ThinkPad X240

anandoc and nacy333 thank you for the quick response; you're both a great help. I am now confident in that my order will be correct. I don't get how or why the consumers need to know/learn more about Lenovo's products than they do themselves. ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS! I just hope this laptop is amazing and I won't really care.

I ordered mine with the normal single band wireless that it comes with (Intel 7260 BT BGN). I now see that there is an option to upgrade to a dual band wireless for $30 (Intel Dual Band 7260AC)? What is the difference between the two? Is single band the standard today (in macbook pro's, asus, toshiba, etc..) or is dual band the standard? Which one did you guys order (specifically anandoc). Not sure if I should call in and change that before it is built.

Thanks everyone!

 

I ordered with the 7260AC dual band which is the standard in most ultrabooks on the market. Last night I swapped out the 500GB HDD with a 256GB SSD and ofcourse, the difference in speed while booting up or launching applications is phenomenal. I am actually quite happy with the X240 and I think I will keep it. The screen is really good and the overall look and feel of the laptop is really nice. The only downside from my perspective is that the speakers are of really horrible quality. I have played with the Dell XPS 12 earlier on and those speakers were phenomenal. However, I mostly use headphones to watch movies etc so I can live with this.

 

When in doubt always go AC. For $30 you are future proofing to the new standard and it will save you time and hassle down the road when you decide to upgrade anyway. Once you experience AC? Going back to dual N, let alone B/G/N, is extraordinarily hard.

 

I called in this morning to change my single band to dual band and the rep informed me that the machine is already being built. Although I am not thrilled that I can't change this unless I cancel the order and reorder, I am happy about how fast they moved on my order. Will having single band even impact me at all? I connect to a home router and office router, which are pretty standard routers. I am assuming it won't matter but you guys are the experts. Let me know. And yes, the speakers. They are getting mixed reviews, some say they are terrible while others say they are average. We shall see!

Thanks!

Mike

 

I dont think they moved fast with your order. After the payment information has been verified, the order is sent out to their manufacturing facilities in China and is put in a queue. Once the order has been "Released to Manufacturing" (how it will show on the order status page), they cannot modify your order at all. It does not mean that they have actually started the build process...just that its in a build queue now.

I do not think that the single band wifi card will matter too much. If you are not connecting to AC routers, then there is not much of a point to have a AC card. The dual band cards are handy if you live in a wifi congested area so that you can hop on the 5Ghz band instead of the 2.4Ghz band which everybody and their dogs (or cat if you are a cat person) uses. I have a old single band N 6205 adapter on my X230 work laptop and it works like a champ everywhere I have taken it. YMMV.

 

Thanks! I will leave the order how it is then.

 

I think future proofing part should be taken with a grain of salt, considering the AC standard is technically still operating in the draft stage. So early adopters could still get burned.
Nevermind, I just looked up on Wiki the standard was actually finalized last month. So the new products should be fully compliant.

 

Do you think adding a m.2 SSD to the 500 GB HDD is a good option? Any disadvantages? Can you increase the battery life much (the HDD will spin down when not in use)?

 

If the HDD really does spin down, that *might* save you battery life, or it might not. Depends how often it spins up and down because each time it has to accelerate to 5400 or 7200rpm it uses a significant amount of energy. Also I would not want a setup with the HDD stopping and starting regularly as that is where the wear occurs on HDDs. Better to forget this whole small-SDD-supplementing-big-HDD business and just get a larger SSD. If you can't afford that, just stick with a fast HDD. Win 8 is pretty good speedwise even without an SSD.

 

Not to sure if anyone is interested but I finally got the Lenovo 12" fitted sleeve (Part Number 4X4OE48909) and it fits nicely. There's a tiny bit of slack but it's probably for users that have the 6 cell removable battery (I have the 3 cell). There were 2 12" sleeves but the other one was thicker, I'm glad I waited on this one.

A (very minor) issue is that the Thinkpad Logos don't line up from the sleeve to the laptop since they recently changed the orientation on the 40 series of laptops.

 

My x240 was starting to get very hot so I checked with HWINFO, watching netflix resulted in the computer hitting a maximum of 97C, and staying close to 95C.

Restarting the computer did nothing, however shutting down and restarting turned the fans right on.
Once the computer goes to sleep, the problem comes back.

I just installed the instant resume beta, that seems to have solved the problem, more testing needed to be sure.

Update, after putting the computer to sleep a second time, the fan failed to start once again.

 

The m.2 SSD thing is a bit tricky. In order to get full benefit from this configuration you will need to a) require more HDD space than is affordable on an SSD. b) Install OS and programs installed on the SSD.

When you get the device with it, the OS (as far as I can recall) is installed on the HDD. And I haven't used Windows much in recent years, so I am not sure how simple it is to split the install over two partitions, so OS/applications/library are on one and User Data is on another. But I have used the SSD/HDD configuration before on Desktops and Laptops with Linux and it really does give you the best of both worlds (great performance and vast inexpensive storage).

Two things to think about. First, is it worth the hassle. If you don't really need the extra space then just the SSD is a great option and they come in decent sizes. Second, once you put an HDD in the a laptop it becomes far more fragile. I used to quite literally toss my old x220 off the bed, since it had an SSD in it there wasn't much of a concern that jolts would damage the system (do not try this at home though). But having no HDD really put me at piece of mind when using the laptop.

In the end, it depends on what you need and whether it is worth going through the trouble of setting it up correctly.

 

I got the X240 cheaper and without Windows since I'm a student. It has a 500 GB HDD and I thought it's better to just add a m2 SSD instead of replacing the HDD with an SDD. A bigger SSD is more expensive and if I can get the HDD to spin down when not in use, I can hopefully save battery life, too. Further, I have a Win-Key from the university, so I guess it will be easy to install the system on the m2 SSD. My problem is that I have no clue, how much the power consumption will drop...

 

I honestly don't think the power consumption drop will be significant. According to many reports the battery life saved from switching to SSD range from negligible to non-existent.

My recommendation is not to consider the Battery Life for the SSD decision. And if you really want to improve the battery life try and get many of the Lenovo drivers as manufacturers do tweak many things to get better battery life from their laptops.

 

I am noticing another 'issue' with the fan of the X240 (FHD touch). No matter what speed the fan is running at, if you lift up your laptop and rotate it in any axis (up-down, side-to-side), there is a sort of a 'creaking' sound which comes from the fan grill in the bottom. It sounds like something is rubbing against the fan blades. The sound only comes when I am moving it and as soon as I stop moving the machine and remain stationary at that angle, the noise stops. Its particularly more noticeable when you put your ear next to the fan grill and are in a quiet room. Higher the fan RPM, louder this noise is. Can somebody else try this out and let me know if they experience the same issue?

 

What was your price without the OS? Where did you purchase it, online or your university?

Debian on Lenovo Thinkpad X240 - Gabriel Saldaña's blog

Interesting review.

 

Same. Another example: when the fan stops from full speed, you hear clear scratching sound. I think this is the root of the whole high-pitched noise issue. I had Lenovo on-site replace the fan but it didn't get better.

 

Yup, I heard the same 'scratching' noise when the fan comes to a stop. Definitely seems there is something going on inside the heatsink/fan mechanism which causes these sounds.

 

I got this one: http://www.studi-notebooks.de/Lenovo-Notebooks-68/X240/20AMS05C00.html (But I don't know if you can get this edu offer outside of europe)
And I can also hear the same noise, but I think it is not a big deal as long as it is not getting worse...

 

SSDs use around 1/5th of the power of HDDs. They don't get as hot, they weigh less and most importantly, they are a whole lot faster.

You're not going to see much of a difference if you run it alongside the HDD, I think. The best move is to replace it and get the mechanical drive out of there altogether. How much money do you have to spend? SSD's are getting cheaper.

 

Hmm I think the maximum I can spend is for a 256gig SSD, but I don't know if this will be enough space...If I install all programs and OS on the m2, the HDD shouldn't slow down the system? Only data which I don't need often will be on the HDD. But maybe you`re right and I should just order a 256 gig SSD. Do the 2,5" SSDs really consume so much less power?

 

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has been able to upgrade the screen themselves to the fhd model touchscreen or nontouchscreen if compatible? Might be more cost efficient than the 330 dollar upgrade even when considering the extra parts such as a new lvds cable. Do touch screen models require a extra motherboard port hence requiring a certain motherboard version? If anyone can answer these questions I would appreciate it.

 

I would love to know this as well. I've been waiting forever for a non-touch FHD configuration, and it's ridiculous that they don't have it (yet?).

 

I also have an old Corsair Force GT 120 GB SSD in my desktop, which I could put into the laptop. Is it compatible and do you think it will affect the battery life negatively in comparison to the 500 GB HDD? (Hitachi Travelstar Z7K500) Thanks!

 

ibmthink in the T440s thread posted a link to the 12.5" FHD display ICC color profile from notebookcheck. The link is from the Thinkpad Yoga review but since the display used in the X240 and the Yoga are identical, so it should not matter. This should help improve the colors on the X240 FHD display. Give it a shot folks and see if you find the colors any better on your screens.

 

It is something I was considering doing at one point. HMM implies that an upgrade from a base (non-touch) screen to non-touch FHD wouldn't even require new cables (there is only one part number for the cable). However, I was unable to find any 12.5" FHD panels for sale, touch or non-touch. Of course, they may show up at some point in the future, if they haven't already.

Me, I got tired of waiting and went for a different laptop. I wish I had done it sooner.

 

I have owned the X240 FHD touch for about 3 weeks now and I just performed the screen retention test here. I am happy to report that I did not observe any screen retention issues whatsoever on my machine.

 

Could you please give us more information? What kind of X240 do you have? HD+ or FHD? Touch or non Touch? Or give us the exact panel model number. You can look this up in the BIOS.

 

I already mentioned that in my originial post:

EDIT: Panel model# LP125WF2-SPB2

 

I tried this profile. The color becomes less yellowish and brighter. I almost got used to the yellowish uncalibrated screen so can't really decide if this means it's better or not.

 

Hi All,

I have just purchased a ThinkPad X240 20AL000AAU in New Zealand
i5 4300U
500 GB 7200rpm HD + 16GB mSATA
Win 8.1 64 Pro
8GB RAM
12.5" HD IPS (1366 x 768)
backlit keyboard
fingerprint reader
3 yrs warranty
etc.

I have just returned a Dell XPS 13 9333 due to its whining coil problem and a bad experience with the technical support, so I hope to have done the right thing choosing now Lenovo x240.
I am planning to install Ubuntu 13.10 or maybe 14.04 beta, dual boot along with Windows 8.1 pro in EFI mode (GTP). I have seen somebody has tried to install Ubuntu but I have not found the result posted..

My main concerns are:

1- how to handle this mSATA cache?
I have been reading that this 16GB SSD are used with Intel Smart Response Technology to enhance performance by providing 16GB cache. Obviously 16GB is too small to install Windows 8.1 there, so maybe I could have two options:
OPTION A - install ubuntu in the 16GB SSD, disable Intel Smart Response Technology and use Windows 8.1 without cache
OPTION B - install ubuntu in the 500GB HD along with Windows 8.1 and use the 16GB mSATA as a cache for only Windows (as I understood Linux cannot use it??)

I would prefer option B as I require better performance for Windows than Linux, but I am quite confused about these things. Has anybody tried any of these 2 options?

2-Windows 8.1 Pro comes pre-installed. I assume it is an OEM version. I have a bootable USB with Windows 8.1 pro to install it from scratch (I am gonna reinstall Windows 8.1 as soon as I get the laptop, as I don't want to waste much time removing all the apps Lenovo preinstalls in Windows). Will my Windows 8.1 PRO preinstalled key (I guess it's stored in the mother board firmware) work with the windows 8.1 pro I want to install? Has anybody tried this? Or will I have to use a generic key for installing it and then do some trick to activate it with my old key?

3-Anybody has successfully installed Ubuntu 13.10 or 14.04 dual booting with Windows 8.1 on Lenovo X240 in EFI mode (not legact BIOS)? I am concerned as I read somewhere that this is not possible at all in any ThinkPad computer (!) but I don't want to believe it..
If so, can anybody refer me to some tutorial? I had many problems trying the same with Dell XPS 13 and I got it working but I had to disable fast boot and I had issues with Grub boot loader..

I'm sorry for so many questions, any answer would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

 

256GB is enough space for most people, unless you have a lot of music/movies.

The M2 is a caching drive; you can't access it like a seperate drive. It's basically a mini SSD that caches the most used files automatically (including a big part of the OS). You will have notably faster boot times with it. It's a nice and cost-effective compromise between having a HDD or an SSD.

And yes, the energy consumption difference is big between HDDs and SSDs. HDDs have moving parts in them, SSDs do not. Making something physically move takes a lot of energy, especially if it's a relatively heavy lump of metal. The disk in a HDD needs to spin constantly, even when it's not accessed. It can be set to shut off after a few minutes of inactivity, but if you're doing something simple like working on a Word document or surfing the web, it won't, because there will be little moments of reading/writing that prevents it from reaching the threshold. If you're working for ten minutes, the disk will only be accessed maybe 10-20% of the time. That's 80-90% of idle time, while that disk still needs to physically spin at a blistering 7200 rpm. An SSD just sits there and barely does anything, until it gets asked to read/write data. The most energy efficient SSD (Samsung 240) uses 0.03W when idle, the best HDD uses 0.3W (Seagate Momentus XT), that's 10x more. Read/write energy use for SSDs is around 50% of that of an HDD, which is nice, but you mostly win it in idle energy usage.

On top of that, it's a lot faster and not vulnerable to shocks and vibrations. SSDs rule.

 

Well, I can't comment on x240, but I have an x220 with Gentoo Linux on it running in EFI mode.

 

That's how it is configured in software. Physically it is of course an ordinary drive and it can be reconfigured to act as one.

Sigh, you should consider becoming a polititian -- you are very good at spinning the truth. The reality is that even though an efficient SSD may idle at an order of magnitude less power than an efficient HDD, neither number significantly contributes to the idle power of the whole laptop, which, in case of x240, is apparently on the order of 4-6W (according to the notebookcheck review).

 

I think I read that on average, SSDs don't necessarily use too much less power - maybe on the order of half a watt at most. In either case, the total is still a decent amount.

 

Thank you for the reply. Do you have anything like Intel Smart Response Technology or hdd cache as my x240 has? Are you dual booting with Windows in Efi mode?

I have been reading tutorials on dual booting Windows 8 and Linux in EFI mode (GUID Partition Table) and it seems the latest Linux distros (Like Ubuntu 12.10 onwards) are EFI capable (the 64bits SO versions) and it seems they even support the Secure Boot option, meaning that you can install and run Linux with Secure Boot option enabled in Bios (the EFI bios). So I am glad to see Linux is able to run in EFI mode and hopefully the x240 is no exception!

I have not found, however, answers to the questions about the mSATA cache. If Linux and Windows can share the mSATA ssd cache then I will be happy. As it is managed by software as mil2 said, I would say it is possible to share this cache between the two SO?

Also I still cannot find answer on whether it is necessary to disable Rapid Start (Fast boot) in Windows and in Bios prior to install Linux and then re-enable it without any problem.

PS: Hopefully today or tomorrow I receive my X240 and then I could investigate and publish here the results on trying to dual boot Ubuntu 13.10 with Windows 8.1 Pro preinstalled

 

This 'scratching' sound when the fan comes to a stop or if I move my machine while the fan is running was bothring me quite a bit. Bothering me as in not the actual sound but the 'why' behind it. So I came home from work and opened up the machine to take a look inside. Unfortunately I could not find anything. I took a flashlight and tried to look inside the fan mechanism and even rotated the fan gently using a thin screwdriver but could not reproduce the 'scratching' sound. There are no cables, tape bits etc that could be remotely even close to the fan. This is very weird... there are other X240 users who have confirmed the fan scratching sound but so far no clue whats causing it.

Anybody else want to take a go at it?

 

That's weird. Granted, there are some SSDs that aren't that energy-efficient, but the good ones should make quite a big difference.

I don't see how I'm "spinning the truth", and that's not a nice thing to say.

 

No.

Yes. With Windows 7. Note that x220 does not support secure boot.

I was able to boot Ubuntu live images using EFI, so I would imagine that dual-booting an installed version would work as well.

Is there any real advantage of keeping Secure Boot on though? Are there any apps/services, under either Windows or Linux, that depend on it? On the face of it it seems like yet another hurdle to overcome and I was only to happy to disable it on my new laptop (not a Thinkpad).

I would say that "in theory it should work", but you know what they say about theory and practice, right? I think it's a safe bet that the on-disk data formats used by the Windows and Linux caching solutions are different, so the caching drive will probably need to be reinitialized on every boot to the other OS. Linux being Linux, I'm sure you can script it so that it happens transparently. No idea how Windows will act, though. Also, are those cache drives meant to stay "hot" across reboots? I would imagine it being the case at least under Windows, as otherwise they would be unable to speed up the boot process. So obviously the first reboot to the other OS would be slow. Unless, of course, you can partition the SSD cache into two separate, smaller caches, each used exclusively by either OS. Again, I would imagine you can tweak Linux to do that, but no idea about Windows.

At least one Linux installation guide for the laptop I recently bought (which, again, is not a Thinkpad) claimed that Fast Boot restores EFI to the default configuration, thus wiping out the Linux boot loader. I have not verified whether that claim is true, but I did disable Fast Boot just in case (I hardly ever use Windows, so I don't care if it boots a bit slower). And, obviously, I don't know if that applies to Thinkpads as well.

BTW, I seem to remember seeing a "Linux on t440" thread or something like that around here? You may get some useful info there as well. In my experience, the BIOSes of same-generation Thinkpads are very close so the knowledge is transferable.

 

What consumes the most power in a laptop is the display, the chipset, and the CPU. Again, you are correct that an SSD can save a lot of power compared to an HDD; it's just that neither contributes significantly to overall power consumption of the whole system. So you may save maybe 10% if you are lucky, and I guess that's better than nothing, but it's not exactly earth-shattering.

Apologies -- I shouldn't have said that. I guess the tone of your previous post rubbed me the wrong way as it sounded a little as if you were announcing some absolute truth that must not be questioned. And I don't even necessarily disagree with your conclusion, as the two last laptops I bought have an SSD drive inside. SSDs are not all-around better, though -- they are just a better compromise for many. For example, I have never had an HDD catastrophically fail on me, but it happened to an Intel SSD in my previous laptop. And it was a well documented problem, for which Intel released a firmware update (and I had it installed when the drive failed). And you know what Intel's response was? Essentially: reset the drive state to the factory default state (all data lost, obviously). The problem is, basically, that SSDs have a far more complex software (firmware) layer than HDDs. People keep talking about "write cycles", but I seriously doubt if that's how the majority of consumer SSDs fail. They fail because the software inside them gets confused, and when it does, you are out of luck, because the manufacturers can't be bothered to provide fallback mechanisms to access the data (e.g., you could imagine the drive exporting at least some of the data, even if only in a read-only mode). I've always had a backup policy with my laptops, but I sure made it more aggressive when I started using SSDs.

 

Apparently everyone needs an SSD now, no questions asked. They are a must. Everything must happen in an instant. Just another trend that people stir up. I'm sure the SSD makers aren't complaining though.

 

I won't go against that, nor have I ever claimed otherwise. I only talked about SSD vs HDD in that post.

That's cool :thumbsup: I get what you're saying. Maybe I should put in some more context.

I'm just the other way around. I have had several HDD failures through the years. One of them was with bad data loss (photos & documents). Ever since that happened, all my data is saved in RAID 1 (on HDDs) and in the cloud. I jumped on the SSD boat relatively late and I never had problems with them, but I remember when it was really bad, especially with the ones from OCZ in the beginning. And of course, still, bad things happen with them. And yes, HDDs usually give you a warning when they're about to die, SSDs don't.

The keyword here is still "backups". Regardless of the medium used, you should always have backups. I am not at ease until the cloud sync icon in my notification area stops moving.

Well, yeah. Everyone likes improvement. I promise you: once you're used to working on a computer that has one, there's simply no going back. It's so much nicer and faster.

 

Hey all, I'm still waiting on an X240 with a non-tough FHD screen. Does anyone know if this option is ever going to come out in the US, or if it's a lost cause?

 

Sorry if this question has been asked before, but can someone please recommend a sleeve and/or slim case/bag for the x240?

Thanks.

 

I was wondering about the size of the keyboard on the X240. I've been a long time Thinkpad user, the two most recent machines I've had a T23 and a T61 and I'm wondering how the keyboard on the X240 compares? Are they keys/spacing pretty much the same size or are they keys smaller/more tightly packed because this is a ultrabook?

I currently am evaluating a Dell XPS 13 and find the keyboard too cramped (plus I'm not crazy about the placement of the FN and Cntrl keys) or the glossy screen.

Thanks.

 

Read my post about the Thinkpad branded sleeve on this forum here.

It's holding up nicely so far. It's not as snug as the other sleeves I've used before but it does the job.

 

Has anyone had good luck dealing with Lenovo reps online?

I've found the chat not to be very effective, it seems the reps are possibly chatting with several people at once? There are long delays, they don't seem focused and they don't seem very open to negotiating.

I'm trying to buy an X240, and there doesn't seem much give. So I'm wondering if there's a downside to buying one from amazon? (I'm worried about restocking fee if I don't like it or if there's a problem, hence Lenovo as my first try).

Amazon.com: Lenovo Thinkpad X240 12.5" HD In-Plane Switching (IPS) Touchscreen Ultrabook i5-4300U, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD, Win8Pro64, vPro, 3 Year Warranty, 20AL008PUS: Computers & Accessories

This one has a better CPU/twice the SSD, 3 years warranty, Win 8 Pro, touchscreen (and no tax). The quote I got for the system I had spec'ed with lower end i5 (4200) with 128 GB SSD. and 2 year warranty, Win 8 (not Pro), no touchscreen, was only $20 less.

Does anyone have any tips/suggestions on buying from Lenovo? Should I try the phone? (I don't recall having this problem in the past starting with my T560x, T23 and then T61). I may just end up staying with the Dell XPS 13, but I wanted to give the keyboard of the X240 a try before making my final decision on keeping the Dell or the X240.

Is there a special line for educators (the price for that was also only marginally lower). Overall I found Dell much more open to negotiate.

Thanks.

PS: I looked for thread re this, but didn't find any.

 

Hi, im thinking about buying the X240 and a ThinkPad Ultra Dock.

With that dock, can i use my two Dell U2713hm Ultrasharp 27" 2560 x 1440 at full resolution via displayport?

There are 90W, 135W and 170W Ultra Docks. Does it matter which one i choose? What is affected by this difference?

 

It corresponds to the wattage of the AC adapter that is included with the dock.

 

The keyboard on the x240 is slightly narrower than on the T series. This was achieved by making the right-most keys (Backspace, Enter, Shift, etc.) smaller. The rest of the keys are the same size as on T series, though.