SSD just greatly reduces system noise. And the speed improvement this brings with it...

Thanks to everyone sharing all these valuable experiences, tips and tricks, have been reading here for a while now.
Best Regards,
Gundy

 

One thought about the throttling... while we are waiting for a fix, are we able to edit the gpu clocking profiles? To be able to set it to for instance 1000, a mid point between the two so it can run at it more consistently. Excellent testing though NSGundy, I hope that gets forwarded to Lenovo.

 

Hmm. One instance of quite weird behavior with my X220 that I don't think I've seen reported here: whenever I exit Chrome (12 beta), the screen goes blank for a second. Sometimes, it locks up completely. Did I miss some stupid setting?

 

argh... updated my drivers from 14.0.0.11 to 14.0.0.2 and now my speeds have increased from ~100kbps to ~500kbps. Still pretty brutal.

 

Rule of thumb: If your beta software isn't working right, use the known stable version.

 

My computer definitely doesn't do that. There must be some setting. Maybe the Windows UAC?

 

I've had this happen too. I'm not sure if we both mean the same thing by lock up though.. Sometimes when I exit chrome, it causes windows to lock (as in, password protected lock, not frozen), which is kind of annoying as I have to log back in... Strange...?

Edit: I have UAC completely disabled.

 

Yeah, that's what I meant as well. Are you using Chrome beta or regular? My UAC is enabled.

 

I'm running dev channel chrome. I don't know if this is related, but my other W7 laptop (Sony Vaio, clean install, misc drivers from internet) has a blue-screening problem that seems to be associated with chrome.

However, I've uninstalled all of beta/dev chrome on that laptop and just ran the stable release, and its still bluescreened, indicating that the problem is either with chrome itself (and not the beta/alpha code) or some other driver.

For both laptops, this doesn't happen every time I close chrome, only intermittently. (X220T locks the screen, Vaio blue screens)

The behavior and occurrence of these two issues seem related though (both happen on close of the browser).

 

Have you tried transferring on the W/LAN? (Wireless or Wired). Try testing any transfer between 2 machines. For some reason, on my network, I can't get anything higher than a 1.2MBps transfer rate from my X220T -> Vaio, and like 50KBps Vaio -> X220T.

Don't know if this is a driver problem or what.. I've tried transfers both using windows explorer (Browsing to the computer using \\computer\share) and also using an FTP Server/client (to bypass whatever funny business Windows Explorer was introducing).

Both acted the same way. I have all wireless powersavings and whatnot disabled on both WLAN devices...

Probably should note that both adapters are Wireless-N capable, as is the access point. Worst case, it should fall back to Wireless G, which is 54Mbps. I'm experiencing 10Mbps... :/

 

My 6205 on my x220 breaks about 6MB/s-7MB/s when copying files ... pretty awesome. I am using the driver on the lenovo site, none of them from intel.

 

Yeah, I have an enterprise grade WIFI access point. I can confirm that the 6205 in my x220, can copy 12mb a second over the wifi. This is, of course, within 20 feet of the AP.

 

Damn I'm currently downloading at 1.5-2 mbps on the 6205.

 

Strange.. I started a thread about it.. because I tested both over LAN and WLAN and I'm getting abysmal results both ways..

 

Do you guys know of any fixes to make the buttons for the volume and mute, sturdier?

Also how to make the battery not wiggle?

Or have any drivers for the touchpad?

 

Try changing the broadcast channel on your router...could be interference with the neighbors (speaking from experience).

 

With my X220 docked, running on AC with Display Port out to external monitor, why is the screen doing a slight dim every now and then?

Also, is anyone using the Intel Management and Security service?

 

I finally decided to replace my aging Sager NP 2090 (Compal IFL 90) and get an X220 pretty decently specced out. I focused on CPU power and portability with this notebook, so the X220 fit the build, as well as its light weight and good battery life. I don't game much on my notebook as I've discovered with four years on my NP 2090, so graphics wasn't much of a concern so long as the notebook can play Victoria 2 well.

My main question is what are the shipping times for this notebook these days? Within a week or so?

 

Try these that come straight from Synaptics, they are better than Lenovo's.

 

Shipping times can vary on a case by case basis. I myself waited over a month, but I'd say a couple weeks is fairly normal.

 

I spent a bit of time yesterday fixing battery wiggle.
The 2 hooks that attach to the latches are where you want to focus your efforts, as the other parts are a pretty solid fit being all part of a single piece of plastic. I cut thin strips of electrical tape to size, and then put 4 layers onto each hook surface. The recessed one was easier to do since you could use fatter pieces. The thin hook that goes through the slot with the spring loaded latch is pretty difficult, what I did was tape on 4 layers with big pieces and then trim the edges.

Did some aggressive jamming the battery latches against it and trying to rub the tape off, it held on pretty well I would go one step further and put a little superglue but I don't want to get it messy so I didn't. This fix is basically unnoticable, you have to be looking really hard to see the tape


As for the touchpad, I'm getting used to not using it since I hate the bumps. I might try doing a little sanding on them someday.

 

Might want to make sure it doesn't put unnecessary strain on the hooks. If you drop it and snap the hooks, the battery won't stay in at all, let alone wiggle.

Also, try mucking with the touchpad settings; particularly turning off all three filtering settings, and turning it to Light Touch to avoid mashing your fingers into it. TwoFingerScroll also supposedly works miles better than the built-in two-finger scrolling.

 

My third X220 is the first one to have a volume mute button that reliably turns on and off every time it's pressed, and in sync with the red light too. The other two didn't.

 

Thanks I'll give these a try

is this something we can complain to lenovo, or is it too bad for us customer kinda thing?

did you have it exchanged or???

 

anybody have CPU-Z show 2990.7 MHz at idle? I have the i5-2520M and it doesnt seem to be slowing down...

 

It's not putting strain on the hooks. In fact the spring loaded hook snaps right into place, meaning there's still a tiny bit of space between the tape and the hook. No pressure or anything required to force it in.

@mikoal I think it's not really something you can complain about, there's some degree of tolerance in the plastic parts and any removable battery won't be 100% perfect across all batteries. With a 9 cell it's particularly noticable because you have the large thing sticking out the back that you can grab it by, I don't think it's much of an issue for 6 cell.

I got a bit tired of adjusting touchpad settings so I just don't use it anymore :shrug:

 

I just wanna say that I retried the GPU throttling test (HWinfo32 and OCCT), but could never reproduce it; the only time it went down to 800Mhz was when I opened another program by mistake, and then it quickly went back up to 3300Mhz.
This is with BIOS 1.16, Win7 Pro, 320GB HDD + 80GB SSD, 4GB 1DIMM. Don't really think any of that is terribly relevant, except perhaps the BIOS version, but ppl would ask for it anyway, I guess.
Hopefully will put a full review up within the week.

 

Synaptics drivers linked to above by Jayayes get rid of the drivers for the TrackPoint. This means you can no longer specify independent sensitivity settings for it than from a mouse or the touchpad. I reverted back to the old software as a result.

 

Hello there,

I would like to purchase the X220T, i am not sure about these points:

1) Display: Should I go with the MultiTouch Display or should I wait some weeks and get the Outdoor Display? I will use it 80 % indoor an 20 % outdoor.

2) Battery Life: Is the 6-cell battery enough or do I need the 9-cell? I need about 6 hours of battery life with wireless enabled.

3) I would like to install an SSD. What do you recommend me?

a) 320 GB @ 7200 rpm + 80 GB SSD Intel SSD 310
b) Intel SSD 160 GB
c) other SSD?


Thanks

 

How do I turn off filtering, and what does "TwoFingerScroll also supposedly works miles better than the built-in two-finger scrolling" mean?

 

I am using Display Port out just fine.