ThinkPad X220 (i/T) Owners Thread

Hello guys,

after some very long desicion making, last night i finally bought my X220tablet. It's brand new and i really love it. Have to get used to the trackpad a little bit. The one on my r60 works smoother. But it's just like a pair of new shoes i reckon.

It has an i5 processor and the 320gb hdd.

Now i'm really eager to work on it, but i'm thinking, what would be the best option to go for:
I buy a (small) ssd, and put windows 8 on it. In this way, I think I will have a very nice system from the start. But i'm getting really confused in the ssd story.
I think I would like to keep the 320HDD and put the ssd in it for the OS. But, what size would be recommended? Would 128gb be enough? Also for future use? There is talking about a msata II of msata III?

Any comments?



Here is it next to my R60

Tim

 

I think even if you get an mSATA III drive, the x220t only supports mSATA II speeds, so that's a question of whether or not you'll want to roll it over to your next laptop, etc. mSATA III drives might just be cheaper due to availability, though; I haven't paid much attention to that space.

As for size, it's another one of those things that people ask, but only you know how much space you need. I've been getting by handily on 80GB for years, but obviously that's not everyone's cup of tea.

 

Yeah, that's one reason why I prefer the X220/X230 over the X200/X201, the ability to have two drives. I disliked having just a SSD and no hard drive, but then again, the Momentus XT wasn't an option back then.

 

The X220/X230 laptop is an improvement over the Arrandale equipped X201. But the X220t and X230t in many ways are several steps back in its casing construction. No real latch mechanisms, lot of backlight bleeding, not many control buttons on the tablet screens, etc. In terms of tablet i like the X200t and X201t, but as a ultra portable laptop i like the X220/x230.

 

In Italy the price of a 4 gb is ~30% more than a 2 gb.
15/16 euro vs. 9 euro.

 

Excellent observation.

I can't let go of my X201. Its keyboard is awesome. (By the way, the X230 non-backlit keyboard is much better to type on than the backlit one. These things you have to actually use to perceive for yourself.)

 

I found the X201 and X200T keyboard worse than the X61 FRU keyboards. There is slick feeling on the keys, like all the newer FRU keyboards (X220/X220t).

 

Yeah, been saying this since day once. I really, really, really, really, hope they can step it up again with the x240t. Did I mention really?

So it's basically nothing as well and you should get 4GB. Done.

 

X240t -> lets just say it won't happen, there is nothing like this in the product pipeline. Check Helix if you need tablet.

 

Is that confirmed as me and Commander Wolf will be very sad panda if an slimmer X240t does not transpire.

 

Yeah, I thought the opposite was confirmed when we first saw the Helix a couple days/weeks ago?

 

you will see soon enough. X230t is last of its kind.

 

That's a little unfortunate, but I guess I don't really care about how it converts as long as it doesn't reduce the x230t feature set (ie Wacom digitizer, "real" Windows, etc), but does reduce the physical dimensions.

 

i am not sure how upgradeable the Helix will be from the looks of it is a X1 Carbon in a tablet format, which for me is a reduction in features.

 

Should not be this RAM compatible with X220 ?!?

 

That will work as well.

 

Are You sure ?

The crucial scanner said it is not compatible ?

Why ?

Because it's DDR3 8500 and not DDR3 10600 nor DDR3 12800 ?

Currently I have a single 2 Gb module: Samsung DDR3 PC3-10700.

 

Those are just nomenclatures to confuse people. Faster RAM has no real world performance benefits, unless you are gaming on the IGP..

 

Like we've been saying, any DDR3 will work. Clockspeed will default to that of the "slowest" DIMM, and I quote that as differences in RAM clockspeed are, as also mentioned, largely intangible.

 

Anyone try to boot from a drive in Ultrabase?

I am interested in setting up other OS on a separate drive, rather than a partition on my main drive (Windows 7). So, when I want to use other OS, I can dock my X220 to Ultrabase and boot into Linux and others.

Would it work?

 

@ ddochi11
Works fine - I've done it. Press F12 at the ThinkPad splash screen on bootup to get the BIOS boot menu to chose which drive to boot.

 

Thanks.
Then I'll go with that.


I had the doubt that different frequencies could be cause a problem of compatibility.

 

I've just now installed the 4 Gb module (Crucial) but the systems indicatas that only 4 Gb (On a total of 4 + 2 Gb) can be used.
Maybe I've to modify some bios settings ?

 

Are you sure you installed the RAM correctly? This happened before on my custom desktop, I upgraded to 18 GB RAM. The last stick wasn't fully in and it wasn't reading the RAM.

Only other thing I can think of it you have a 32 bit OS and it can't use more than ~4GB.

 

In such a case is this the problem.

I've a 32 bit win 7 version.

 

I've mostly used my x220t as a laptop and have just recently been experimenting with some of the touchscreen/tablet features. I'm finding it less intuitive to use than my smart phone. One of the more annoying problems I'm having is my onscreen keyboard vanished after typing a single letter. I tap the URL bar in my browser, the keyboard icon appears, I tap it, the onscreen keyboard appears, I go to type "www", but once I hit the first w, the keyboard disappears. Any ideas?

 

installed the latest drivers? Which windows are you running?

 

Windows 7, same install that came factory. I have automatic updates setup.

 

Anyone? Anyone?

 

Sorry for the small hijack, but amazing-boy where did you bought your used lenovo?

Thank you

 

Does anyone use throttlestop or similar sw to reduce power consumption, increasing battery life & keeping stopped the fan as long as possible ?

 

I figured this post belonged here. It is a small recount of my Windows 8 Pro x64 clean installation experiences.

=========================

I installed Windows 8 on my X220T on Saturday, after updating to the newest Lenovo BIOS. The drivers I installed from support.lenovo.com were the new Intel Chipset Driver, Intel HD 3000 Graphics, Conexant Audio, Tablet Button 2 for win8, Bluetooth, and the Win8 Beta Hotkey Driver. From other sites were the Intel Wifi (Intel.com, Driver only, for a 6205 card) and the Monitor Driver (from Windows Update). I also installed System Update 5, but it wasn't very helpful. I hate the default Lenovo Ultranav Drivers so I went with Synaptics ver 16 (newest) from synaptics.com and just use MacHater's Two Finger Scroll mod.

Some more interesting things I've gotten working on Windows 8 are using devcon to disable the default Windows 8 Touch Input driver (an HID compliant device). I now have two shortcuts pinned to my taskbar, a check mark and a "cancel out" sign for disable/enabling touch. The other significant thing I got to work was my eGPU, but using the newest NVIDIA 306 Drivers. It seems like Optimus is still active in that I can change what processor to use for whatever program, even though I didn't actually mod any of the drivers myself. And, stability issues that were present in Windows 7 are not present in Windows 8, such as not having to restart twice after disconnecting the eGPU to prevent BSOD from Sleep Mode. However, one thing that is unfortunate is an issue I had where the eGPU wasn't recognized from cold boot until after trying to change the boot order; I'll have to do more testing.

I'm really enjoying all of the small benefits Windows 8 has like fast screen rotation, Sleep Mode, and boot up (Edit: Also fast output to external monitors). One thing I'm thoroughly not enjoying is Acronis True Image 2013 having issues with Windows 8 (it was a total nightmare until I uninstalled it); I need to find a good backup solution that allows for incremental backups that can replace Acronis. The only problem is that Acronis is really really good; I am using Paragon Backup for Windows 8 right now. Another crappy thing is the File History backup method in Windows 8 requiring Windows Search (which I hate and never use) to be enabled to use it, and being unable to use File History on my Ultrabay drive even when I do enable indexing.

Overall though, after all of the days of frustration and workarounds I think I am happy with the clean installation result. Now I just to need to wait for official Lenovo or Wacom drivers for the multitouch and/or pen input. I never use pressure sensitivity since I'm not an artist, only inking for notes and onenote for organization of said notes. Therefore the default Win8 drivers should be ok for now.

 

Well done.
I've again win 7 (32 bit) and I'm really interested into such a clean install of 64 bit win 8 but I 'm wondering about overall system performance and bootUp/shutDown time.

 

32 vs 64 bit there is NO difference.

 

How can I tell which version has the IPS screen and which do not? Just looking to pick up a refurb off ebay or something.

 

If you can get the serial numbers you can look up the parts manifest. If they aren't CTOs you can also just look up the machine type, etc.

 

Refurbished Lenovo X220 Tablet Intel Core i5-2520M 2.50GHz 8GB DDR3 160GB Windows 7 Professional 12.5" TFT Multi Touch

No serial numbers or anything available.

 

This is the tablet. All tablets have the IPS screen.

 

Not all machine types are listed in the tabook, which means you may not be able to discern whether it has an IPS screen type from the tabook.

 

All X220 tablets have IPS, in fact all ThinkPad X series tablets have IPS screens...

 

Did I say otherwise?

 

Just got my x220t and I've fallen in love with it with windows 8. Windows 8 is MADE for this kind of laptop. Although I have been having a few problems. One of them being unable to get into tablet mode for some reason using windows 8. Also which drivers should I be downloading for the lenovo site?

 

What do you mean what drivers should you be downloading? Just download the ones appropriate for your machine. What do you mean unable to get into tablet mode, you can just rotate the screen?

 

Lenovo didn't release any tablet related drivers for the X220t and X230t, as they are not certified to work in the Win 8 as a touch enabled device (5 touch points minimum requirement, X220t and X230t only have 2 touch points).

 

Yes, that would be all fine and dandy if the screen actually rotated. Which it does not.

 

To rotate the screen you just need to press the physical rotate button, which you have access to if you install the Tablet Button Driver 2 for Windows 8, under the Mouse and Keyboard section. Auto rotate, on the other hand, probably won't work because lenovo has yet to release compatible drivers for that. To see the drivers that worked for my Windows 8 installation go here, which is at the top of the previous page in this thread. There are still some quirks like Fn+F8 not doing anything at all, but otherwise it is working fine for me.

 

Are you sure you can't just use Windows 7 drivers for 8? I got my tablet buttons to work with Windows 8 CP on my X61t using the Vista/7 drivers. Driver model is near identical, as it was from Vista to 7.

 

Rotation worked fine for me when I did an upgrade installation from Win 7 but when I did a fresh install I lost that functionality. Perhaps if the Win 7 drivers were installed with driver checking turned off it would work? I'm just about to do a fresh UEFI install so I'll try and get that working.

 

I gave up running Windows 8 on my X220T. For me, it just wasn't stable on this system. I updated to the latest BIOS and used the drivers from Lenovo's website.

The problem I have is that Windows 8 won't boot. It wants to do repair on itself. And sometimes, it just hangs while booting. I simply had enough of it and went back to Windows 7.

Oh well....

 

Your first problem was Windows 8.

I never had any issues with CP on my X61t.