Thinkpad x100e Mini-Review from CES

I went over to Lenovo's CES booth at the Venetian (shuttle bus ride away from the Las Vegas Convention Center) to look at the x100e. Below are my initial thoughts and some pictures.

Build Quality/External Feel: The x100e does not have a rubberized paint finish like its other Thinkpad counterparts (except the Edge...). The finish is a sort of matte.

The laptop overall feels solid when grabbing it from the corners of the palm areas. It has an overall good feel to it.

However because there is no roll cage or backing behind the LCD the screen ripples when pressed behind it. Also I would not want to pick up this laptop from the lid corners like I do with my x200 from time to time.

That being said the overall small size makes the package feel sturdy as a whole.

There is no latching mechanism for the x100e as Lenovo just opted to have a bunch of clamping pressure to keep the lid closed. It stays closed, but it is annoying to open up since you really have to use two hands to pry it open. Where as on my x200 I could slide the lever and pull open the screen.

While the hinges keep the lid closed, they are not quite as strong as my x200's. That is not to say they are not fairly strong. You can put the laptop's body weight on the lid (upside down with it open) and it will slowly start to close. Most of us should be use to regular thinkpads being able to hold all the weight with the hinges when in this position.

Weight is nice at about 3.3lbs with the 6cell. Thinness is great too.


Keyboard/Screen: So I am sure many of you were wondering about the new keyboard design and want confirmation from the initial reviews about its quality. The new island design is pretty good. It doesn't feel exactly the same as a normal thinkpad keyboard (the various iterations of it) but the keyboard is quality. The keys feel individual and press nicely, but with less travel. There was no flexing and you could type quickly.

The screen is okay. Pixel density didn't bother me too much compared to my x200. The brightness is similar to the x200 (should be anyways). Unfortunately the screen is not spectacular. I would say viewing angles were a bit better on the x100e but nothing spectacular in the vertical angles where it really matters. It doesn't wash out as quickly when tilted compared to the x200.


Responsiveness: I couldn't really test this exactly. But I just browsed around opening up Computer, Networking, and some ThinkVantage Tools. Definitely didn't have an SSD in it, heh. That being said the single core Neo really is a limiting factor for multimedia right now. Lenovo had a WMV and playing it killed the CPU, running it up to 100%. There was no h264 content to test the hardware acceleration and I couldn't see how flash performed because the machine did not have the Wifi SSID key typed in. I will be waiting for the dual core offerings before deciding to purchase. Hopefully that doesn't hurt battery life much since I would definitely like more than 5 hours from light use.

Anyways I hope that was mildly helpful for anyone else really excited about the x100e.








Other pictures comparing x100e size to the x200 and such at http://jedicore.com/x100e/

 

Nice!

(10 char)

 

Great post and mini-review, jaredy! +rep
I can't say I'm really feeling the new chiclet keyboard, and I miss the rubber-ish texture of the lid, but the X100e seems to be a nice, cheap, solid ultraportable.

 

You're at CES too?? Maybe we can meet up.
I was planning on going over to the Lenovo booth today, but didn't have enough time.

 

Disgrace to the brand is all i can say. But whatever floats their boat and is going to keep them in the green.

 

nice review....

 

A disappointment....

 

Can't believe that the same ThinkPad name that is on a good old T21 is on this knockoff.

 

Jaredy thanks for that info ... seems I may have to hold off for the Duo Core as well ... and that extra vertical space on the X200 is looking good. Maybe I should look again at the X200s. What would be the CPU difference between the X100e and the X200s speed and video playback and does the X200s run a bit hot or not? Having said that did you notice excessive heat coming off the X100e. I was about to place the order but running 100% CPU on a WMV ? I may have to hold off as well ... am ordering a T400 for a friend, will play around with that a while ... Very nice review on the X100e. Nice to have some real info rather than marketing reviews

 

Only with the side-by-side comparison picture was I able to tell how much smaller the screen of the X100e is. I find the screen of my X200 small enough - looking down rather than looking level is really beginning to strain my neck. I don't know if I can deal with having to look down even more.

 

The cooling vents on the x100e are pretty minimal so it doesn't have a lot of airflow potential. That being said just in normal use it was really cool. I didn't continually tax it at 100% Cpu since the video was pretty unwatchable...

The x200s should run cool considering the x200 runs reasonable cool. X200s should run video just fine with the core 2 based CPUs. Also the x4500 graphics chipset accelerates h264 type content.

 

I added a shot of the x100e in red. There are a couple more in the folder at the bottom of the original post.

 

Thanks for the mini review. I too want this with a dual core CPU to replace my Toshiba NB205(selling it on ebay). These look really good to me both aesthetically and functionally, so I am eagerly awaiting the release of the more powerful models.

 

i dont like laptops w/o a latching mechanism..
i still believe my ideapad wouldnt be broken had it fallen on the treadmill and stayed closed with a latch, but for the price, a think much better than a netbook, i just wouldnt have thrown it into the thinkpad like

 

Thanks so much for the review, Jaredy. It sounds as though performance may not be quite as good as expected. I think I'll be waiting to see some reviews with the dual-core before buying.

 

The video playback is a real issue and disappointment, since I do need it to a limited extent for business and personal use on the too many flights I need to take. Not much of a reader when am tired. I also appreciated the picture of X100e and X200s. I think I may in the end get the latter or wait for a faster chip on the X100e though I feel it may cause more heat. Jaredy there has been a lot of talk on here about ghosting/artefacts during video playback on the X200 series. Do you get that as well or is that a minor thing ?

 

Looks Iike I cannot really afford the X200 series. I just bought T400 for work and may need another one but need something to travel with ... am a bit confused. The Samsung NC10 Netbook I used for 3 months travel (Intel Atom) did not struggle with all the DVDs I had copies to its 160 GB HDD. It was cool even in the Amazon, the fan barely made noise ...and the CPU was not doing 100% during movie watching .... from what I read the X100e should be far more capable but is not ? Q1 goes until when ?

 

3/31. Well I don't know the exact resolution of the video or the exact codec the WMV had.

Also there were other processes running from the Thinkvantage tools. So all of that could add to it. The Neo is suppose to be faster than an Atom. But, hey, I was just trying to use a display machine.

 

Yes but for those 3 programs to run the CPU at 100%? Seems a lot to me as well ... Shame companies like Toshiba etc. already have the Neo X2 CPU in their machines and Lenovo sticks to a single core. Why did they not simply start with the Neo X2 Duo Core in the first place. My bet is they would sell many more even if the price were a tad higher ... I think a lot of the Single Core X100e may just sit on the shelf ... and the real seller will be its next generation. I would have bought one straight up had it had Neo X2. If it comes in Q1, I assume that is between now and March ?

 

Yes Q1 for calendar year is until 3/31.

 

Here is a link to the x100e disassembled!
http://blog.screenaid.com/2010/02/01/lenovo-thinkpad-x100e-disassembly-images/