What notebook should I buy? (Lenovo only)

Posting this here instead of the main "what should I buy" because this purchase will be limited to Lenovo only. I have an x220 and I am absolutely in love with it.

My brother is enroute to Afghanistan (where I am now) but he'll be in a decidedly less "rugged" situation. I'd recommend an x220 to him without reservation, except I haven't even looked at laptop "stuff" for about 8 or 9 months, so I'm not sure if I'm out of touch. The only things about the x220 that aren't ideal are the lack of USB3 and that weird little key in the lower left hand corner that I keep thinking is the CTRL button.

So with that in mind, here we go:

General Questions

1) What is your budget? whatever. He'll drop $2k in a heartbeat, without issue

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
b. Ultraportable; 11" - 12” screen
c. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen

He has a 17" but is tired of breaking his back lugging it around. He will be doing movie watching and will want a high quality display, so 12.5, 13.3, or 14.1 would be ideal (IPS!!!)


3) Where will you buying this notebook? online

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: Lenovo
b. Dislike: Non-Lenovo

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed? no.

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
"movies, internet, music, no gaming

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
portability is essential. Lightweight is a requirement

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games? Hearts, Solitaire, Mahjong.

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?
b]all of them. Battery life is important[/b]

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
nah...no worries

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista or Windows 7), Mac OS, Linux, etc.
Windows is the requirement

Screen Specifics
I love the x220 IPS screen. Screen brightness is outstanding, colors, etc. Love it. "If it is like that, it is good".

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
meh

15) When are you buying this laptop?
now

16) How long do you want this laptop to last?
until time travel is possible

17) How much hard drive space do you need; 80GB to 640GB? Do you want a SSD drive?
ideally, would like an SSD for speed and then a standard for storage

18) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a CDRW/DVD-ROM, DVD Burner or Blu-Ray drive?
I understand that an externally connected DVD is probably going to be necessary. Does the x220 do USB3 yet?

==========

basically, it boils down to this

- For a lightweight, fairly rugged laptop that has all the 'amenities' that make ThinkPads unique and excellent, is the x220 still the king? Requirement is to purchase within a week, MAYBE 2, at most....but even that's pushing it.

 

For movie watching, everyday use and portability, nothing currently still beats the X220. Every time I use when I'm out and about it amazes me how great it is in such a portable package.

If he can wait the Ideapad Yoga is coming out later this year with a 1600x900 IPS screen. It's also pretty versatile because of the mega-convertible design. If he's not attached to the Thinkpad characteristics (ruggedness, trackpoint, etc) that looks like a winner as what as what he's looking for. I'm hoping that screen makes into some Thinkpad but we don't know anything about this year's Thinkpad's yet.

If I were in his position I'd wait till summer to either find out what the next Thinkpad's will feature or to pickup the Yoga. He'll still have the X220 replacement if he doesn't like anything else, or he can get a great deal on the X220 as they phase it out.

 

If you need one ASAP then there isn't much competition to the X220, it's one of the most complete ultraportables you can buy due to its screen, battery life and construction. The only negatives I can think of is that its clickpad is pretty poor (but if you're a true ThinkPad user this is a non-issue, you should be using the Trackpoint instead ), lacks USB 3.0 connectivity and that its screen only outputs native HD resolution.

The other portable alternative is the T420s, unlike the X220 that offers a HD+ screen and an USB 3.0 port but the screen doesn't have IPS technology so its a humdrum affair like most other TN panels.

 

Hearst and sgtrobo, the X220 has come with USB 3.0 since the beginning in the i7 model. But it's a ridiculous waste of money for that feature when this $14 express card usb 3.0 card works so well.

Also, Fn and Ctrl keys can be swapped in the BIOS if you don't like that arrangement.

Amazon.com: Expresscard Express To USB 3.0 34mm with Power Cable: Electronics

 

Ah, slipped through my mind that one since many tend to opt for the Core i3/i5 models which omits the USB 3.0 option. Why you need a Core i7 to get that option is pretty boggling to say the least, but vinuneuro right about passing off the i7 option as it offers marginal gains for the substantial price difference.

 

so is the only way to get USB3 native on an x220 is to get an i7 x220?

 

so the IdeaPad U300s doesn't compete? or any of the U-series? I thought they were supposed to be the 'next generation' of ultrabook, so to speak.

 

Correct. Although, it's not like the Expresscard is really that much trouble.

I'd go with the X220 vs the IdeaPad. The Thinkpads are built better, which is probably important since he'll be deployed abroad. Furthermore, the X220 undoubtedly has a better display (IPS vs TN). The X220 is also far easier to upgrade: while the CPU is soldered in, you can replace the RAM or HDD easily or install a mSATA SSD.

 

so considering this thing is going to last him awhile, are there any good "future proofing" reasons to:

1. Get an i5 or even an i7? How much of a power drain will that be, as far as battery life is concerned?

2. Any reason to go with 6 or 8 GB RAM?

 

movies, internet, music, no gaming / Hearts, Solitaire, Mahjong

My old T43p is still handling all the above with grace. What he's gonna buy is already "future proof." No need to get i5/i7 CPU and more than 4GB RAM.

 

The i7 doesn't put enough of a performance gap between itself and the i5 so that it would be future proof at some point and the i5 wouldn't. You get some enterprise features, an extra mb of cache, and a couple hundred mhz of cpu clock. If it's just for movies, browsing, music, etc. then the i5 is more than sufficient, as the i7 is really only worth the upgrade cost if you really need to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the laptop. At the point that the i5 is too slow for him, chances are the i7 would be as well since it's not that far ahead. Battery life will be similar between the two unless you're taxing the i7 constantly, which the activities you described shouldn't. Conversely the i5 won't save much battery power either. If you have adaptive/throttling on they'll both probably stay under 1.x Ghz anyways for most of the time.

I would go with the lowest amount of RAM configurable, and simply throw in a couple sticks yourself - it will most likely be cheaper than ordering it through lenovo. If that's possible. I'm not sure if this will be sent to him directly, or if someone will have a chance to get their hands on it and add in the sticks before he gets it. If it's going straight from lenovo to him, get the minimum amount configurable, even 4GB is enough for the described uses, and he can always add more later if/when he needs more. I would throw that money into some accidental damage protection or an msata ssd to boot from.

 

get the i5 2540 and not the 2520

the 2520 is almost 40% lower perf than the i7
the 2540 is around 15% lower performance than i7

 

Pentium M's struggle to do HD, at least my D600 with a 1.7 P-M, 2 GB DDR, Radeon Mobility 9200 does.

X220 should all be 1 x 4 GB DIMM as the lowest base configuration. If you need it fast, don't order a CTO model as they all ship from China and will take longer to ship than a prebuilt model.

My X220 Tablet with i5-2520M is more than overkill for most things. It can even play Team Fortress 2 smoothly, albeit the CPU gets hot, check our joint X220 Tablet review in my signature.

 

I thought the only difference between those was a the multiplier is 25 vs 26, resulting in a 100 mhz higher clock on base and turbo boost? I would think even the 2450 would be sufficient for his needs. I think the cost from the 2350 to the 2450 is worth it, for the additional graphics clock and turbo boost, but the differences between the i5s are negligible.

 

Honestly, from what the OP has described, an i3 would be just fine.

Most people really, really, really don't need as much CPU power as they think they do.

In my experience, I/O performance is a *way* bigger bottleneck in most people's computing experience than CPU. After that, it's RAM (but mainly due to swap being so bloody expensive on a mechanical disk.) And yeah, after that maybe CPU becomes an issue.

 

I use VLC to watch 720p MKV movies on the T43p Flexview.

Last year, I built a PC with i3-2100 and AMD Radeon 6570. It does Office, Chrome, music, VLC MKV, blu-ray on 1920x1800 display, digital TV viewing/recording... with plenty of power to spare. All that for a month or so, before I realized I did not enable "Hyperthreading" in the BIOS.

True.

 

Uhh... no. The Core i5-2520M is place #47, the i5-2540M is place #45, with entirely negligible performance differences.

But, I would recommend going with a Core i3 CPU (base CPU configuration) and adding a USB 3.0 ExpressCard if that's necessary.