ThinkPad X240

The VAIO Pros should be all carbon fiber, but yeah, the keyboard flex really worries, and lack of an ethernet port is going to be really troublesome for work. I think I'm actually going to get an x230 instead now; thinking about it, trackpoint buttons, extra ram, and non function locked keyboard probably are better suited for my work anyways.

 

Does someone know, if the X240 will be available with NFC? Earlier the US site listed it with NFC. Now there is no sign, they intended to ship with NFC at all.

 

I think NFC is not going to be available until Q1 2014. There is a shortage if those NFC chips, I rembember someone ordered a T440s with NFC and then Lenovo told him that NFC won´t be available until early 2014.

 

look what i've found. sorry if its repost.

 

Hm, nice price. The FHD screen must be really good...

 

Hm, no non-touch full-hd option?

Which country did you find that?

There's something weird going on now. The 8GB ram option isn't around anymore.

If I look at it on the Dutch website, you also have the option of having two 16GB micro HDD's in place of the smartcard reader, by the way.

Options through the Dutch website. Interesting differences. Notice the battery options. I wonder what's the deal there.

 

Only $ 9999,-- .. what a bargain. D


It's nice to see some activity going on lenovo's site. I'm still uncertain if I should buy the X240 or the T440s. I guess the X240 with a top notch configuration will be much more expensive as the T440s with the same specs. Maybe like € 400,-- more. Anyhow .. back to waiting-mode for Q1 2014.

 

maybe new type of display. made of gold coated and diamond.

12,5 you might find abit small. t440s shud fit better if you dont mind bigger machine. but weight shud be almost the same

 

Hi all,
I just got mine and have been playing it for several hours, and I would like to update some quick thoughts.

- My Configuration
Ordered on Nov 26th from US, i7-4600U, HD IPS Non-touch. I changed the memory and SSD myself and did a clean installation of Windows 8.1 on it, updated a bunch of drivers from lenovo's site.
It would be better to install all the drivers coming from lenovo; none of the trackpad, hotkey, gestures and fan worked properly without lenovo's driver.
Note that the hotkey driver is not on the X240's driver list, I grabbed it from Hotkey Features Integration for Windows 8.1 (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad.

-Performance and Noise:
With the SSD the system runs daily tasks like a flash - restart within 20 second. But it was by no means a quiet system - the fans are constantly on as long as the CPU is running above 2 Ghz. If there is any performance problem is would be throttling, with proper driver there seems to be little throttle problem - but I have not run really heavy task so it is not definitely true.

-Build Quality:
Overall it seems good, but the chassis of keyboard and screen blaze seems to flex quite a bit under pressure, so I am a little worried, do not know if this is by design or not.

-Keyboard
The keyboard seems to be fine. I certainly hope it has more travel, as my pervious T420, but the feeling of the new keyboard is not bad, still has good pressure point. The position of keys IS a problem though : the biggest problem is when fn-lock is on, end becomes insert, which even creates more troubles than simply press fn+function keys for Fx. The position of page up and down is somehow hard to reach for me, too.

-Trackpad and Trackpoint
The Trackpoint and Trackpad definitely need some time to get used to. For one thing, the trackpoint is dropped-down now, which is harder to reach. Another problem is it's kind of hard to use one hand to press the 5-button clickpad while using trackpoint because it's hard to reach the left-click area. Basically I use two hands at first - left hand for left click, right for moving the stick and middle and right finger. Using it with several hours you'll figured out how to use one hand for all three buttons and find your comfort zone : it requires an accurate sensation of the press-area - or just click the center of clickpad for left click of trackpoint. It's not like the feeling using a old Thinkpad, but it is not bad either.
Good point is the driver is good and basically hands movement and would not affect touchpad, but it also create some delay while using trackpad. The trackpad itself is not bad - windows 8 gestures works fine after a little adjustment in the driver. The only problem is the driver seems to be very insensitive with two-finger gestures - I often have to try several time before the gesture is recognized. Oh, and the click is indeed a little noisy.
And the driver CRUSHES a lot. 4 BSODs since I have it installed. I have disabled the Data Execution Protection to see if it would get better. Seriously, if it took them two years to figure the driver out, it should be better than this.

Temperature:
With turbo boost to 3Ghz and fan in all-speed the core seems to be in 80 Celsius. around 50 in the almost idle status - 800 Mhz.

Overall I am quite satisfied - I'll install Linux in it once I got some extra time, hopefully it wouldn't be too bad for that.

 

Could you post some dB data about the noise the fans are making? Open a browser and play a YouTube video, open word and copy a file on an USB thumbdrive (something like this). If you don't have such device, an smartphone app will do.

Oh and, could you tell us something about the speaker quality? Maybe record a short video and play a song from with highs and lows.

Thanks!


Happy holidays!

 

Hi, Merry Christmas!

I installed several noise meters on my phone and they seem to give quite different results(+/- 10db). So the result below might not be accurate.

When the fan is barely on the software report 40-45db noise, the value climbs to 60-70db when the fan is fully working. The fan level is not very predictable - when I am browsing a static html file and download a file in background, the fan is suddenly turned on to almost full speed. If the fan has 6 levels 0-5, I would say expect 1-2 level when you are on light work, and 3-4 when the problem is CPU/GPU intensive. It's definitely noticeable in a quite room.

The speaker is not bad, at least much more louder than both my previously owned Z60t and T420.

 

What height HDD drive does the laptop take? Regular 9.5mm or slim 7mm?

Also, I would be interested in knowing how the linux install goes.

Thanks.

 

The hdd drive is 9.5mm - do not know if it is type specific.

Sent from my GT-I9508 using Tapatalk

 

What distribution do you plan to use? Separate SSD or will you partition the 8.1 on the preexisting SSD? Did you doing for the AC wireless?

I plan on doing the same myself. I'm torn between a Macbook Air and the X20.

 

I ordered a 4g/500g/ac version and replaced the memory and hddpartitioned the new ssd for a clean install.

I always prefer Arch. It seems 7260ac is the main obstacle from other's report, but kernel 3.11 got support for that chip. So do not think there would be any major problems. But rightnow i worked under ssh since I really do not have time to set it up.

Personally i choose X240 for less adapters, better keyboard/trackpoint and more performance/upgrade options availble.

Sent from my GT-I9508 using Tapatalk

 

Hi !
I got my X240 for Christmas, and I have some experience of it now… (It is with Windows 7 for now, I will upgrade to Windows 8)
First feelings :
I took the 48Wh battery, and with it, it weights 1,58 kg… It is exactly the same form than the 72Wh battery and it's slightly lighter. The machine is very handy, I can carry it with one hand without a big effort, and the size is adequate for me.

Remind I have the i5 4300U version. I don’t often hear the fan, most of the time it’s off (surf without videos, office tasks), I do when I stream or I watch videos on vlc, or of course when I install programs, or updates. It’s also on while running different tasks. The fan has two levels of noise, and its speed increases and decreases in a linear way to those levels. We can’t really notice the first level, but we do hear the second level in a rather quiet room !
I think that this is not a disturbing noise, it produces an acute, not that irritating noise, a bit like a plane reactor… I can’t compare the noise with other ultrabooks, but if you give me the protocol (distance from fan, right in front of the fan… ?), I can definitely mesure those dB with a smartphone app
Maybe the fan will disturb people who use 3D programs all the time …

I like the keyboard very much, it has not a deep deep travel like other thinkpads, but it’s very sufficient, and it makes a very good typing experience though. It’s the kind of keyboard on which you make very few mistakes while typing ! I took the backlighting option, it has two levels of brightness, and it creates a very pleasant, not blinding backlight when it’s in a dark room (see the S440 or S540 photos on Lenovo website, even if it looks blue, it is not)
I appreciate all the dedicated keys from right to left : one of them leads to “Computer” directly, one for multitasking (equal to the windows+indentation), one for a research, one for parameters, one for wireless stuff, one to swing between the display configurations… Nice touch.

Now, about the touchpad. I do like its smooth surface, scrolling works well. But I found out that I can’t go from bottom to top of the surface with a non-horizontal finger without “scratching”, like when you try to draw a line on the board with a piece of chalk at 90° to the board, a line from top to bottom, I don’t know if you see what I mean !! This is not a big deal, I put in touch the nail of my finger with the surface (my finger is almost vertical), and it works smoothly again ! Because using the touchpad with an almost horizontal finger is not practical…
Overall I’m very pleased with this surface.

Now about the clickpad. Though it works very well, I can’t use it discreetly. Plus, I don’t like very much the feeling when I click and then all the surface goes down, it makes the “click” a bit harder to reach. Lenovo certainly needed this, it should allow the entire clickpad to work well (when I use the trackpoint, the left click is all the surface without top right and top middle).
When I use the trackpoint, and want to use the touchpad, the touchpad needs one second to work again, it might be disturbing for some.

The screen is HD IPS and I’m very pleased with its matte surface. I’m also impressed with its 330cd/m² brightness (15to15 level), I can easily use it outdoors when sky is bright. The rather good contrast makes videos look better than on many other tv sreens, or laptop screens (see the Notebookcheck review for more details about that).
In practice and indoors, I use the 11, 12 to 15 brightness level, I guess this is 150-180cd/m² according to Notebookcheck. A full brightness level hurts the battery a lot, by 20%, something like that !
I noticed a bit of bleeding when the PC starts, bottom left on the screen, but I noticed it just because I heard about the FHD T440s panel, and when Windows has started, I can’t see any bleeding, so do not worry about it.

About the battery. I’m still running Windows 7, and it does affect battery life, in a bad way in comparison to Windows 8. With the removable 48Wh and the internal 23Wh battery, I can have 12h of surfing, rather light surfing, with office tasks. I can have 8,9h of 1080p playback offline, but wifi on.
I was afraid that the 48Wh battery protruded too much, but the thin chassis misled me, I can put the laptop in a 13” bag quite easily. I guess it relieves the fan a bit, and it certainly increases the typing comfort !
EDIT : At the beginning, charging the battery took time, but it seems to charge faster now, it may take 2h30 (I configured the recharging like this thanks to the Lenovo battery soft : the internal battery recharges til 95%, and then the removable recharges til 95% too, I save almost 20minutes of charging).

Now about the construction. There is no flex when typing normally. But hey this is not 100%, 5mm thick metal, so yes there is flex under rather high pressure, on the lid, the base, the bottom… but I do not think this makes the X240 “not solid”. I don’t consider this annoying, because in practice, there is no flex.
The metal hinges, though tiny, appeared strong to me : the screen does not balance when I release it after opening it for example.
Other thinkpads did this before, but the 180°opening angle is nice, when I stand and want to use it for one minute (I don’t use it at 180°, but I do at 160°).

Now about the surfaces. Around the screen, where I type and around it, it is a rough but quite smooth plastic/magnesium surface, it does not attract fingerprints at all.
But the bottom and the top of the laptop do attract fingerprints, or at least oily fingerprints. I read there is carbon fiber there, in addition to the plastic/magnesium material, maybe it’s because of that. I noticed that those top and bottom surfaces were between the touchpad surface (totally smooth) and the interior rough case surface.

EDIT : The speakers deliver a rather rich sound, without any bass though, but with mediums. It may not be among the best sound experience from today's laptop speakers, but these are pretty loud, and only electronic, complicated music sounded bad. The speakers, even at full level, never saturate, good point.


I'm not good at giving "highly informatic" infos, so if you want infos about BIOS, about benchs and everything, please ask somebody else, so you won't be disappointed !!
Well, I can download a program, still

If you have any questions, please ask

 

Are you guys sure it's a 9.5mm hard drive? The X230 was 7mm.

 

The drive from lenovo is 7mm. Sorry for previous misclaim.

Sent from my GT-I9508 using Tapatalk

 

The X240 accepts both 7 mm and 9.5 mm HDDs/SSDs.

 

For those interested: I tried two distributions on X240. Arch kernel hangs before any display appears. Ubuntu is just fine - working out of box, except when you use the trackpoint and try to press the clickpad, driver in windows would discard the movement on clickpad to prevent inaccurately click, ubuntu would not, makes it almost impossible to use trackpoint.

Sent from my GT-I9508 using Tapatalk

 

That is one of the biggest problems with the trackpad drivers in linux. In windows the trackpad would be disabled for a short period while typing or using the trackpoint. The last two X series I owned and installed linux on I would disable the trackpad through bios.

If you were to disable the trackpad through Bios on the X240 would the trackpoint buttons still work?

 

I did not try it myself. But reports from others suggested it would work.

Sent from my GT-I9508 using Tapatalk

 

ibmthink do you know if there will be an X240T? They removed the X230 and X230T from the X line up on the lenovo america website. I was trying to look it up around the holidays.

 

I think the Yogas are likely to fill the tablet void.

 

Yes, right. The ThinkPad Yoga replaces the X230 Tablet. There will be no X240 Tablet.

But there will be a new ThinkPad Helix next year.

 

as far as i know there will be an x240s this year though

 

The x240s is hardly any different to the x240 if I remember (unlike previous "s" models). This is because the non-s already has an ultra-low voltage CPU whereas in the past the "s" had the ultra-low CPU and the non-s x series had the fully-volted mobile CPU.

 

from my understanding it will just be smaller in size and lighter

 

Ibmthink the new Helix, do you know where in the road map its going to be? What month is the expected release? Its a shame the X230T will not have a direct successor (X240T), I really liked that mechanism. Heres to hoping for a backlit keyboard, and less fan noise on that machine!

 

My New Year's Resolution is 1920x1080. Please Lenovo make it happen.....

 

The X240s is availble in some countries in Asia. Basically it's a battery soldered version of X240 without the mechanical dock. It's indeed thinner though.

 

I was originally really peeved that the x240s was a regional-only model, but like oxf77 said, it's really not that different. The official specs say 0.70" vs 0.79" in thickness (11%) and 2.84lbs vs "less than 3" (max 5%)... and basically everything else is the same. I'm more upset about the general principle of having regional-only models like this and like the dGPU t440s; it's really, really lame.

 

I don't know if it will be worth while to upgrade from the i7 x230 to the newer x240? any ideas?

 

If you want more battery life and an FHD display (the FHD versions should be out pretty soon) - yes. If you want more performance - no.

 

Right. In fact, since the X230 still used full-voltage processors, an i7 X230 would outperform any X240 configuration in terms of CPU performance, I believe. Can't wait to see the FHD display though. If it's a nice, quality panel at a ~$100 premium over the base X240 HD panel, that'd be amazing.

 

chances are if you need something as portable as the x series, you don't need the power, if you need the power you don't need portability. the going together doesn't even add up in the real world as far as occupations and productivity.

 

This is what I'm thinking... I plan to use it for school (Computer Science & Engineering Major)..

• 4th Gen Intel Core i5-4200U Processor (3MB Cache, up to 2.60GHz)
• Windows 8 64
• 12.5" HD (1366 x 768) LED Backlit AntiGlare IPS Display, Mobile Broadband Ready
• Intel HD Graphics 4400
• 4GB PC3-12800 DDR3L SDRAM 1600MHz SODIMM
• Keyboard Backlit - US English
• UltraNav TrackPoint and Muli-touch Touchpad
• 720p HD Camera
• 500GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
• Smart Card Reader
• ThinkPad Battery 3 cell Li-Polymer (23.2Whr)
• 6cell LiIon 72Wh Cyl HC Rear
• 45W AC Adapter - US (2pin)
• Intel Dual Band Wireless 7260AC with Bluetooth 4.0
• Integrated Mobile Broadband upgradable
• 1 Year Depot or Carry-in
• B-cover w/ Camera
• 3YR Onsite + Sealed Battery Warranty + Accidental Damage Protection

I have a couple of questions though:

1. Is it possible to buy the warranty at a later date or do i need to get it immediately with the system?
2. Is the best place to order an X240 just off of the Lenovo website?
3. If I wanted to upgrade to 8GB of ram later on, is there a second slot on the system to just put in another 4GB? Or would I need to put in an 8GB DIMM?

 

1. Depends from where you buy it, I guess ... but generally you have to decide when buying.
2. Just be sure you get the student version, due to the cheaper price.
3. There is only one RAM slot. 4GB is already soldered on the mainboard (IIRC) ... the other 4GB you have to add. Frankly, I don't know what happens, when you insert an 8GB ram stick. *lol* From retailers offers I've seen the maxiumum RAM you can get the X240 with are 8GB.

BTW: Get the i5-4300. It's cost a little bit more, but the performance is worth it.

 

FWIW, Lenovo claimed that the X220 only took two 4GB sticks, and I know for a fact that you could run 16GB on that machine. Total guess: you can run 12GB with an 8GB stick.

 

Hey there,

Just wanted to jump in here and clear this up. I'm a notebook reviewer for a couple different major websites and I'm currently reviewing the X240 for PC Perspective. As it turns out, there is only a single RAM slot, and no soldered RAM at all; this slot is populated with an 8GB stick in my review unit, and this is in fact the maximum supported by the system:

 

tragic
10char

 

My fault, you are correct. I mixed it up with the T440s.

 

Yeah, it is an easy mistake to make. I am reviewing that one too; the max there is 12 GB, as you said

 

This is an interesting and informative thread. I am thinking about getting one of these ultrabooks. I have a 250 GB SSD that I used in a laptop that I sold (with the original 64 GB SSD). How hard would it be to replace the HDD with a SSD? Would this void the Lenovo warranty? Another question: One of the reviews I saw showed how the second battery fits into the case. I guess I am not quite sure why Lenovo put two 24 Wh batteries in rather than one 48 Wh battery. One last question: I use a SDXC card for photos, music, etc. I want to just insert the card and leave it in place except when adding content. So, I want the card to go in the slot all the way, leaving just a slight extension for a place to push to release the card. So, does the SD card go all the way into the X240 slot?

Thanks for any insight, Jim

 

To answer your questions:

1. It would be relatively easy; removing the bottom panel is not difficult due to the eight Phillips-head screws that hold it, but rather the clips around the edges that can be difficult. You will want to have a plastic scribe handy and a bit of patience. Apart from that, the actual replacement once the back is off is easy. The old drive comes out of the 2.5" bay and the new one replaces it. The piece that connects the SATA connector to the board is a bit tight on my review unit, but that's about the only other hang-up.
2. They were simply using the additional space in the case saved by the omission of the optical drive and other standard components for a bit more battery. It's a clever usage of space if you have extra room. 24 Wh is probably all that could possibly fit there.
3. Yes, the SD card goes all the way in, and rather snugly as well.

 

Thanks for your reply. This laptop is looking more and more like a winner. The only downside I see is lack of a FHD screen. But, the HD is probably OK for a 12.5 inch screen,

Thanks again, Jim

 

There will reportedly be 1080p models in the future actually!

 

On the Lenovo site, the x240 is offered only with 4GB memory...no upgrades. It seems to me that earlier there was an 8GB option. What's up with that???

 

I had noticed that as well. I was guessing it is just a supply issue, but it still hasn't been resolved. But given that the FHD screens aren't available I guess I might as well wait to see if it comes back by then.

 

The FHD screens X240 models are available to order since today here in Germany:
Lenovo ThinkPad X240 - 20AMS20C00 - ok1.de - Shop für Lehre und Forschung
Lenovo ThinkPad X240 - 20AMS21C00 - ok1.de - Shop für Lehre und Forschung
Lenovo ThinkPad X240 - 20AMS21B00 - ok1.de - Shop für Lehre und Forschung