Thinkpad Edge E320. An unknown jewel.

Why on earth do we have thousand of threads about the E420/E420S and NOTHING about the best 13.3" currently available on the market ?

It has :

- Up to 9hrs battery life with its standard battery (it's actually closer to 7hrs while browsing+excel/word)
- A quite powerful CPU/GPU (i5-2410m/ATI 6630m) which allows you to run pretty much every game on its 1366x768 display. The GPU is 10 000 miles above the 520m, it's quite close to the 540m (cf. notebookcheck benchmark).
- a matte screen
- it's quite slim and light (1.8kg)
- we don't really care but it has a 2.0mp webcam, compared to the 0.3mp of the U36SD or the 1.3mp of the Acer 3830TG
- it doesn't have any throttling issue
- it's only 750€.
- Probably the most beautiful 13.3"

Therefore this computer is much better than the likes of Asus U36SD, Sony S series, Acer 3830TG etc... for a very low price.

So why is nobody talking about this laptop ?

 

Because it is unavailable in North America as far as I'm aware.

 

I am with you on this one Original Poster.
The absence of this model in North America is a mystery, or unknown jewel, like you said.
I believe North America should have this notebook available to their customer.

 

It's specs are similar to the Vostro 3350, very good price points but Lenovo's biggest mistake IMO was not offering it in the US to my best knowledge.

 

In addition, the discrete switchable GPU options available for the Edge Ex20 models overseas are not available in the US, which really puts a damper on these models' popularity. Not sure why Lenovo doesn't add those options; perhaps they are afraid it will detract from the popularity of the T-series?

 

I'd much rather have the X220 with the IPS.

 

I'm using the E320 i3 version (which was about $570 when I bought it). The i5 version is only about $50 more expensive but I already have a desktop computer for computer games so I don't really need a HD6630m.

Specs (for the price) and build quality is good imo, even though it was nothing compared to my old X201i. I can easily bend down the screen from behind and there's also little flex above the keyboard.

I had a hard time deciding between E320 and Asus u31sd and Vostro 3350. Then I figured out U31sd does not have good quality overall and Dell warranty sucks here (South Korea) so I decided to settle for the E320. Best good-looking laptop out of the three I believe.

Now that the U36sd is sold for $700 in the US, I guess even if the E320 is sold in the US it would have a hard time competing with U36sd and refur X220 (which are $1100 and $1300 respectively here)

 

Ya ZaZ has a good point, the X220i has a much better price point (pretty much only in the US) whereas everywhere else in the world the base price is significantly higher or upgrades are expensive. Plus I don't think the Edge is as popular as the traditional ThinkPad line here in the US.

 

The X220 is a 12.5", is bulky and ugly. According to me a 12" is too small if you're using your laptop as your "main" computer, you're ruining your eyes. Plus according to notebookcheck tests, its battery life is inferior, and it has no graphic card.

To sum up, we have :

- better battery life (6h v 7h in notebookcheck standard test wi-fi on etc...)
- better graphic card
- larger screen (although the quality of the screen itself is inferior)
- as you mentioned in your post, the e320 is 300€ cheaper here in Europe.

Unless you want a better screen; what's the point of getting an x220 ?

I'm fine with a 1366x768, i've been working with laptop that have this screen size for ages, it is not an issue at all. Not to mention the fact that the hd3000 can not handle most 3D modeling software (which I am using).

At the end of the day its lack of popularity is probably only because it is not sold in the US, not because of the X220 or any other model. I don't get Lenovo strategy, the US is for sure a large market and when I see the amount of people getting adviced to buy a Sony S 13.3 or a ACER 3830TG or even an Asus U36SD (how many people get the Asus because they want "battery life and being able to play games" ?), there's no doubt there's something wrong with Lenovo strategy.

However I would have imagine that there were more EU/rest of the world people on these forum and that a topic about the E320 would have been created.

Even the people that are buying the Edge E420/E420S could be interested in the E320, as it is exactly the same laptop but with a 0.7" smaller size but much more battery life (they don't have the same battery).

 

Uhh...the IPS screen on the X220 is one of the best considering the price of the notebook.

As the the graphics card, if you are on the go, why do you need discreet graphics? You don't need Radeon or Geforce graphics to check emails, do office tasks. For 99% of normal people, integrated graphics is perfectly fine. Discreet GPU leads to lower battery life, increased heat. Plus I have a dedicated desktop for gaming, which beats the lights out of any laptop video card. AND the x220's Intel HD3000 graphics can play alot of older less demanding titles, and it can handle some new games like SC2, MW2 with decent frame rates at native resolution. Also where are you getting your battery life hours? With a 9 cell X220, you should be able to hit 9+ hours for light use. You can get ~5.5 watts idle, coupled with a 93 WHr battery, that is 16 hours idle. Light browsing is ~8-9 watt which should easily give you nearly 10 hours. And that ISN'T including the battery slice, which will give you 20+ hours of battery life with light use.

Again, you don't live in America, everywhere else in the world the X220 is significantly more expensive (X220i can be had for ~600 after coupons).

Also traditional corporations in America do not even consider the Edge, they stick with mainstream T/W/x series ThinkPads, which you get lid latch (gone on x220), 7 row traditional ThinkPad keyboard, ThinkLight, roll cage, matte screen which are all missing on the Edge.

 

Battery life figures are coming from here Review Lenovo ThinkPad X220 (IPS) Subnotebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Most people have one and only one laptop and they'd like it to be able to handle everything. I'm using Autocad, it doesn't run very well with intel HD3000. When I'm back home I like to play sometimes (and not only counter strike 1.6). I'm glad I can play Crysis 2 with high details on my E320.

I don't know if the 9 cells is the battery you get with the laptop or if its an extra battery you need to buy, but with the one you get with the E320 you get 7hrs. No need to spend billions on extra battery, which is just eating your money, making your laptop heavier etc...

Edge DOES have a matte screen and its keyboard is pretty much similar to the Thinkpad series (every review on the net points out that the edge keyboard is very good).

Once again, it's the better compromise between graphic card-processor/laptop quality/battery life available at the moment.

the Edge series is not aimed at corporation, but rather at students/anyone who wants a decent laptop that he can bring with him during meetings, presentations, etc he can work with (and working doesn't only mean mails/web/office) but also which is able to handle games when you're back home (i'm not playing on a daily basis, i'm playing 3-5hours maximum per week).

 

The X220 9-cell is a $29 option, and is included on some higher-end models. With no optimizations and a bloaty corporate W7 install, my dad gets a bit short of 9 hours of good use from it. The X220 with 9-cell weighs 3.6 lbs, while the E320 weighs 4.1 lbs. A 12.5" 1366x768 screen's DPI isn't very high, so there shouldn't be any eye strain issues (and besides, there's actually minimal size differences between a 12.5" and 13" panel). Overall, I'd say the X220 is a better bet for a general business user not interested in CAD or games, particularly with the even lower prices of this generation.

On the other hand, if gaming, CAD, or other more graphics-intensive tasks are important, the X220 becomes much more of a compromise. In those cases, the E320 could be a great option if mobility and battery life is still important.

In any case, if the discrete GPU options for the Ex20 family were extended to the US, I think the line would be much more attractive.

 

Hi Guys

this is a nice thread about the E420, but i cannot deside between the E320 and the E420

i only know, that it will be an i5 CPU, 4(later 8GB) RAM, 7200 rpm HDD(later 2.5' SSD and maybe an mSATA SSD, not figured out yet) and the radeon 6630 HD combo with the integrated 3000.

on the go the battery life is good either of the notebooks, the DVD rom isnt a big issue for me, i dont remember when i used it last time(probably it would be swapped for a HDD caddy

and the usage, most of the time i would play WOW Cataclysm on it, and rowse, maybe some pictures and video editing. planning to buy an LCd display to connect it via HDMI os VGA.

and here is the BIG question, wich one to buy? wich one is better constructed? or reliable?

Help me somebody

 

The battery is not the same in the E320 and the E420. Expect a MAXIMUM of 4-5hrs with the E420/E420S (closer to 4 than 5 tho), and 7h with the E320.

With wifi on, excel, word, internet etc...

However if you want a laptop to play, get a proper gaming laptop in order to avoid overheating issues that would damage your laptop.
Avoid getting a small size laptop. It does look nice, but it has not been made for gamers. You'll always have overheating issues after a couple of months.

Go for an Asus Gamer series. Best price/quality ratio.

 

i know about the battery

i dont want a proper gaming laptop, the Edge series from Lenovo fits my expectations, and most of the time i would gamin on an extern display. i dont think the lenovo would overheat when gaming, the wow isnt that kind of a game in my opinion.

and last of all, i dont want anything else, but Lenovo. i trust them, my current laptop is lenovo, and had NO PROBLEMS with it. and i used it a lot. right now i fell down with it from the freakin stairs, but it was in my hands, so we survived

 

there aren't any E320 owners here?
i want to buuy this laptop in 2 weeks, and i need some feedback.

is it possible to replace the HDD with Crucial m4 SSD?
i will upgrade the ram to full 8 GB. if i do with the lenovo configurator, it costs from 4GB upgrade to 8GB about £63. and if i search the web for RAM kits 2x4GB, it is still cheaper.(kingston or crucial)
on the E320 (in UK) i read that it uses 204pin DDR3 rams, 2x4GB max 1333MHz . is it right?

 

From here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1746133
You could choose to opt for a msata ssd, someone in this forum has successfully installed it.

There's one potential problem with my E320: its integrated mic is really bad. I tend to use skype almost everyday and the other side could hardly hear what I say due to the annoying sound (don't know where it's from though). The fan is also a little annoying but that could be easily fixed by TPfancontrol

 

The E320 seems to be the best value laptop I can find at the moment. With the Lenovo sale on, it is ridiculously cheap and I'm on the verge of getting one.

Would it be worth getting WWAN. It seems to be £100 more and tethering my phone might seem like a better option (no two sims to one contract here). I don't want to regret not getting it later though...

I'm also looking at a HP tm2. The touchscreen would be great for notetaking, but do you think the E320 would suffice? Buying the HP would be more expensive and sacrifice a lot of power.

 

Hi, what about temperatures/noise of this notebook?

I saw two models, one with an i3 and another with i5 and radeon 6630 that costs 65$ (50€) more but temperature and noice are very important for me.

 

you wont be disappointed. this was one of the key things for me. so i came to lenovo because there products are cool. less noise and it has a trackpoint. and price is good for all these things.
not disappointed.

 

Interesting! Can I ask you which processor do you have? It appears that in many notebook, especially with i5, the fan is always on and I think after some month of use it would be not very silent.

 

i have i5 2430m. they have the 2450m now. i can only say fan is only slightly audiable. it really is not that loud when in full power which of course you hear something but that im very happy with.

have you ever owned a thinkpad? if no what have you owned and ill see if i can compare the noise for you.

right now my charger is not plugged in and i cant hear anything. even when plugged in not much difference.

 

Well, I never owned a notebook in general, like you in the last 9 years I think I always used (loud) desktop pc, occasionally I used some notebook, but never as I'll use mine. What do you think about hp 4330s vs thinkpad e320?

What is the difference if the charger is plugged or not? There is some "cpu scaling"?
What about temperature? You didn't said so I think it's ok even under load, right?
There's something you don't like of your thinkpad?

Maybe too much questions...

 

athstetically the 4330s is a much better build and to look at. the e320 with 6630m is far greater than the 4330s. i dont even need to look that model up because i already looked at it whilst i was already set on my e320 or e420s.
Nothing is wrong with my thinkpad. since you never owned a thinkpad you wont be disappointed with this. there is no dedicated keys on this so it is pretty much just the keyboard if you like having seprate buttons to do different functions.
with the loudness it is on another level. even the loudest laptop is not on par with a desktop although maybe those big 18 inchers with sli 580s or even just one would be very loud because you can get desktop cpus in them.

the temps on the top of my head is about 45c both cpu and gpu in normal use. they raise up to around 75c on max load but that depends on the gme that pushes it aswell as settings. but thats very acceptable.

id still pick the e320 over the 4330s oly because the graphics is better and probably because it is much quieter in load im guessing. but if you dont need the so much power from the 6630m then you probably be happy with the 4330s. i no the 4330s is quiet idle but no idea how loud it is on load. i no the business line hp can get fairly loud. but i havent used the newer models since the 8530w and thats like 2-3yrs now. id assume its quieter now but i still dont think it will be as qiet as lenovo. and when i mean loud. no dont even compare it to a desktop.

 

There is discussion in this thread of a X220 vs E320. One important point is the X220 has an expresscard slot, so add a ~$200 GTX460-768MB eGPU and it will outbench the HD6630M by x2 to x4 times. A shame the E320 misses out on one. Dell didn't include an expresscard slot on their Vostro 3350 either. Both Lenovo and Dell include an expresscard slot in the 14"/15" versions.

 

The E320 that notebookcheck tested has only Intel integrated graphics, so their the battery life test results do not provide any evidence that E320 has both better battery life and better graphics card.

(And the battery life test results are weird too. X220 has median idle power consumption of 9.3W, while E320 has median idle power consumption of 12.3W. X220 does have higher load power consumption (65.1W) than E320 (47.3W), but the tested X220 unit (i5-2520M) is faster than the E320 unit (i3-2310M), so X220 should spend less time under load than E320 to perform the same amount of work. Since a laptop is mostly idle while the user serves the web, I am not sure how X220 turns out to have worse battery life.)

Not that E320 is a terrible machine -- far from it. However, your question "what's the point of getting X220" is easy to answer.

Some of us want smaller laptop.
Some of us want lighter laptop.
Some of us want better build quality.
Some of us want screen hinges that can open all the way.
Some of us want 7-row ThinkPad keyboard.
Some of us want hard drive access and caps lock LED indicators.
Some of us want IPS screen.
Some of us want ExpressCard slot.
Some of us want DisplayPort (instead of HDMI).
Some of us want docking options.
Some of us want better CPU options.
Some of us want USB 3.0.

I understand if you don't care for any of these things. But some of us do.

 

E320 is just an entry level business laptop, it is built to lower cost then the X220. You can get an E320 with i3 in Australia for 389 dollars during sales, while you would mostly find that the X220 are sold for around 800 dollars. The price difference do translate to difference in quality of manufacturing and specific parts quality.

Obviously, if you are price conscious then the E320 is a great laptop, but for people whom want more, then you got the X220 to satisfy the greater appetite for quality and tweaking.

 

So temps of the keyboard/bottom are ok aswell, right?

More important, there's a way to enable the 6630m "on-demand" only, something like nvidia optimus? If not, it's possible to switch-off the graphic card via bios or it is always on?

And there's some special problem using it with gnu/linux (es. ubuntu)? I don't think because it appears to be certified but maybe they didn't say anything because video card it's always a problem...

 

on demand is a default feature. it uses intel on idel situations like browsing etc. id assume when video comes into play it uses a bit of both amd graphics to prevent it from using complete full power from the 6630m. of course you can manually turn it on and off to your delight. i only turn it on whn playing a game. and the intel 3000 does well enough for light gaming so if its only light gaming you will do then the chances are is you will be turning the 6630m rarely.

 

You can write a script in Windows that uses devcon/devcon64 to disable/enable the x16 root port (1:0.0) so will disable the HD6630M as well. Then just put a shortcut to it on your desktop. The same thing can be done in the grub2 bootloader's setpci command prior to booting Linux. Try one of the following. I believe the first should be enough for Linux:

Code:

:: Shutdown just the secondary bus on x16 root port so dGPU won't appear
setpci -s 0:1.0 19.b=0,0 

Code:

:: Do extensive shutdown of x16 root port and dGPU itself
setpci -s 0:1.0 84.l=3:3
setpci -s 1:0.0 COMMAND=0:7 10.l=0,0,0,0,0,0
setpci -s 0:1.0 b0.w=10:10
setpci -s 0:1.0 19.b=0,0
setpci -s 0:1.0 3E.w=0:8
setpci -s 0:1.0 COMMAND=0:7
setpci -s 0:1.0 BASE_ADDRESS_4=0,0 

 

@nando4: actually I don't have this (any) notebook... not yet
I saw that in linux the real problem is not to turn off but to use that vga, there's no driver at the moment. Thank you

@sisqo_uk: no words, just thanks a million!

 

All good. all said on my e320.

 

Where can you get e320 for that price? Would love to get one for my parents to replace their terrible atom netbook.

 

lenovo itself or ebay. ebay has them for very good prices sometimes.

 

Hi,

indeed intriguing there is not much discussion on the E320.
Nevertheless I went to get me the i3 model since, as was already mentioned, it is "ridiculously cheap".
I added 4GB of RAM and a mSATA SSD in addition to the 320GB HDD.
After one week, I really love this laptop. Noise is almost none (different from what I read from some reviews), even with the i3 its very fast, battery is excellent as is the keyboard (OK I dont come from the Thinkpad family).

I had a 3810 before and was considering getting the 3830 but this is definitively preferrable.

Only the screen could definitively be better, brightness is OK but the colours are sub-optimal, but definitively useable for work etc.

There are however some glitches with the Leonovo Software, like some freezings (typically at any full minute xx:xx:00 for a few seconds)etc., so I am still looking for the best configuration, settings, whicht utils to install and which not etc. So would be interested in hearing how you configures your E320.
And which drivers and in which order did you install, or what about all the hotfixes for ein7 on dthe drivers page are they necessarily to be all installed and dont automatically work thru win update?

Ciao!

 

i just got an Edge E320, the keyboard does definitely take some use to, the build quality and the battery of my Edge E320 is great for the price.

 

Well, at the end I bought an e320 with i5-2410M and amd 6630m some time ago (more or less for 600€ .

First, I have serious problem on full load, with notebook shutdown. I have the last bios and the system is up to date so I'm thinking to contact lenovo assistance. For instance I was playing a demo game on windows7 and the system go down, with gpu on/off or disabled. From my tests compiling under linux I think that the problem appears only when the cpu is working at the max freq (2510? Turbo Boost?). If I limit it at 2500 it's ok.

I can say that keyboard it's good for typing and, as the others part of the notebook, it's like a magnet for dust. Plastics are not so good.

The touchpad is quite big but is too coarse. I didn't understand the "button" function, but I like the 3 buttons.

The monitor it's poor especially in the vertical viewing angle but I can survive with it.

Fans are always on and audible in quite room, but not really annoying, acptecatble.

By default on linux (ex. ubuntu) there's problem with the discrete gpu also if you don't use it (temp/fans/power), I didn't try to change settings, I just disabled it via bios for the moment. I really appreciate suspend.

Sound it's just enough.

I used battery just few times and appears to have a long duration.

Except of the problem, considering all things, I'm ok with the notebook (vote: ~6.5/10)

So, what do you think about the shutdown problem? There's some test that can I do?

 

Ok, first, the temperature problem was a motherboard problem, Lenovo changed the motherboard and now is ok.

Second, I have now a problem with the monitor (!) with some defective pixel that appear brighter, especially with white background. The lenovo warranty is expired, but 10 months warranty remain from the (small internet) vendor that I'm trying to contact.

In the meanwhile, I'm curious to know if it is possible to change the lcd panel with one with better resolution/angle of view. What do you think? What I have to check?
For example, can I use the IDEAPAD YOGA 13 lcd panel?