X201 or X201 Tablet or used X200/t or Wait?

Hi there,

This might sound like a strange question as you would expect me to know if I need a tablet or not. I came to the X201 series as I was looking for a powerful and durable ultraportable with good battery life. X201 seems like a good fit but I would also like to have a nice screen. The IPS screens on X201 tablets really impressed me but they are really expensive too. I don't have any need for tablet features right now. I might need to take notes on class but that time won't be here till next spring. X202 would probably be here by then.

The price difference is kinda huge. A tablet opens up a lot of unique user experiences that I can't have with a normal laptop and the screen is nice too. I can try to get a used X200 tablet but they are not exactly cheap. Is it better to just invest in newer technology?

It's almost a choice between good value vs good user experience. You need to pay more to have a better experience. I'm just trying to get some ideas that are not my own. Owners of X201 tablets, any regrets? do you guys feel the tablet was worth the premium?

Finally, would I get any special discounts for being a student? Would it help if I call them? Any good deals or coupons that I can use right now?

Thank you

 

Well, I'm going to turn it around and say that I've always found a tablet PC to be the cheaper way of getting practical and precise pen input. My primary impetus for having a tablet has typically been for drawing, so when you consider that even a 12" Cintiq costs nearly a grand, every tablet PC looks like a great deal.

Not having to carry a separate drawing tablet around has also been a huge plus for me; I can't see myself getting an ultraportable that isn't a convertible for the foreseeable future.

I too debated between the 200T and 201T, and I think it comes down to your preference between performance and power. 201T is quite frankly going to kill the 200T in every benchmark, but I prefer the lower power consumption of the 200T. It's also cheaper.

 

If you order a X201 Tablet you have to wait anyways, Lenovo specifies the shipping with 18 business days... The cycle for the X line is between 12 to 18 months, so a X202/X210 in Spring 2011 is not very likely. If it was announced until then, who knows if there aren't any delays as there were this spring? The X201s is still not really available...

Anyways, I ordered the X201T (and am waiting for two months now), just because of the screen. I will do some photo editing on it and I wanted the best display available. I know, most people would pick a model with a larger screen, but I am 'working' on a 12" wide screen since 4 years and I am used to it. I never got an external display, because my current notebook only has the VGA output and I don't want to use a larger screen on an analog port. And it will probably not change with the X201T as well, I already have an external DVD drive, so there's no real need for the Ultrabase...

I don't know how often I'll use the additional tablet features/slate mode, but I guess it won't be too often. Well, this is based on my experience without tablets, so it might be different from what I expect it to be right now... But still, it's a small portable machine with a very good screen.

As for coupons, there are plenty listed on Thinkpads.com - News, Reviews, Coupons, Deals on ThinkPad & IdeaPad Laptop computers and others may know of additional coupons. The Lenovo shop also have some special offers as well that might be good deals. I don't know for any student discounts, since I don't know where you are from. As far as I can tell you, there are student discounts on selected models in Europe/Germany.

 

You haven't talked about what specific applications you are using the tablet for? So it is hard to argue whether you need a tablet laptop or not.

 

I'm pretty much in the same boat, my friend. Lenovo's lack of quality screens in their line of Thinkpads is what keeps me from buying them. I am waiting for the day that the X201 receives a respectable LCD...

 

as a tablet owner I would strongly not recommend using the x20x tablet for note taking. I'd be much better off investing in a good fountain pen.

Tablet and stylus offers no tactile feedback, you can not get the speed and the beauty you can get from a good fountain pen. You will have to constantly calibrate the stylus which is always off the axis, your writing will be large and ugly. You must hold the stylus upright, which is not a natural writing position, if you hold the stylus at an angle, the point on the screen will jump few mm away from the tip of the stylus.

The lack of precision and some lag issue is the main reason that I would not want to get the tablet version again. Maybe in the future, the technology will solve these issues, however tablet will unlikely to replace pen and paper.

 

While I do agree that writing on a tablet lacks any sort of substantial tactile feedback, I personally don't find that terribly bothersome in a relatively loose task like note taking - it's not like you were going to cross every T and dot every I in the first place. I do agree that it (and the fact that your pointer moves around a bit depending on the angle of the pen) can steepen the learning curve of more precise pen-related operations, but I've ultimately never found either to hinder the practicality of a tablet.

But to each his own, I just figured I'd throw my two cents out there.

 

If you don't think you'd use the tablet features, the X200/X201 with the AFFS mod is a much cheaper option if you're inclined. Plus the touch surface of the tablets does effect the image quality of the screen, which may be something to keep in mind.

 

Thanks for all the replies guys. It's always great to hear another point of view.

Drawing was always something I have been very interested in. I would actually be taking a few drawing classes this spring. Commander Wolf, how do you rate your drawing experience on the tablet so far? The only sort of drawing I have done so far has been on Illustrator and with a very high dpi mouse. I was able to be very precise with the mouse. I just naturally assumed drawing on a tablet with your hand would be even better.

Apart from drawing and note taking, I can't think of anything else I would use the tablet for.

warakawa, your input is most appreciated. It's good to see such feedback coming from a tablet owner. Constantly having to calibrate the stylus, the writing angle, lag issues, I was not aware about these things before. I'm a fast writer as well. You just reminded me how much I enjoyed my fountain pen back in school. I might miss the tactile feedback of natural writing. I use a mechanical keyboard just for it's tactile feedback. It always amazes me how listening to another opinion affects your decision making.

ZaZ, I thought you couldn't do the AFFS mod on the X201. Did something change and it's now possible?


Thank you

 

For the X201, which has a LED LCD, you must replace the cable and inverter, in addition to the screen. See here.

 

I guess it depends where you live and what configurations you chose, my Uncle's X201T arrived in just 6 days to the UK from Lenovo directly.

Doodling on the tablet is nice, it feels a bit more sharper than the Dell XT2 I used before. It's not 100% accurate but for general note taking it does the job. The screen is not bad, we opted for the "Multitouch Wide Viewing Angle" and while not recommended for outdoor note taking it's still a whole lot better than my T61 (now that's a definition of a unviewable screen, even at 100% brightness).

 

i originally tried to do digital drawing with a mouse way back in the day. It was awful. I then had a big Wacom Intuos3 in high school, which was better, but still not totally pleasant. Then I switched to an HP TC4200 a couple years ago and never looked back.

I think the Intuos may have actually had a higher DPI and more pressure sensitivity, but being able to look at and to draw on the same surface is so much more intuitive. Both tablets offer virtually no physical feedback, but I could tape a piece of paper over the Intuos and draw "through" that.

For people like me who like to press really hard on paper, there might be a steeper learning curve than for people who naturally write or draw lightly.

Another random tidbit... if you're using XP, there's a couple settings (like "click and hold" or something like that) that might induce some odd lag here and there if you don't disable them. That really helped me when I first started; there's a thread about it over at TPCR.

Drawing wise, my big qualm with the XT and XT2 are the n-trig digitizer, which doesn't offer pressure sensitively with a small group of niche drawing programs originally designed for Wacom digitizers, one of which I use myself. This may have been fixed now, but it sure wasn't as of a year ago.

Agreed as well. Though I do miss the little directional pad that Lenovo had on the 60T and 61T. That was convenient for e-reading, etc.

 

Yes my friend who owns the Dell XT2 (and XT1 beforehand) informed me that the n-trig drivers are not stellar, in fact it caused quite a stir among its userbase for unresponsive and glitchy drivers. Though they have recently released a new driver that supposedly meant to have solved most of these quirks.

 

Just to make sure, this only applies to the MultiTouch (MT, ~300nits) display. Neither entry (~200nits) nor Superbright display (400nits) have this additional finger touch layer. The pen digitizer is behind the screen, hence image quality is not affected. Obviously, they can only be operated with the pen.
Just have a look at this thread in the German thinkpad-forum (translation by google translate, this links to the original post in German). It shows the difference between the MT display and the same display with the MT layer removed. It's quite a difference...

The 18 business days delivery estimate just arose last week. It was 9 business days before that. In the UK it is 1 to 2 weeks (CTO units), which it has been for several weeks now. If your uncle's X201T was ordered some time ago, it was different. And I guess it is just an estimate, with the actual delivery time being shorter or longer...
Since we don't have the opportunity to get CTO units in Germany, we only can get pre-configured models. The availability of X201T with MT is pretty good, you could get it easily within one day if necessary.

As for the usability, in the German thinkpad-forum, there is at least one guy who used tablets for note taking in university and no pen&paper. He uses it on a daily basis--for some years now. So it is a matter of personal taste. I guess if it was this bad for everyone as reported by warakawa, it would not have been possible to use a tablet and no pen&paper for such a long period. Of course, if one uses the tablet mode on a daily basis, one will get used to its quirks eventually. Well, the best option would be to test before ordering. If you experience the same problems as warakawa, opt for the AFFS mod.

 

That's the thing, we haven't ordered our X201T that long ago, we ordered it on the 3rd August around 1am. Lenovo gave us an estimate of 1-2 weeks which is what you saw on the UK site. But they quickly built the CTO unit and shipped it from China and onto my doorstep on the 9th August. I was still waiting for their tracking number at the time, the speed of the whole process took me by surprise.

 

I thought I would chime in, I use my X200 tablet everyday to take ink notes. I've owned Tablets since '03 and have been using them for inking 8-12 hours a day.

If you want a more tactile feel I would recommend getting either the brush or felt nibs from Wacom, the felt feels very much like pencil and paper and the stoke nibs feels like a "roller-ball" type pen.

Also picking up a Cross Penenabled Stylus or even the Motion or HP Stylus gives more heft and improves writing. I also use a small aluminum stand that easily transported to give myself the best angle.

Tablet Stand:
AiData NoteBook / Laptop Folding Aluminum Stand with Swivel Base LHA-3 - Cyberguys.com

Stoke Nibs:
https://direct.wacom.com/stores/5/Stroke Nibs (10 pack)_P1502.cfm

Felt Nibs:
https://direct.wacom.com/stores/5/Hard Felt Nibs (10 pack)_P1503.cfm