X220 Owners Poll

Himari has been getting gang-banged with wPrime at maxed out performance settings for 30 minutes now. It peaked at 84*C for a brief moment and then fell to 80*C and stays there. The fan is audible, but not annoying. The base is warm, but I swear my T42 was much hotter - I can still hold my X220 comfortably on my laps, whereas I tried not to with T42. I don't see much point in warming it further.

It stays at ~37-45*C with balanced settings when not being forced to work all the time.

Ambient temperature here is 24*C now.

It's i5-2520m.

I was the guy from Poland, wasn't it jazdc who was from Sweden? I can highly recommend doing business with lapstars - everything went really smooth.


M.

 

In that case.. I'm glad your X220 did not arrive in Sweden!

 

Man, you got a solid rig in terms of cooling! Treasure that one!

 

Thanks!

Btw, I forgot to mention in the original post - I did the edit already. Himari has a 2520m inside.

 

80%. Perfect Laptop except no dedicated GPU.

 

80%. Perfect except

--would have preferred 13.1 or 13.3" screen
--touchpad isn't quite as consistent as others I've used, but is def better than my E6500's ALPS touchpad.
--the swapped Fn and Ctrl keys
--would have preferred a latched closing mechanism

The screen on this thing really is quite beautiful.

 

So what has been confirmed about heating issues? Very selective few people have gotten it? Or is it a widespread issue. And if so, how do people detect it in their system so that we can address the issues with Lenovo (and possibly return and get another one made).

 

How do you guys like the screen size on the x220, is it too small to display and edit photos, are you losing detail due to the physical size of the screen? (my eyesight are not what they are use to be.)

 

I think everything is big.
I am so used to 11.1"-11.6" screens, this looks huge.

 

my personal X220 arrived today and it's not hot at all doing normal tasks.   the fan runs more than necessary but a homemade TPFanControl profile made all the difference.   it's an i5-2520M.

 

The reason why I am asking is because 11.6 is just a bit too small for editing image and wondering if the 16% bigger make a difference.

 

Just sold my almost 3-year-old SONY Z and got an X220 today.
No heat issues at this point, but:
1.) Some backlight bleed visible with screen on full-screen black background. Is some bleed normal, and if so, how much is too much? On a full black screen, should zero backlight be visible? Beautiful screen, but this is a flaw for sure.
2.) Trackpad is driving me nuts. I don't do Trackpoint at all, so the trackpad is necessary whenever not using a mouse (about 1/2 the time). As I run my finger along the ribbed surface of the trackpad my finger loses contact, and the pointer stops moving. Anyone else seen this? Tapping on the trackpad to select (without clicking it) is erratic, sometimes one tap, sometimes three on the same thing.
3.) The delete key is in a "nutso" location, IMHO.
Kind of missing the Z already. It really was a marvel of engineering.
I am guessing that nothing else has a matte screen this quality?

 

I received my X220 last night, and I was able to use it for a couple of hours before it started refusing to boot.

There was no heat problems, I didn't stress the system tho. My unit has the i7 processor.

I really noticed the light bleed on the black screen when the system starts, but it wasn't an issue when it got to windows. The screen is really beautiful.

I hate the Trackpad, but i can get used to the Trackpoint. And I would also get used to the placement of they delete and ctrl buttons with time.

I can't give a rating now, cause when i power it on, I get an error message that says :

PXE-E61: Media test Failure, check Cable
PXE- MOF: Exiting Intel Boot Agent

 

Try turn down palm detection on the machine and touchpad sensitivity.

aljebreensh,
You could switch the keys in the BIOS/UEFI.

 

As with other issues, the amount of backlight bleed varies from machine to machine. On my X220, I can see it in places along the bottom, top and sides. If I press the lid gently from the outside, then the whole screen seems to go lighter. It's almost as if the panel hasn't been sealed tightly enough in the frame. I don't like it but it doesn't seem to bother most people who have reported it.

Out of interest, does anyone not have any backlight bleed at all?

 

mine is almost nonexistent.   i've tested it with an all-black background in a pitch black room and can only find a few insignificant spots of light blooming.   i've been working with high-end displays for years as a designer along with modifying dozens upon dozens of thinkpad displays and know exactly what to look for here, too.

given the color and contrast of this panel, i'm finding very little to complain about.   reds are slightly orange but so was my last X200T with an LED AFFS+ panel.   notebook displays are all a compromise in some way.

 

So it appears a complete lottery then. Arhh!

 

80% because the Fn key is where the CTRL key is supposed to be .

I'll have to test my temps when mine arrives.

 

I like my X220 but I'm considering sending it in.

1) Backlight bleed on the IPS screen on bottom and right side.

2) Bluetooth green LED bleed on top of the bezel, other indicators are OK.

The backlight bleed on my XPS is masked somewhat by my "Think" wallpaper which is "gray-white" on the bottom and fades to black as you move up a few inches but there's a couple of spots that are bigger than the others. I paid to upgrade to the IPS display and the laptop set me back over $800, I figure I am entitled to have it fixed.

 

Unfortunately Lenovo doesn't give a dice. If you send it in they will most likely send it back without doing anything because they won't see a problem, and if they do replace the screen, you can bet they'll replace it with one that has the exact same issue. They operate for profit and they chose these defective screens because they're cheaper than buying quality, defect-free ones. This isn't an isolated case as you can see by this thread alone. They made the decision to buy crappy screens from the very beginning of production.

And if you think you are entitled for a refund, think again - they will say "oh of course, just give us 15% of the price you paid first", which will be $130+

What I'm going to do and suggest you do the same, is live with it for ~9 months and then send the laptop in to have the screen replaced while still under warranty - but late enough for Lenovo to get enough complaints and service requests from others that they finally (hopefully) switch to better-made screens by then

 

Thank you so much for warning me about replacing my z with an X220! The Lenovo has a lot going for it, but unless you must have a laptop that can withstand a nuclear holocaust, or the (dubious to most) benefits of SB cpus, it is hard to imagine a switch from the Sony Z to the X220 as anything but a step downwards.

Repeat, I am so, so glad you (and others) reported that the X220 is quite flawed compared to the near perfection of the Z. Yes, you do need to protect the Z because it is more fragile, but the extra care will give you a vastly superior notepad for some time to come. And if battery life is a concern - unless you want absurd life over 9 hours - the Z with the 9 cell battery will provide an easy 7-9 hrs.

If you don't already own a Z, get the superior screen and otherwise more premium features and buy a Z refurb rather than getting this ugly duckling military hardware!

 

Well that wasn't biased or anything...

 

wow are you serious?

 

Now you gotta me thinking.....

 

Not sure I agree with you analysis, however everyone have their opinions.

 

I say 80%. My only real problem with it is the fact that I can't use my Vertex 3 SSD in it. I bought it for this machine without first checking the possibility that they could've switched to a different form factor, what with every other X-series laptop I've touched supporting 2.5" 9.5mm drives and all, and that ended up not being the case. Oh well, served as a great excuse to finally build a new desktop

The fan isn't annoying when you fire up tpfancontrol.

The only other thing I really don't like about it--and this is a continued complaint of the X-series in general, ever since the X200--is that the 6-cell battery isn't flush with the system. In my opinion they should've built up the bottom of the machine to have a continuous two-hump bottom so the battery would at least be flush with the rest of the bottom of the case, like how batteries are on the T-series. But oh well, especially since I went for the 9-cell, I'm not exactly looking to be completely discreet with it.

 

"the X220 is quite flawed" :wub:

Read the Z laptop forum and found some that do not like their sony Z as well, with the added gliches and customer support problems.

Complaints and issues as are on every notebook made, so I take that response will a grains of salt. Not to mention, the Z is a whole lot more expensive as well, so it should be heads over heal, quaility wise, better than the X220.

 

Yeah it should. Yet remarkably, it isn't.

 

Where's the palm detection setting? Unless I disable the touchpad (which I like to use for scrolling long pages), the mouse keeps locking up when my palm grazes the touchpad while using the trackpoint. I have to cycle through stand-by to fix it.

I'm also getting the message, There Are No Applicable Packages For Your System, when I run System Update. What's that about?

 

Palm detection: press fn+f8, go to settings->ultranav tab, options for touchpad, and it's under smart check or something.

And I also got that message after updating the client. Must be something messed up in an update. I uninstalled the update manager and redownloaded it. Now it works fine

 

Yep, got both now. Looks like that's a feature that got installed with the latest ultranav driver. Reinstalling fixed System Update.

So far I've only updated the wifi, ultranav and audio drivers in hopes of retaining the factory power consumption. Those are the only ones I've had issues with out of the box. I'll leave Power Manager and the rest of them alone unless there's a strong reason to update.

 

Having had both a Z and now the X220, I would certainly not say that the Z has a "superior screen". Higher resolution, yes for the newer models, but not IPS like the X220 is, certainly not better.

There are pros and cons to the Z and the X220, as with comparing any 2 laptops, but the advantages of the X220 are the screen, the ability to replace the hard drive easily, the keyboard, and better support by a landslide. For example, after 2+ years, the drivers posted on SONY's site for my Z were the same as the day of release! Not one single update. My model came with XP, and they never posted a complete set of Windows 7 drivers. I had to get them in bits and pieces from other models. SONY gives you what the machine comes with and little if any more.

The SONY overall is a superior design, thinner bezel, etc.

If the trackpad on this X220 was any better than it is, I would be happy, but I have tried every possible setting. Twice while typing this, I have done something unknown that deleted several paragraphs. No idea, but I have tried all the palm and sensitivity settings, and I am not now, or ever using the Trackpoint. Trackpoint never has worked for me at all.

 

For comparison, here are game temperatures from another 12" laptop. I have an ASUS U6v: 2.2ghz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia 9300m GS.

I have installed Real Temp 3.60.
It idles at 45 degrees Celsius.
I played Rift for an hour, and it hit 80 degrees Celsius.

The laptop was on my lap the whole time. It is not uncomfortable.

By the way, I plan on buying an X220. I shall play games on it often, as I do on my current 12" laptop.

 

Anybody returned theirs without the 15% restocking fee? My X220's fan is constantly on full blast, blowing out hot air and the screen has backlight bleed all across the bottom for ~1 inch high so I'm thinking about returning it especially since others are having the same issues.