X220 Quandry

Hi Everyone,

A longtime lurker; this is my first post and a loooong one at that . I was in the market for an ultraportable which would do daily tasks (word, excel, ppt, internet, etc) and once every fortnight crunch camera RAW files in Lightroom. I looked at the Macbook Air 13" before settling in for something which I have a legacy with (been using Thinkpads for 14+ years now).

I got an X220 (Core i5 2520M + IPS + 6 cell) and upgraded it to 8GB RAM (G-Skill - NewEgg) and Intel 160 GB SSD (320). The machine beats the crap put of most Windows machines out there and is definitely a step up in speed from my X61t. However, coming from a long line of Thinkpads I am a little disappointed and here are my gripes:

- The build quality is definitely a step down from the X61t. The X61t lasted me 2.5 years through grad school, got beaten to a pulp and still sings. The X220's screen creaks if i press it on its sides. The 6 cell battery has a slight play (maybe less than an mm) which is damn irritating
- The IPS screen is uber excellent but when I i pull one of the edges (top left or top right) the screen changes color (blacks arent perfectly black). I dont know if this is an issue with my piece or a general issue with the X220's. Secondly, the vertical resolution or lack there of irritates me once in a while, when I am working on Lightroom or big spreadsheets
- Battery life is strictly okay. With the 6 cell I manage to eke out about 5+ hours of real life use. I hate to get the 9 cell or the slice because portability is very important to me.
- The SSD and 8GB of RAM havent given me a blinding performance boost. Boot up takes about 30 - 45 seconds. Wake up from sleep is near instant but resume from sleep takes 30 seconds. I have tried culling the startup items (using msconfig) to improve start times but meh..not a lot of improvement.
- Finally, the fan noise. Even on the i5 the fan is on 60% - 70% of the time and in a quiet workroom it is quite noisy.

On the upside..the machine is incredibly light, looks very professional, definitely a powerhouse, excellent screen, Thinkpad's accident protection warranty is unmatched. Oh, and lets not forget the price..my machine with all the specs and 2 years accident protection warranty set me back by $1200 incl taxes. The highest speced Macbook Air 13" even is bought used on eBay will be at minimum $1350 w/o warranty.

The Macbook Air's build quality might be good for average use, but I suspect the aluminum will dent and scratch easily. Apple doesnt give accident protection warranty. I dont mind the MBA keyboard or the switch to a different OS. I love the reliability of OS X, the excellent battery life and most importantly the ability to instantly wake up from sleep.

So, here's my question, given my perspective on the pros and cons of X220 and MBA should I return the X220 and go for the MBA (current model or the new one which Apple will release this month)??

Thanks in advance for all the inputs.

Best,
PK.

 

Something is wrong with your set-up if it takes your x220 that long to boot up. Mine takes 12 seconds according to Boottimer and about 20 from the second I push the power button. My x120e takes about 25 according to Boot timer and about 30 from the second I hit the power button.

 

The MBA will give you a better build quality and more battery life. I don't think you'll see much in the way of improved performance. Then you have the warranty stuff.

It really depends upon how much value you place on fit/finish. I don't mind a little creaking here and there (as I'm typing on my $600 T60P) if the price justifies it.

The X220 is a heck of a bargain at it's price and I love Lenovo warranty/TPP. If it was my primary machine then that would take precedence over the MBA since you can get stuff fixed pretty quickly.

I thought the battery life on the MBA's were 6-7 hours, so a little better then your 5. I didn't mind the 9 cell, the part that sticks out actually served as a little handle for me to hold the laptop with

If money is no object and having your laptop isn't critical (if it needs to get repaired for some reason), then I'd opt for the MBA, but I'd wait for the new ones.

 

I'd say go for a MacBook Pro if money wasn't an issue. I don't get the point to the Air series; they are so thin and light that you can't even use them as a door stopper. Or, if you can live with a 14", try a T420. The 9 cell battery doesn't look like it sticks out that much on the X220, and will give you something like 50% more battery life.

 

The QXGA IPS panel in my Thinkpad T42p does the exact same thing. If I push/pull on one corner/side of the lid, blacks turn grayish

 

It depends on the SSD. I was reading on the Lenovo forums that with an Intel SSD boot is longer (I have an Intel ssd and my boot time is around 30 seconds). You have a Crucial which doesn't have issues.

 

Thanks for the quick replies guys.

@turned2black, @Jayayess1190 : I didnt know Intel SSD had an issue. I avoided the Crucial because of the voiding warranty issues. Maybe thats why my resume from sleep times are also high. I will dig deeper into this and update the tread if I find a solution.

@kevroc : My experience with the MBA has been thats its more fragile than my X61t for my usage patterns (picking up by the screen or by the edge of the key board). I was also perrenially afraid that dropping it (or dropping anything on it) might scratch or dent the aluminum. I agree to your point about the money..especially when you factor the warranty in it.

@kirayamato26 : Thanks for the suggestion. My brother has an MBP and I tried it. However, I am not to fond of the MBP because of the glossy screen and the weight. I never use the DVD drive and I hate the extra weight.

 

I believe the MBA has a glossy screen, too (or at least the models that I've seen). And if I'm not mistaken, the MBP does have matte options. From my experiences with MBA's, they feel solid and heavier than they look, but I still can't bring myself to trust one just from how it looks.

 

The two divots in my hardwood floor would like to argue with you on the build quality. I'm not exactly sure which part of my x220i hit the ground, but from shape of the divots it must have been a corner.

 

Does it affect the 310? I haven't heard anyone mention longer boot times?

 

@DStaal : I know the feeling. My T30 and X61t are not tough as nails..thats an understatement..they are tough as rivets hammered into a stone. This January, I finally sent my X61t to the service center for a loose hinge fix..they called me back asking if I was a war photographer (no kidding!!). The service agent had never seen any laptop take so much beating and still work. In the end they changed, the screen, hinge, hard disk, motherboard, top cover and the battery!! It took them 2 months to get the IPS screen but other than that they were very polite and extremely helpful.

 

Yes they talk about the 310's.

 

I also deciding between x220 and the macbook air. So your experience may help in choosing. Does the macbook air last longer than the 6-cell in x220 for similar tasks? I have a 2009 mbp 13" and the battery lasts less than 5 for daily use, much less if doing anything CPU intensive.

 

@jayayess1190: Thanks for the thread link to Lenovo forums.

So here is what I found out from Lenovo forums (this is a reply by Lenovo staff) : X220 BIOS POST time - Page 3 - Lenovo Community
________________________________
"Thanks for all the great info! It appears there are multiple issues being reported in this thread:

1. POST time increases when TPM is in active state (compared to TPM in inactive state)
2. POST time increases when 8GB of memory is installed (compared to 4GB of memory)
3. POST time increases when certain SSDs are installed.

I can easily repro #1 and #2 and I think this is something BIOS team has to look at for a future BIOS release.

For #3 (SSD issue), I could not reproduce it with the Lenovo version of the Intel X25 G2. Usually issues like this are caused by a bug in SSD firmware. I know you said you are using Intel X25 G2, but it is the Lenovo version? Because the Lenovo version and the OEM version probably use different firmware that could explain why you are having an issue and I'm not."
_________________________________
So, I updated my BIOS to the latest version 1.17, deactivated TPM and my boot time came down to about 22~25 seconds. I will try tonight by removing one 4GB memory module to see if that improves boot up time. Looks like there is some issue with Intel SSD's with boot up performance. I will play around with the SSD firmware and update this thread.

Thanks for all the help once again.

Best,
PK.

 

@randomBuyer: I can empathize with you. I think both the machines have comparable battery capacities (I don't know exact mAh numbers for the MBA) however, the OS makes a huge difference. Win7 as refined as it might be is still quite inefficient in managing power, ergo, I manage to get about 5 - 5.5 useful hours out of my X220. When I use my friends MBA for the same tasks, I manage just about 6+ hrs. Remember that the MBA runs on an older inefficient CPU, has a bigger screen and less venting to route the heat out. The X220 runs the latest Sandy Bridge, has more chassis space and a smaller screen. So it ultimately comes down to the OS. I am going to try out Ubuntu on my X220 and see how that works. I will update the thread again with my results once I install Ubuntu.

Then there is also the money factor. I was looking at the prices of used, fulled maxed out (2.13GHz + 4GB + 256GB) MBA's on eBay and they are going for about $1400 sans warranty or extras. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, my X220 with all bells and whistles worked out to only $1200 incl tax. Thats a tough value to beat.

Finally, there are rumors that the new MBA will be announced on 7/14..I recommend you wait and see what comes out of Jobs' pocket.

Good luck.

Best,
PK.

 

From my brief use of an X220, I'd say that the build quality seems to be on par with the X20x models. The screen is different, sure, but the move to an LED-backlit one means that the lid can tolerate more flex, as cracking the CCFL tubes is no longer a concern.

Remember: what you perceive as "well built" and what is actually durable may not always be one and the same. Allowing components to flex and give is important in a good mechanical design.

Take an airplane's wings, for example: when you're taxiing down the runway on your next flight, watch the wingtips. If you're on a large jet, you might be surprised to see the tips of the wings bouncing up and down -- it's a little unsettling, I will admit. That doesn't mean that they're not well-constructed, or ill-fit for their purpose though; engineering some give into the design helps to allow the wing to stand up to the tremendous strain of flight.

Likewise, having some give in your laptop's chassis is a good thing. My first LED-backlit machine was a ThinkPad X200s, and I will confess: I was so shocked at how flexible the screen was that I posted a rather vitriolic complaint about it on a certain ThinkPad forum. I thought for sure that it was a sign of shoddy work, that the brand was headed downhill, etc. Then I used the machine. A lot. I took it with me on trans-Atlantic flights, threw it in carry-ons, and generally subjected it to the same forces that all my travel laptops face. It held up great. Yes, the lid gave in response to some stresses -- but that give was part of the design, and allowed it to handle said stresses quite well. It actually held up better than my first X40, which developed pressure marks quite quickly despite having what most people might assume was a "better build quality" (i.e. a magnesium lid.)

 

Insightful post, Rob!

Reminds me of the late owner of a certain make of heavy, non-suspended, belt-drive turntables (for playing vinyl) in this country. He always recommended not over-tightening to allow energy to dissipate.

 

I get about 2 - 2.5 hours extra from my usage on the X220 vs my MBA 13" with the 9 cell I jump to 11-13 hours total ( double ). with slice up to 20. all using same tasks but with the MBA's screen dimmer

 

Thanks for your reply. I almost made the purchase on the X220 several times last week, but resisted the temptation and waiting for the release of the new macbook air. I heard that the power management for x220 in window 7 is actually better than linux environment (which I am planning to use).

Interesting so it is the opposite of what paachi's observation.

Another interesting machine coming out in 2 week is the new sony vaio z series. I am not a big fan of sony though

 

I think what you do will really impact your battery life. While I do not have much experience with the OSX environment as I've never really used a Mac for an extended amount of time, from what I've gathered, OSX is much better at idle power management than Windows and that's why it gets better battery life. So, if you do something that allows the system to idle most of the time, a MBA might get you better battery life, while if you do something intensive, Windows might get you better battery life. It seems that a general consensus is that Linux will get you quite a bit less battery life than both, though.

 

Keep in mind that the X220 uses a full-powered cpu versus the MBA which uses a ULV one that is much slower but uses less power. Depending on what you use the computer for you might get more work done from five hours on the X220 than you'd get from the six+ hours from the MBA.

 

You can order an X220 with a ULV CPU too.