X200s specifications revealed

I was holding the X200s in my hands a few minutes before and I even got a nice internal brochure with the specifications in it. I might just scan this one in a few minutes...

Display: 12.1" WXGA with magnesium-alloy top covers or 12.1" WXGA+ (!) LED 250nit with light Carbon-glass fiber top covers

WWAN: Ericsson F3507g

Processor: SL9400 1.86Ghz (1066Mhz FSB)

I want that one!

 

now that's what i'm talking about! i was slightly disappointed when x200 came out, especially with its screen, 1280x800 is ok, but 1440x900 is better (=

and i hope it'll be available with 128gb SSD too

 

12.1", WXGA+!!! I want it!!!!

 

That's really nice.. can you give us some pictures!!

 

The notebook displayed had only the CCFL display in it and I don't think those guys would let me take pictures. Small wonder they gave me this brochure.

Battery-life for the X200s with the 9-cell is stated as 13.3 hours. Now that's insane too.

They only list the 64 GB SSD here as of yet.

 

How's the quality of the display ?, high contrast with deep colors ?

What is battery life for the 4 cell ? (9 cell of course beats the whole purpose of this laptop - being LIGHT).

Oh man, I hope they won't obligate a SSD. We already have a great $2500 12.1" UMPC, now it's time to release something we'll actually buy.

I think that you saw the most expensive version of the X200s, with a price tag close to $3000 USD. Most of us are more interested with the X200s which comes with the 1.6Ghz CPU and a spinning drive (we hope for a $1300 price tag).

 

Ohh god, 13.3 hours of battery-life

what about the Memory? and the Graphic?

we're waiting for your good scan.

 

Take it and love it:



One more:



Gotta run, have classes...

 

I can't believe it, the basic version of the X200s comes without LED backlight. What a disappointment !!!

 

Thanks a lot dude!

Everything in the X200s is better except the small LOW CPU

Q): Is it possible to replace the current LV processor with a newer LV processor whenever a faster version come out ?

 

Can someone please comment on the CPU? Specifically, is the SL9400 (with 6mb L2) faster or slower than the P8600 (3mb L2) due to the low voltage?? This may be a stupid question but I am just very ignorant on this particular subject and help is appreciated. I want the fastest (smallest) machine possible and would give up the slightly better screen if the performance was better.

 

Ok, it's even more horrible than I originally thought.

Not only does the basic X200s lacks LED backlighting, the LED backlighted screen is 1440x900 which will lead to insanely small text, so I don't even want it... (on the brighter note (pun not intended) Lenovo claims there is no difference for battery life between LED screen and not LED screen, which was one of my big factors to favor the LED screen).

The only two things keeping me from going with the X200 (and not the X200s), is the lighter weight of the X200s (1.12kg for 4cell battery, instead of 1.35kg), and 50% more battery life for same size battery (which makes the 4 cell battery usable...).

It seems that if I go with the X200, I'll need to take the 6 cell battery to get decent battery life, which means a 1.5kg laptop. With the X200s on the other hand, I can settle for the 4 cell battery (4.5 hours). The difference between a 1.5kg laptop and a 1.12kg one, is pretty big (when you have to carry it all day...).

 

if you're worried about fonts being too small to read you can always adjust their size in your operating system (just change the DPI value); higher resolution screen means smaller pixels and in the end better quality

 

s0me0ne, I've read on other threads that, since these laptops are so thin, they solder the CPU in place. So upgrading it would require a whole new motherboard.

 

Isn't it the purpose of the S-series to offer lighter, longer-lasting machines with energy-efficient CPUs? Personally I think it's quite a nice notebook. I'm a tad sceptical about the screen size and the resolution, but in direct comparison to the X300 I really like it.

I hope the prices are reasonable...

Oh, and if you guys from Lenovo hate me now for leaking this: I was officially handed the brochure in public and shown the X200s. Not my problem if you let your employees do that at my campus.

 

Wow, WXGA+ on a 12.1" and 250 nit? What a surprise...I am wondering now - since this is such a small but high-res panel (i.e., high-end) could it possibly be a non-TN panel? That would really be a dream!

@Cameltoe: great post! Did they give you any indication when the X200s will finally be released?! And what campus are you on (just curious)?

 

When I asked the funny guy about the X200s (they were displaying it because they didn't have a X200 around the office, just the brand-new prototype of the X200s, which they received two days ago) he told me it would officially be released in mid-october (and immediately available).

I'm just somewhere in Europe (quite the middle of it, actually) and I don't want the poor asses of the friendly employees kicked by angry headquarters.

 

Awesome! Assuming you can stick a standard 2.5-inch 9.5mm laptop hard drive in it and there isn't too big of a price premium over the regular x200 then I'm all for it!

It sounds like it's turning out to be a premium priced laptop however, so I wouldn't be surprised if a standard config turns out to be $1800+ with fully loaded configs being $2500+. That's just my guess anyway; I hope I'm wrong.

 

Mid October?! Oh man...I don't know if I can wait that long (plus a 2-4 week wait for it to ship). It will be 2 months before these notebooks are in anyone's hands if that is true!

 

In theory, you are right.

In practice, you are wrong.

Playing with the DPI value (and we need a major play here), screw the operation system presentation completely, even in Vista it's FAR from perfect.

1280x800 is more than enough for a tiny 12.1" screen. 1440x900 is simply insanity.

 

Well, it's been over a month and a half and I still don't have my X200 yet. Delays and more delays plagued the purchase. If you want to get the laptop fast, look elsewhere. I ordered the X200 by the way the first day they appeared on the website within 1 hour of appearing online... The icing on the cake is they shipped it express shipping and got the label wrong which is why it is delayed further..

 

You're right! That's why I desperately think about such X200s :wink:
It's still less DPI than [email protected] I've been using for a couple of years now and almost the same DPI I'd love to see someday in a fourteen incher with WSXGA+ :wink:

 

I agree... The X200's resolution is perfect for a 12.1" screen. Believe me you will have problems reading the font if you get an X200's and have the resolution at 1440*900... Like noam23 said above, changing the dpi value will solve some issues and create many others since not all text inside programs will play nice with the spacing. So you will have letters in drop down menu's overlapping, and warning messages where you cannot click the OK button.. It will be frustrating.

 

I'm just glad they're giving us a choice of screen. I welcome the higher resolution screen though I understand why a lot of people might not like that.

Now I'm curious about the exact dimensions and weight of the x200s; I'm guessing it's a bit less than the x200 but by how much?

 

Regarding weight, with a 4cell battery the X200 is 1.35kg, while the X200s is 1.12kg.

Regarding dimentions I can't seem to remember exactly.

 

Do you know the weight with the 9-cell? Will the x200 and x200s use the same batteries?

 

As far as I know the X200 and X200s use the same batteries, which means that the X200s with a 9 cell battery is going to weigh 1.42kg (i.e the X200 with 4cell is going to weigh almost 100 grams less).

Actually it's not only the extra weight that the 9 cell battery adds that annoys me, rather it's the size too. It protrudes from the back violently, making this small laptop so much less compact.

The 6 cell battery is interesting tough. It sits flush, adds only 130 grams to the total weight (which takes the X200s to 1.25kg), and provides 8.8 hours which is similar to the X200 with a 9 cell... (which might be exaggarated, but in any case suppose to provide 2X the life of the 4 cell, according to Lenovo, even though it's weird how a 6 cell provides double the battery life than a 4 cell, something with the math... more strange, if by adding 50% cells you get 100% more battery life [which works for the jump from 4 cell to 6 cell, which doubles the battery life] how come this jump doesn't continue with the move from 6 cell to 9 cell, here you increase cells by 50% again, but battery life increases only by 50%, and not by 100%. Seems like these figures were decided by marketing guys who were pushing the 6 cell battery, and not by engineers).

 

I just noticed yesterday that the 6-cell battery sits flush. What a nice surprise. So it only adds a little bit of height to the notebook at the back. This will cause the notebook to be slightly tilted which some users may prefer ergonomically. Since the 6-cell is so little extra weight compared to the 4-cell but promises to double the battery life I am tempted to go this route. One way of looking at it is if one is to go with the 4-cell battery then it may be necessary to tote along the power adapter. If one has the 6-cell battery then lugging the adapter along with you may not be necessary. With this in mind the 6-cell configuration has a lighter travel weight.

 

Exactly my line of thought (creepy).

The power adaptor of the X200s weigh 0.57 lbs (260 grams), while the 6 cell battery adds only 0.28 lbs (130 grams). So indeed it will be less weight not having to carry around the power adaptor (which is a mess to carry too) and go with a 6 cell instead, not to mention not having to look for power outlet wherever you're at...

 

Nice!! I am very impressed

The only thing that scares me is the 1440x900 resolution - I really want that LED display. So I made some calculations:

Lenovo X200 with 1280x800: 125 DPI
Lenovo X300 with 1440x900: 128 DPI

Lenovo X200s with 1440x900: 140 DPI

Lenovo T61p (15.4") with 1920x1200: 147 DPI
Lenovo X61t (12.1" 4:3) with 1400x1050: 144 DPI
HP Mininote (8.9" 5:3) with 1280x768: 168 DPI

What do you guys think? Maybe it won't be as bad as some of us are afraid? It's a little comforting for me that it won't be as small as the X61t with the hi-res screen, which had some good reviews. And by the way, I tried using the HP Mininote once at the store, and it really hurt my eyes lol.. So that's why I calculated the DPI of that out of curiosity (if it ended up being anywhere close with the hi-res X200s I would have given up on it for sure).

It's too bad the 1280x800 option doesn't come with LED...

 

Faruk it's very individual.

I like things to look a bit bigger, and not to stick my nose at the screen. This leads to less eyestrain I found.

Right now I'm thinking of going with the regular non LED screen. Cheaper and more comfortable.

 

Personally if you don't want the LED panel due to the high resolution, i would pick the X200 and not the S.

But couldn't you just override the resolution and change it to 1280 X 800

 

You could, but it'd look really ugly.

 

Pretty true. If your primary tasks are word editing, programming, pdf reading - go for the highest DPI available. The text contents you will be working on will be resized appropriately to your needs and will look like printed.
If you rather use a laptop to communicate via PMs and to browse Internet, you'll probably suffer from virtually illegible web pages (however, FF 3.0 adjusts itself to the system DPI).

 

True, Firefox 3.0 is a webbrowser that will adjust to your new dpi settings properly...

 

Turns out that 1440x900 on the x200s is the exact same DPI as the Sony Vaio TZ with 11.1" @ 1366x768. (x200s is 140.3, the Vaio TZ is 141.2 - just 1 DPI difference)

I think I'm gonna drop by at the Sony store when I have time and check it out to see for myself! Does anybody here have any experience with the TZ? It seemed to be a pretty popular laptop.

And btw, I did some googling and found this to calculate the screen's DPI: http://www.raydreams.com/prog/dpi.aspx

Handy little tool, faster than doing repeatedly doing pythagorean theorem by hand

 

hmmm, the x200s has me excited... I didn't expect this resolution from it.

So, it seems I'll not be getting the x301 nor the Vaio Z. I'll probably go with the x200s (I think I can live without the integrated optical drive), but I'll wait for the first review. I really hope it comes sooner, rather than later.

 

I've been thinking about this all day.. If I decide that the 1440x900 is too much for me, I will save some money and end up going with the X200 instead (on the bright side though, i guess that also means I'd be getting the faster processor). But I don't want to get anything bigger than the 4-cell battery due to weight, which means I would be giving up the extra hour of battery life.

I guess you just can't have everything

Edit: I have a feeling that the x200s with the 1280x800 screen will be exactly the same size and almost the same weight as the x200 (which was pretty much the case with x61 and x61s). I say this because the LED screen is definitely lighter, and also because in the brochure that the OP scanned, it points out that the LED screen uses a carbon fibre chassis whereas the CCFL uses the magnesium alloy. Since the difference between the x200 and x200s is only about half a pound, those 2 things probably account for most (or all) of the difference.

The only benefit of getting the x200s with the 1280x800 screen will be the added battery life due to the LV CPU.

 

hehe.. well honestly.. if i had a choice.. x200 vs x200s vs x200t.. i honestly would pick x200. LED is really awesome... but i really rather have the processing power... plus when i'm at home.. it'll be attached to my 24s .. and when i'm at school... i'm in the library so really... LED is not necessary but REALLLYYYYYYYY desired..

 

Well the thing is, I more than likely will not be using an external display - especially since the x200 doesn't have DVI or HDMI output.

And whatever laptop I buy will basically be my main system that I will be using. Sure I can read a 12.1" WXGA+ display no problem, but will I be able to read it for 5-6 hours a day? But even if I could, maybe I should worry about harming my vision eventually lol.. That would probably put some real strain on my eyes.

btw, I always thought that this page had a typo:
http://www.hknotebook.com/bu2008/notebooks/Slim/X200s.html

"12.1" Anti-Glare LED WXGA+"

I guess I was wrong - we should have seen that coming, it was right in front of us for the whole time

Maybe I should take a page out of your book and consider investing in a larger external display lol

 

i bought the ultrabase and i'm ready to get the displayport to hdmi and to dvi once i have this darn machine... it's 3 weeks now i'm going to cry T.T

 

See.. I would have to drop $200 for the ultrabase, and at least another $200 for an external display. With tax and everything, it would easily cost me $500 just to get an external display running!

 

blah... save save save! don't you have like a crt monitor laying around? At least you have the VGA port physically on the x200..

 

Oh man I do have the money - it just hurts to drop $500 just like that, when I know that I would only be using it for an hour or two each day, max. Most of the time I use my laptop I'm either at school or at home lying on the sofa or whatever

I really try to justify it to myself when I'm paying a big sum of money. Otherwise I'd just be buying everything that looks cool and shiny and I'd go bankrupt

 

hehe... well i'm on my bed right now.. so i know what you mean... but i'm honestly trying to sit and do work on a desk (trust me in the long run, it'll help you physically and mentally).

So i bought new toys... two 24 inches, g15 keyboard, g9 mouse, leather seat....

 

Well, the very next line on the page says "Resolution: 1280x800." So, until I see the real tabook, I'll still be a little skeptical (but with my fingers crossed)

 

Mid-october? Dang it, I was hoping it would come out sooner (and the x200t along with it)

Thanks for the awesome info, though!

 

This is not necessarily true. The X200s uses a lower voltage CPU and hence can use less cooling. The reduced cooling requirement (heatsinks, etc) is believed to be the main reason for weight loss.

Moreover, the X61s used a screen called "ultraLight XGA", which reduced the weight in comparison to regular LCD. Maybe the X200s non-LED version will use something similar to bring it to the same weight of the LED version (assuming the LED version is lighter).

We'll have to wait and see.

 

It seems that Microsoft Explorer 8 became DPI aware too:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc849094.aspx

This might bring the 1440x900 LED screen back to the table...

 

I see your point guys, but I still stand by my word that higher resolution screens are better. From what you said it seems like it's more of an OS issue, if it cannot change the font DPI consistently across the board and not screen's itself. I just checked on my laptop and increased DPI by as much as 30% and everything was in place and ok (I run Linux Mint 5 with Gnome).

But I suppose that lower resolution may be better suited for some of us. I'd welcome the extra desktop real estate very much as I tend to put a lot of icons and other objects on my panel.