ThinkPad X220 HD vs. Premium HD screen? i5 vs. i7?

Thinking about getting an X220 from the lenovo web site.

What's the difference between the (standard) HD screen and the Premium HD screen?

The CPUs offered don't seem to differ much other than small change in clock speed and L3 cache. Do I understand this correctly? They have i5-2520M and i7-2640M for example. Both are just dual core, not quad core, right? Are there any other significant difference between the i5 and i7 offered by Lenovo?

Thanks!

 

Display: TN vs. IPS at Lenovo Thinkpad X220 - YouTube (Standard left, Premium right)

Google: "IPS". The X220 Premium Display has much better colors and better viewing angles

 

I'd definitely opt for the much better IPS screen and slightly slower i5.

 

Difference? Dull vs. vivid.

The $50 should go to Premium HD (IPS), assuming OP is in North America.

 

IPS is strongly recommended.

i7 wouldn't be a lot faster than i5, but would come with a USB 3.0 port.

 

If you're on a tight budget, find a way to make the IPS happen.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

Agree with everyone else. The IPS upgrade is a must.

 

I already bought mine, but I'm interested in knowing if there is a noticeable battery life difference between the IPS and TN panels?

 

The clarity and viewing angles of the screen has no bearing on battery life.

All modern screens are LED, which consume little battery so I'd venture to say it's a wash...but a smaller screen will obviously last longer battery-wise than a larger one do to size.

 

You should take into account the lower transmittivity of the IPS panel. Hence, a higher backlight brightness is needed to produce the same perceived brightness. Therefore, battery life may be lower on the IPS panel.

The higher contrast may be able to mitigate this by allowing lower brightnesses to be more readable.

 

I agree unless having an integrated USB 3.0 is extremely important to you.

 

If that is the case, I would still suggest sticking with the Premium HD screen + i5, and then spending much less money on a (flush) USB 3.0 ExpressCard. The i7 dual core will make no noticeable difference in pretty much any task.

 

I saw one that was close to flush but not quite. Given that I am somewhat anal retentive, I would almost prefer a non-flush one if that makes sense.

 

If that is so, will there be a noticeable difference in battery life then? I've seen it mentioned and it seems plausible, but are we talking about like half an hour or something much more substantive?

I have a five-year old T60 at the moment. I hope I'll be able to use my next Thinkpad for about as long. So would it not be reasonable to go for the most capable model, seeing as USB 3.0 is going to be standard at some point (and I don't want to fiddle around with an extra card for USB 3.0 later)? Or would you reckon USB 3.0 won't become overly important within the next five years? (Price difference between i5 und i7 here (in Germany) is more than 150$, though, which makes other solutions seem quite appealing.)

 

I've learned my lesson that if you intend to keep your laptop for a long usable period of time you should always get the fastest CPU option as it's not upgradeable down the road unlike RAM or HD.

 

Battery life differences between the dual core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs is negligible. I believe NotebookCheck did some tests a while back that found that battery life is i3 > i5 > i7, but only by a tiny margin (that, again, you won't notice).

Instead of blowing $100+ now on a marginally faster CPU, the money would better spent saving up for a new, much faster computer a few years down the road. Given the little difference between an i5 CPU and the fastest dual core i7 you can buy right now, if the former will be obsolete, the latter will be as well.

Of course, all this is given that you aren't someone who is always using the CPU at 100% (where you may notice a bit faster performance from the i7).

 

It would depend on what you primarily do with your machine. If you render or compile code yes the i7 will make a difference, but 100 dollars worth is debatable. Also considering the X series just keeps falling in price (I had a friend get a base i3 X220 with IPS for 650), it maybe more beneficial to sell your old laptop and purchase a new one, as a faster CPU won't beat an entire platform upgrade.

 

100 or 200mhz on a cpu won't mean crap a few years down the road (it barely means anything right now wrt: i5 vs i7 in x220) but a really nice screen will never lose its appeal. Surfing the net isn't a heavy burden on a cpu now, and it won't be in 5+ years either. LEDs don't fade as bad as CCFL either, I have a 2006 C2D laptop that you can tell is dimming out, but it surfs just fine.

If you have the $50 option ( before discount % modifiers) for IPS vs TN, you are showing signs brain damage by not choosing that option.

 

Difference will be great on a slow machine when you're doing heavy tasks. I've worked with few hundreds of 12MP RAW photos on my old Gateway laptop that has Intel Pentium SU4100 CPU (1.3Ghz, 2MB cache), 8GB DDR2 ram and OCZ 160GB SSD and Photoshop CS5 batch command killed it.

 

Well, if "heavy tasks" involve both processing power and screen superiority, one must be ready to pay big bucks -- and perhaps not on an X220.

 

Just reading all these posts about "longivity" ("in x years...the specs wont matter"--just how long is average life of a laptop/notebook at a given spec? Should the decision to add options now not be made along these lines?

 

The question here is why are you photo editing on an ultraportable laptop?

 

Well yeah, if you're comparing a 2-generation-old ULV CPU to a current-generation standard voltage CPU running at twice the clock with a newer architecture, of course there will be significant differences.

Since you brought it up, though, I think this does help me make my point: if you instead had a, say, 1.6GHz version of that CPU, would it be any less obsolete compared to your current X220? Not really, no.

Batch scripts on 12MP+ photos is something that even routine amateur photographers will do nowadays, given the increasing prevalence of DSLRs. You don't need a high-powered workstation to do it unless it's your job. My dad routinely edits 18MP RAW images (Canon 7D) on his X220 and his aging Pentium D (Pentium 4-based) desktop with 2GB of RAM.

 

It would help wouldn't it? Every second counts. And besides with the i7 option I get 1MB extra of cache which makes a difference with Photoshop. I need USB3.0 as well so I can use a USB 3.0 card reader for transfer of photos off my 32GB card.

Because as a photographer I shoot on the go, and I don't need a 20 pound laptop when I'm already carrying 50 pounds of cameras and lenses with me.

Besides, the X220 IPS screen is sweet.

 

This is a side question but I am curious to know: Is it really necessary to use the RAW format? Can you really see compression artifacts in the final prints if you just use the high quality jpegs?

 

For my camera (D300), it provides more dynamic range shooting RAW then exported to JPEG at post-process. You can also fix your white balance after as the in-camera auto white balance is wrong half the time.

 

Thanks!

 

Thats nice and yet a bad comparison, I can wait worst case 8% longer on a 2520 over a 2620 (2.5 vs 2.7) to not have eyestrain and kick yourself every time you suffer photo-shopping on a typical laptop TN screen. The comparison was a choice between the two, not cake and eat it too.

Fast car with crappy seats, do not buy...you'll feel it that much more on the high G turns

 

Simple: Get the i5 and IPS Screen. You won't regret it.