X200s/t -- Your shipping status

Jackboot, that DVI -> Dsiplayport adapter arrived yesterday and I just plugged it in. It works great! Much clearer display. Thank you very much for the link!

 

good to hear

 

I got a shipping confirmation for my x200 tablet yesterday. I checked the UPS tracking info this morning and there was an export scan in Shanghai about an hour ago.

Amazingly, delivery is scheduled to my house in Ohio for Friday (31 October 2008). I think this is the first batch of x200 tablets. I will post pictures (and possibly a complete review) as soon as I get it.

 

I am really looking forward to your review knowing what you've been through with the regular X200. After a month with my X200 I must say that I am extremely disappointed with the viewing angles of my screen. Even regular text (black text on white background) is hard to read because of the vertical angles being so bad. The text shifts from being black to being gray which makes reading really hard. I did tune ClearType to produce the darkest text but still ...

 

wow that was fast! I await your review

 

I returned my X200 regular because of the crappy viewing angles (one third of the screen would be gray/brown even though it should've be black). They really need better LCDs. It's 2008, not 1998. I think the X200 tablet will have a much better screen though, but it's too late for me to get one.

I ended up buying a used HP 2710p tablet for $700 (1.33ghz, 120gb 5400rpm, 12" LED, 1 inch thick). It's amazing. Lenovo's loss.

 

The x200 tablet arrived at my house 1 hour ago. I won't get home from work for a few hours but I will post some pictures and first impressions as soon as I get home.

 

My X200s will arrive next week it seems

 

I went home at lunch to take a quick look at my x200t. First impressions are very good. Weight with the 8 cell battery is just under 4 pounds (listed at 3.88 and my scale marks it very similar), it is pretty thin, very solidly built, has great balance in your hand, the extended battery does not make it thicker (the 6/9 cell does make the x200(s) thicker), keyboard is great with no flex anywhere. The overall shape is boxy but sturdy, the hinge rotates both directions and is tight enough to be secure, you have to manually push down a switch to lock it in place (it slides up and down in the top of the lid), there is no ThinkLight (although there is a button for one on the keyboard).

The display has great color, fantastic viewing angles, and is very bright although it does have a little bit of graininess. I would say it is far superior to the screen on the normal x200. I have 5 shots of the screen (straight on, tilted down/up, rotated left/right). The color holds pretty well and it is readable from any angle (it is definitely not a TN panel). I have included 5 quick images of the screen at various rotations. The issue with the text not being crisp when the screen is rotated is the fault of the autofocus on my camera (it is trying to pick up my desktop monitors behind the x200), everything is easily readable from any angle in person.

I took a lot of unboxing and first impression pictures as well and will post them shortly.

I added these 5 pics (at higher resolution) and 22 unboxing pics (including verified weights) for the x200 tablet to my Flickr account.

 

Wow great pictures jon, thanks a lot for the effort!

 

Wow, those viewing angles remind me of my defunct T42p with Flexview. It had low brightness, but it was a dream to watch.

 

Thanks for the pics! Are the viewing angles on the X200s (led) this good? Anyone who has one care to share their input?

 

Almost certainly NOT. The LED screen makes the x200t bright, but the reason for the viewing angles is that the display uses IPS technology rather than TN. The x200s will have decent viewing angles from the sides, but if you tilt the screen back, or especially forward, things will not look near as good. The IPS screen is the primary reason I opted for the x200t over the x200s.

 

I got my x200s yesterday. I had one model 7466-3GU on backorder from pcsuperstore.com, but they said it would take about a month. So, Provantage was willing to pricematch pcsuperstore, and shipped the day after I placed my order, and I received the computer the next day. I'm extremely happy so far. I rebuilt the computer using Vista x64 so I could use all 4 gigs of ram, which took a while but I got rid of some of the crap on it (and the recovery partitions). The viewing angles are bearable, but they aren't even as good as my 1024x768 T43 that this is replacing.

It's much more portable than the T43, even with the 9 cell. 1440x900 is also amazing for productivity. It makes my 24 inch 1920x1200 desktop monitor look ancient given the huge difference in dpi between the two).

Anyway, how is the new version of Access Connections? I don't want to crapify my computer by adding it and then uninstalling it if it sucks, so any news/thoughts would be helpful.

 

Very nice, Jon, congrats! What apps do you run that you went with a tablet instead of a normal laptop?

 

I went to the local coffee shop recently and tried to connect to their secure wifi. I mistyped the password and Access Connections did not report any error...it just failed to connect. Then I couldn't get it to let me retry the password. I uninstalled Access Connections and have been happily using Windows to manage my wireless connections ever since.

In general, I am underwhelmed with the Lenovo utilities. I find that I am uninstalling every one where Windows has equivalent functionality. I think I'll end up only keeping things like the Fn key utilities, fingerprint software, and drivers where Windows can't handle things.

I'm still on the fence about Power Manager. It does seem to have a lot of options, but the UI seems unresponsive (i.e. select a different profile and then wait 30+ seconds for the UI to update).

 

Comparing the x200s in front of me to Jon's pictures this analysis seems correct.

In practice, the x200s viewing angles are fine for me...maybe I'm not very picky though.

 

This is my first tablet so I am still getting the hang of it and I will be trying out several soon. Windows Vista and XP Tablet PC edition include a program called Journal that is pretty good for handwriting notes. Microsoft OneNote works very well with Tablets. Vista includes a little section on the middle left of the screen that pops out so you can write, this is then automatically converted to text so that you can paste it into a field (like the address bar in a web browser).

I will test out the Vista Experience pack, InkSeine, Notelab, and a few other tablet specific applications. In addition you can use a tablet PC in the same way you would use a Wacom board for working with graphics in a program like Photoshop. It is also possible to directly annotate PDF, Powerpoint slides, and other documents.

 

Congrats Jon and thanks for those pictures. I'm actually reconsidering buying and X200s for this model. Does the laptop have that rubber feel to it that is on the X300 & X200? Any heat issues or noise?

 

how did you manage to keep function + f5 if using vista's wireless? I can't even disable my wireless once I disable access connections. The wifi light below my screen won't go off either.

 

I started with Lenovo's Vista build, not a clean install. FN+F5 still works fine and the led indicator below the screen turns on/off.

I assume uit is TPNKSVC.exe et. al. that handles the FN+F5 key combination (from C:\Program Files\Lenovo\HOTKEY).

 

Both the x200s and x200t (and for that matter all Thinkpads except the SL series) have a rubberized topcoat applied to the lid. This makes the laptop very easy to grip and cuts down on fingerprints. The x200 Tablet also has a nice rubberized coating on the underside of the 8 cell battery. This makes it very easy to carry the laptop with one hand by using the battery as a handle. The 8 cell battery also sits flush with the x200t, while the 6/9 cell batteries lifts up the x200(s) on the back right. They are all the same height with extended batteries, but the x200t is better balanced because the battery runs the whole width and doesn't lift the laptop.

I think only the x300 has a rubberized palmrest. The x200(s/t) all have plastic palmrests, but they are well textured and very good to type on (far better than any non-ThinkPad).

The x200t and x200 are both very cool and quiet. I would assume that the x200s also runs very cool and quiet (although it is a bit slimmer, so it could get a bit warm, I doubt it though).

 

Oh, what a pitty. I really hoped the X200s would come with a rubberized palmrest

 

Finally had to cancel my X200s order.

I ordered on Sept. 24 (a day or two after it was available on the website). I leave the country in one more week -- to travel for a few years, with no permanent address.

Great machine, it seems; just what I was looking for. Terribly discombobulated company. Whoever put together Lenovo's new infrastructure... and especially whoever green-lighted it's worldwide deployment: idiots (probably idiots trying to keep their jobs in a situation of known failure).

Now I'll see if my canceled order causes the machine to suddenly be shipped with "oh, too late to cancel it was already shipped". That seems to happen a enough that I'm canceling a week before I'm gone, rather than a day before. It would be a real mess to be charged for a machine shipped to a country I'm no longer in.

Those who received your machines early and put up nice pictures and reviews: Thanks for taking the time to give us a better look at the machine!

 

just pulled the trigger on the t/64ssd. says it will ship 11/19. we'll see

 

@ jonlumpkin (and any other X200t owners):

What are your thoughts on the release of Windows 7 in the non-too-distant future? It looks like there will be some pretty crazy "MS Surface" technology included for tablets. W7 could really pump up the capabilities of tablets - both old and new - since it apparently is so light on system requirements.

 

This is something I am looking into. I have to say that Vista is surprisingly good on tablets. The handwriting recognition is very good (crosschecks against a dictionary to guess when it isn't sure), it knows wheter you are using a mouse or pen, and can display a small unobrusive icon to quickly convert script to text to fill any field (form, web address, etc.).

I might try and put an early pre-beta of Windows 7 on a spare hard drive in the next week or two to test it out on my x200 Tablet if I can find one. The big feature that I have heard touted is support for multi-touch (like the iPhone, not the x61t/x200t). However at the moment only the Dell Tablet attempts to supports this kind of feature and it is apparently really buggy. If the footprint for Windows 7 is leaner than Vista, but maintains the same tablet features and adds a few new ones, then it is definitely worth a look.

 

My tablet got held up in customs in Kentucky, then got shipped to Alaska. The destination is Massachusetts. I have no idea what's going on; is this normal? Also, it somehow made the trip from Shanghai to Kentucky in just 6 hours. Do I just have no idea how to read the UPS tracking data? I'm assuming these are all local times for whatever place the package was in.

ANCHORAGE,
AK, US 11/07/2008 5:11 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

11/07/2008 12:22 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 11/07/2008 2:33 P.M. A SPECIAL CUSTOMS DELAY IS REQUIRED FOR THIS LIVE ENTRY / BROKERAGE RELEASED SHIPMENT. SHIPMENT IS SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY FOR FURTHER CLEARANCE

11/07/2008 2:07 P.M. A SPECIAL CUSTOMS DELAY IS REQUIRED FOR THIS LIVE ENTRY
SHANGHAI,
CN 11/07/2008 9:28 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

11/07/2008 5:06 P.M. EXPORT SCAN

11/07/2008 4:55 P.M. IMPORT SCAN

11/07/2008 11:27 A.M. ORIGIN SCAN
SHANGHAI,
CN 11/06/2008 9:05 A.M. ORIGIN SCAN
CN 11/06/2008 8:32 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

 

Some of that is just "paperwork" timestamps. The notebook itself is not flying around gathering frequent flyer miles.