W530 Owner's Thread

He got the 135W brick because the eval model he has is dual core. The quad with the K1000M comes with the 170W.

 

Thank you for clearing this up.

 

What about the bug? I usually burn a DVD, but was planning to try the USB installer this time.

 

Use a DVD since you have it. Less pain.
But try the USB installer if you'd like first.

I blogged about the Win7 installer usb flash drive bug if you do hit it and don't have a DVD drive:
Ken's Blog | Workaround for Windows 7 "unable to create a new system partition " error when installing from USB flash drive

But really, just use the DVD drive...totally less pain. I hit the bug the first time w/ an HTPC but ended up waiting for the bluray drive to ship so I could install off that...

p.s., privatejarhead: great review. I was going to write up a review too, but it's not going to be anywhere near that detailed....mostly ing about how things could have been better

 

Thanks!

 

@privatejarhead: nice review!

I can confirm that with the quad core comes the 170W brick, as I have it.

 

Ditto rogermcallen on the brick: 170W for the K1000M. I don't think it's that large, actually, but then again I haven't used a laptop for like six years. OP updated with a link to the review. First impressions on the build: it's nice. I was expecting something super-boxy and cheap-feeling, but it feels like it's made from quality parts. The firm touchpad was also very (pleasantly) surprising; I'm used to slick touch pads. As far as the keyboard goes, I don't see what all the fuss is about; the curve is barely noticeable. I'm going to be booting it up tomorrow so I can run the recovery discs/install my Samsung 830. I'm out of DVDs.

 

The curve is actually the good part about the keyboard; some island-style keyboard use flat keys, which are uncomfortable for extended use. The problem that some people have with the new keyboard is that it breaks tradition from the legacy Thinkpad keyboard (non-island-style). The older 7-row keyboard was very popular for owners of the -20 generation and older, but now Lenovo converted the Thinkpad line to the newer style and "traditionalists" don't like it (for the most part).

 

Yep. The problem is first of all the switch from 7 rows to 6 rows.

Remember the big fuss from Lenovo that they "improved" the keyboard with the introduction of the T400/T500 series, where they implemented a larger Escape and Delete? Well, if that was better the new 6-row simply must be worse. Either Lenovo is wrong now, or three years ago.

Yes, most of the people complaining (including me) haven't tried the new keyboard. Where do I get to try one!? But it's not so hard to imagine how irritating it must be to use all kinds of Fn+ / Shift+ shortcuts instead of just pressing on simple key. That, and other essential keys being moved all around.
I spent hours to find a decent US-Qwerty keyboard for my desktop. Even just a switch to EU-Qwerty makes me mad.

For those that don't know: EU-Qwerty is basically the US Qwerty, but with the left shift cut in half and the right half being replaced with the '\' key. The place of the '\' key is taken up by a bigger Enter. If used to US-Qwerty you will get '\' in front of (what should have been) capital letters. Since I only use the left shift (don't ask me why!?), this means I get that problem with all capital letters.

 

Had to type on a European keyboard this week too. Had the same problem.

 

Some initial impressions, after having the W530 for ~6 hours.

Thought I would hate the feel of the keyboard compared to the T60p, huge fan of the old keyboard. But turns out I like the W530 keyboard just fine so far, more time will tell. Some layout quirks that will take some getting used to, but I'm just referring to the feel of the keys and the ability to fly on it. It's also quieter which I really like.

Not as enamored with the FHD display as I was hoping. Will see how tomorrow goes. The vertical viewing angles are kind of abysmal in my opinion, especially when looking at a downward angle. The viewing angles on the T60p are outstanding by comparison. I really didn't expect to take a step backwards with this expensive display. When browsing I don't find the contrast of the text to be very good / not as easy to read as I hoped, even though the size of the text is just fine IMO. (maybe I'm too picky). Colors are a bit too saturated for my taste, but it does have some wow factor to it.

The max brightness level is extremely bright, much brighter than the T60p. The T60p could definitely use more brightness, where the FHD has brightness to spare (or to light up the room). Kind of nice just to know you have it, but more comfortable with brightness scaled back a few notches.
I wish there was a way to look at the T and W series at retail stores before taking the plunge.

Back to the keyboard again. Thought the backlighting would be kind of gimmicky, especially since I don't genaraly look down. And perhaps it is kind of gimmicky, but I must admit I like it a lot (could still get by just fine without it).

Don't have a known need for the discrete K1000m graphics just yet, kind of a long story how we ended up with the W530 after initially planning to get the T430s. Maybe the difference in performance between the K1000m and the intel HD4000 doesn't justify the $ for the K1000m, and perhaps new buyers should consider either the K2000m or go back to the T530 with HD4000. But that comment is not based on knowledge, just speculation. I'm hoping someone will take the time to show some rendering or other applicatioins where the K1000m kicks butt over HD4000, but I'm not holding my breath.

Build quality seems fine so far. Typed on an E430 at an officemax a few weeks ago, and the whole keyboard panel was spongy, very cheap feeling. Not a problem on the W530, it is impressive so far.

No regrets, there are always trade-offs. But if I were doing it over again, I might consider saving some serious $ by getting the T530 with HD+ display and no discrete graphics (and avoid the 170W brick), and use that $ to upgrade in 3 years instead of 4.

 

Do you have a 15" Flexview on your T60p? Some of those panels were fabulous. They will spoil you.

 

Yep. Some US-Qwerty is available here, but online shops don't label the stuff properly, so you might think you order a US-Qwerty one and get a EU-Qwerty in the mail.

Even Dell here sticks some of those odd 'Dutch' layout keyboards on their laptops. I know someone who got that on a high-end Latitude. Dell refused to replace the keyboard, but after threatening to return the entire unit he had the right keyboard the next day

 

How can I determine what panel I have? It is a 15".

And I miss the old aspect ratio, huge mistake to shorten the height on laptops IMO. I'm an Apple hater, but don't they maintain a slightly better aspect ratio (if you like taller screens)? ( but still not like the T60p ratio)

 

Give this program a try.

HWiNFO64 Download

 

What model T60p is it?

 

Haven't tried the download yet, but the model # of the T60p is Type 2008 - FM7.

Has anyone ever done a direct comparison of the 14" HD+ display with the 15.6" FHD display? One of the main reasons I didn't go with the T430s was the concern with the 14" displays. The reviews were mostly not good, and the only 14" display I could see in person was the E430 (which has 1366 x 768, not the the 14" HD+, and was not very good at all IMO).

Again, no regrets, because having some additional screen real estate is always good, despite the size and weight. But might feel a little better about it if I hear that the FHD display is a lot better than the 14" HD+.

Is the K1000m very well suited for video editing? Or does video editing depend more on the processor and RAM? Trying to think of a way to compare the HD4000 with the K1000m, in an application that the KM1000m should be a good fit. Figure if the K1000m doesn't help much there, then I have my answer.

Overall I find the W530 very comfortiable to use. The weight isn't so bad even with a 9-cell. Will check out the battery life soon. Keyboard is smooth and quiet, still like it a lot after a day, but removing the cap-lock LED was a stupid move, and I'm still trying to get used to the Home / End / Insert / Delete keys.

Back to the display viewing angle (again) ....this is how I deal with it now, and I think after a week of this maybe I won't think about it anymore.

To get the best look, the screen is just about perpendicular to the line of vision or tilted back slightly. However if the screen is perpendicular, even if I just change from slouching to not slouching, the screen already degrades a lot from that small change in height. So instead I tilt the screen back quite a bit, because it is much more forgiving there. Tilting it back a lot may not work so well when there are bright lights overhead. And if you need to share a presentation with people standing around you, the screen needs to be tilted way back.

Edit: oh, by the way, how do I stop the wireless mouse from waking up pc in standby?

 

do any of you use TPFanControl with the W530 ?

I can't stand noise

 

Didn't notice any noise on the W530 (or my W520, in fact).

 

A lot better.

 

Agreed. The FHD is in a world of its own as far as TN panels are concerned. The HD+ found in the T4xx series is pretty terrible, with the only display beating it in terrible-ness is the HD version .

 

Only time I found the W530's fan loud was when I turned on Turbo mode and ran a program that used the graphics chip...that was surprisingly loud like it was trying to keep it self from melting

Otherwise, what noise?

 

Depends on the tool. Up until the past few years, most of the tools still used the processor more than any other resource in the system. Newer tools (some of them) can use the GPU.

The K1000M is fine.

 

Thanks, feeling better about it all the time. Have had a few "wow that's nice" moments with the display. By the way, if ever at Best Buy, check out the display on the Samsung Series 9 15" ultrabook. Not as bright as the FHD, but pretty impressive viewing angles.

Everytime I hear the slight fan noise, just makes me glad I don't have an ultra-sealed ultra-book that can't breathe. (in reality probably most ultrabooks do have fans to the outside, don't really know)

By the way, why on this forum do I get the warning "Internet Explorer has modified this page to help prevent cross-site scripting"? I get it on more than one pc. Sometimes the forum pages barely load on the other pc, not too bad so far on the W530.

 

I don't recall moving my head up and down and sideways constantly throughout the day, or swinging the lid back and forth all the time.

The ThinkPad hinges hold the lid in place solidly and thus do not vary the angle of the display from one second to the next.

 

to each his own. If I have the screen set optimally for when I'm leaning back, and then simply lean forward for a while to read something small on the screen, its noticably worse. I'm sure for the moment I'm scrutinizing it more than usual, but even with normal use I'm having to tweak the screen position from time to time. Sure can live with it, just didn't expect it.

Regarding wireless mouse waking up pc, I went into control panel and thought I disabled it correctly, but didn't work. Any suggestions?

 

There are better notebook displays than the FHD, but not many. The FHD screen is not a high quality IPS screen so you are going to have some changes to your vision depending on the angle.

Displays and how much we like them ARE subjective matters. You may pickup stuff and be annoyed by it, where I may not.

For instance, some people complain about the crystalline effect on the Dell U2711 27" IPS panel. I can see what they are talking about, but it doesn't bother me at all.

As for your mouse question, see Stop Your Mouse from Waking Up Your Windows 7 Computer - How-To Geek

 

It was recently posted on the Lenovo forums that Nvidia added the K1000M & K2000M to their drivers site (although there are no current drivers available for them), which means W530 owners will be able to use the Verde drivers for future driver versions and revisions.

 

All 14" widescreens I've seen have been really bad, including the one in the T61 I'm using now. The same goes for the Dell Latitude E6410 and Dell Latitude D620 that I see from time to time.

14" is a great format, it's just that you get a bad-screen guarantee with it.

 

I've kind of seen 14" as a sort of odd screen size (at least for 16:9). It's too big to be portable like a 13", but not enough real estate to differentiate it from 13" either. After trying a T420 out briefly, it didn't feel too much different from a 15.6" laptop like my W520, and the decreased screen quality doesn't make it worth it.

Oh well..

 

Yes, but that's because aspect ratios keep getting worse.

With a line-up of 4:3 12" / 14" / 15" you will see that the 14" is the smallest to fit a full-size keyboard. The 4:3 12" X61 (for example) is too small for that. You can see that here:


For some bags the 14" is still ideal. A 16:10 14.1" T61 can be used to transport A4-sized paper. And since only the dartboard became larger with 16:9 I guess it's still possible.

 

FYI, I just did a calbration if anyone wants to try my profile. The default with Win7 is wayyy too blue/cold. Colors look surprisingly better now (I'm into photography so colors matter a lot to me and there seems to be a bit more detail than my desktop e-IPS screen (HP 2475) though the vertical viewing angles aren't as good as others have mentioned...

Calibration setup
- native white point
- gamma 2.2
- target LCD brightness of 90, but was only able to do 74 (thinkpad setting 11 while on AC) or 96 (setting 12 while on AC power) so I chose setting 12.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kbh7afegxjxaoyz/W530_7-14-2012_1.icc

 

So for the most part , everyone with the FHD can use this profile and get good results or do the panels vary for each FHD screen?
Would you be able to give us the delta for each main color?

 

Are you using a Datacolor Spyder color sensor or a product from someone else? Just curious.

 

Hello, I've been lurking for a while and I'm trying to decide between a T530 (which will probably be sufficient for me) and a W530, mainly between the 5400M vs K1000M vs K2000M. Games aren't an issue, but CUDA performance is. I'm suspicious that the double-precision performance of the old Fermi NVS 5400M may actually be higher than the Keplers, which I know have reduced double-precision performance.

Could I beg/plead for a K1000M owner and a K2000M owner to run CUDA-Z (while on AC power, in case it matters) and post the results? Download cuda-z from SourceForge.net

Mainly just on the Performance page, the Single and Double Precision MFLOPS numbers.

I really appreciate it, and I think others might be interested in the numbers as well.

 

Has anyone notice the first row of the keyboard stands higher than the rest? Is that normal?

 

Remember that W520's 1000M, 2000M and W530's K1000's and K2000's all have equal memory bandwith: 128 bit DDR3 for a whopping (....) 28.8 GB/s:

http://www.nvidia.com/content/PDF/product-comparison/Quadro_Mobile_Product_Comparison.pdf

To give you a comparison:
the top single-core GeForce card of the 2006 (!) summer was the GeForce GTX 7900GTX. It had 256 bit GDDR3 for a total bandwith of 51.2 GB/s
GeForce 7900

The K2000M has double the cores of the K1000M, but they have equally low memory bandwidth. Also; the K2000M is clocked lower: 384 cores at 745 MHz vs 192 cores at 850 MHz for the K1000M

W520's 1000M is 96 cores and 2000M 192 cores.

In most benchmarks the K2000M does only double that of the 1000M

 

Wow I didn't really think about that. I guess they're all pretty hamstrung by the DDR3. Even the NVS 5400m has the same 900mhz 128-bit DDR3.

So for me the limiting factor is just the raw double-precision throughput on small data sets (like FFT library in CUDA). So if anyone does have time to run cuda-z...

 

Been playing around a bit more with the 'professional' aspect of the W530 today. (i.e. not Diablo III / The Secret World).

Have tried out ArtRage Pro.... newest version demo. Handled everything like a champ. Not to mention I might like the watercolours in ArtRage more than any other program... but I digress.

More entertainingly, I got into Blender to try out sculpting. Threw down a cube, a spotlight above, textured red. Subdivided to 11 (Spinal Tap reference is purely coincidental) and did some crazy add/subs around the resulting sphere. I then started a default setting Cycles Render. It took 20 mins, and as I watched the windows performance monitor, the CPU hovered between 12-14%, during which the RAM usage spent a lot of its time at 14 gig, but did reach a high of around 21 gigs towards the end.

Not a greatly representative/controlled experiment, but a rewarding one all the same... *pats the W530 on the ... monitor bezel*

 

Panels vary slightly, but if you use a profile for a similar panel, it'll probably be better than whatever Win7 is using for a profile. Try it and see if it's better...take a photo of someone and compare it.

No idea how to get the delta for each color... It's i1 Match software (3.6.2) using an i1 Photo w/ the UV Cut Gretagmacbeth sensor (the previous generation, not the current V2 one that the nutty xrite people want $950 to upgrade to...a $300 upgrade would be more reasonable)-:
Ran the monitor for an hour before running the calibration on it too.

 

I was able to follow these instructions, but my logitech wireless mouse still wakes up the laptop. Anyone else have that problem? Any suggestions?

Still digging the feel of the keyboard. Starting to get a little used to the layout too (not sure what Lenovo was thinking in some cases, but no biggie).

Nothing scientific, but the W530 seems to run a lot cooler than my T60p (mainly what I mean is that the air leaving the fan isn't as warm/hot as the T60p, and the bottom isn't as warm, but haven't read any internal temperatures).

 

Has anyone swapped the optical bay with a HDD? I bought the thinkpad adapter III, and just now found that I need an extra metal tray and a 7mm rubber rail (9mm out) to fit the original 500G in. Anyone has suggestions? can't find anywhere a cheap one! Should have just bought the newmodeus one...

 

^^^ This one is less expensive, and as serviceable as, the ones by Lenovo and Newmodeus. (No need for "extra metal tray.")

 

Thanks for the link. Does it come with the same locking mechanism as the original one? I may eventually buy it if I can't find a cheap solution to my thinkpad adapter III.

By the way, as I wrote earlier, why the first row of the keyboard (the "Esc" line has lager gap) stands higher than the rest keys? Or is that just me have it?

 

The "locking mechanism" is removed from the stock optical drive and put on the caddy adapter. Note the little plastic thingy by the red arrow:



(If the whole thing keeps falling out of the UltraBay, just use some tape. )

Don't know. Lenovo's engineering/usability decision? Institutional buyers demand it? Too deep for me, but there must be some wisdom behind it.

 

yeah i'm not a fan of it at all, i'm really finding it a pain to readjust from the 7 row keyboard

 

I'm annoyed at where they put the home/end keys. Guess no one uses ctrl-home or ctrl-end any more. It's hard to hit that combo w/o looking at the keyboard

 

my 8 key was broken, so they sent me a replacement keyboard... sent the laptop back (other issue) and opened the keyboard box they sent me... It was the keyboard for the 520. Would that even work if I had tried to make it work?

 

i use those all the time

plus i would navigate using up/down arrows with my thumb, and hit home/end with my middle finger. now its very difficult to do that.

 

Care to share the details on that other issue that required the W530 to go back?