X220 review by Engadget

only 8/10...

Lenovo ThinkPad X220 review -- Engadget

 

Gotta love the "Battery options jack up the price" con. No (shat) sherlock . Batteries are expensive no matter where you buy them. At least Lenovo gives the option of a slice battery.

It's ok, Engadget will just continue to dole out unconditional love to every single product made by Apple.

 

they could have put "much fewer ways to jack up the price" as a pro for macbooks.

 

8/10 after saying this in the intro:

"The point is, that all-too-familiar ThinkPad can deceive you with its boring business looks, but it's arguably one of the best laptops we've ever tested."

 

Their two main complaints:

Both of these caveats could be improved with a more square, less widescreen display. Instead of using a 16:9 aspect ratio, Lenovo could have stayed with 16:10 using a WSXGA resolution (1440 x 900). This would require a deeper form factor increasing space available for the touchpad and increasing the vertical real estate for the display (assuming the same width), reducing the necessity for scrolling.

 

Really? Because last I checked, they had almost no availability of the 1440x900 12" screens last generation.

 

Stopped reading right here:

"The X220 is the first laptop we've reviewed with Intel's new Sandy Bridge 2.5GHz Core i5-2520M processor, and like the Core i7-powered MacBook Pro, the power surge is noticeable. When it came to using the ultraportable for our everyday tasks -- writing this review in Microsoft Word, chatting in Trillian, checking our Twitter feed in TweetDeck, working with ten or so tabs open in Internet Explorer 9, and doing some light photo editing in GIMP -- the entire system was incredibly zippy."

*facepalm*

 

It is Engadget. Here is how they rank computers:

If it is a Mac, rank it between 8/10 and 10/10.
If it is not a Mac, rank it between 1/10 and 8/10.

 

Not to nitpick, but the X220 has a 12.5" display.

At any rate, I was remarking *if* Lenovo would have spec'd such a display. I am not saying there exists that size and resolution atm.

 

They mention their test model comes with USB 3.0. Did they review an i7 model? Or can you get USB 3.0 with i5?

 

Apparently you can get it with a core i5, since that's what their test system came with.

 

Yeah, to the Macmaniac's Mac can do no wrong and MS can do no right. I don't think the term "objectivity" is in their dictionary.

 

It's a review unit, not a production unit. The X220 data sheet and tabook are very clear that usb 3.0 is only for i7 models.

Unless there's some technical reason really behind it, it's a pretty sly move from the marketing team. Business users don't care how fast usb is, so let's gouge the enthusiast chumps willing to spend hundreds more $$ for a faster usb port.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I want a higher resolution display just as much as you, but it's obvious that 16:10 is just not feasible from a supply standpoint. Unfortunately, I also desperately want IPS, so the decision between an X220 and T420s is going to suck.

 

In the X series the CPU is soldered to the system board, so the i7 uses a different board. USB 3.0 requires a different system board, too.

Currently, they have three different boards:
i5-2520M (no USB 3.0)
i5-2540M (no USB 3.0)
i7-2620M (USB 3.0)

Adding USB 3.0 as an option for the i5 models means adding two additional board types to produce and stock.

From the T420 page, it looks like the i7-2620M is around $190 more than the i5-2520M. So, yeah, USB 3.0 is quite an expensive option on the X220 if you don't want the slightly faster i7.

 

I don't disagree with anything you've said. All we have to go on is what Engadget wrote about their pre-production unit and what's in Lenovo product docs. The two contradict each other.

 

Why should it? It's just a simple NEC chip. They don't have to put it on select boards, they choose to do so (as another member said, to gouge their customers ).

 

Now let's wait for some 50% off coupons. Lol.

 

I saw the pictures and read the review, but I don't see the blue usb 3 port. Did that change, or something? I don't this has usb 3 for that reason alone, but I could be wrong.

 

Sorry, I didn't get your point

//anyway, I heard that Engadget is big Apple fanboy, is that true?

 

i guess this gives some people a reason to spend the extra cash for the i7 CPU equipped model, other having a slightly faster CPU. Just like how cars are offered in different trims and engine models.

Personally, i think Lenovo should have offered the usb 3.0 in both the i5 and i7 models.

 

The controller chip (there are actually many manufacturers) is soldered to the board when it is produced. That means that you need two different versions of the board, one with the controller and one without.

Think about this from a service perspective. If you have an i5 USB 3.0 version and an i5 non-USB-3.0 version and someone sends in their i5 USB 3.0 laptop with a defective system board, you need to swap it with a USB 3.0 board. The depot service is not equipped to solder/unsolder controller chips, and the onsite service providers certainly can't do it. So that means that Lenovo needs to stock both versions of the board for years to come. That adds cost.

It would be different if the CPU were socketed. Then you would just have two board revisions, one with USB 3.0 and one without. But with a soldered-on CPU, to have USB 3.0 as an option you would need system boards with:

i5-2520M / no-USB-3.0
i5-2520M / USB 3.0
i5-2540M / no-USB-3.0
i5-2540M / USB 3.0
i5-2620M / no-USB-3.0
i5-2620M / USB 3.0

That's 6 different boards, 3 more than you otherwise would have. Compare with the current situation:

i5-2520M / no-USB-3.0
i5-2540M / no-USB-3.0
i5-2620M / USB 3.0

Here you only need three boards, which is what you needed anyway if you wanted 3 CPU options.

What most people need to understand is that the PC business is extremely hard. The price you pay for a ThinkPad is not the price that most of them sell for - business customers can (and do) negotiate substantial discounts, often to the point where margins are $50 or less on a machine. It used to be that laptops were different and had much better margins, but the days of the $2000 business laptop are over and most business laptops today sell for well under $1000. This is why Lenovo does things like removing status LEDs, or sourcing parts from multiple manufacturers, or removing the UltraBay battery option, or eliminating the modem, or going to a latchless design. None of these items cost much on their own, but taken together they are the difference between being $5 less than Dell and being $5 more than Dell. And that's enough in a lot of cases to win or lose a deal.

So, yeah, it sucks that USB 3.0 isn't on every model, but it's understandable. And it sucks that Lenovo doesn't offer it as a $20 option, but considering that it would require at least 2 more board parts to do so it's understandable that they don't want to.

Arguably a better choice would have been to put the USB 3.0 controller on the i5-2540M board as well, so you don't have to buy the (very expensive) i7 to get it. But they didn't do that.

 

Why don't usb 3.0 came standard, guess corporation are too price conscious to pay extra $5 on their laptop.

 

I think his point was that Edgadget considers that "heavy" usage when most of us with real skillz don't.

Heavy usage usually means you are taxing one or more of the major bottlenecks. Major bottlenecks are typically the CPU, GPU, RAM or disk.

 

Ok, what other chip manufacturers make USB 3.0 controller chips? NEC is the only I can see that is used, and in a wide variety of systems.
Secondly, I said that Lenovo chooses to only include USB 3.0 support on the more expensive systems. They could simply offer it on ALL of their systems, but they choose not to.
Computer manufacturers buy the NEC chip and integrate it on their boards. Plain and simple.

 

Renesas (NEC) µPD720200
Texas Instruments SN65LVPE502
Fresco Logic FL1000, FL1009, etc.
ASMedia ASM1051, ASM1054
Etron EJ168
VLI (VIA) VL810

...just to name a few.   i'm sure there are more but i'm tired of looking.

what bsoft said above makes good sense.   everyone complains about thinkpad pricing.   is it really fair to complain again when measures are taken to effectively cut those costs without affecting quality?   you can't have it both ways.   something has to give.

 

I see. Ok then, I stand corrected. But on the other point I stand by what I said. It would be easy to implement it on ALL boards, but because Lenovo wants you to upgrade to the more expensive systems to get USB 3.0 support, they wont.

 

not everyone wants or needs USB 3.0.   at this point in time, business users (the largest market segment for the X series by a long shot) have little use for it.

personally, i could give a flying squirrel about USB 3.0.   everyone pines for it today but it'll be next year's outdated technology just like everything else.

i was hoping for eSATAp but i'm sure that'll be deprecated soon enough, too.

 

Joanna Stern is a good reviewer and I'd say 8/10 is a strong nod to the X220. She doesn't often review the Apple MacBook machines, Joshua Topolsky and Nilay Patel (who both just left Engadget) did. It could be since those two reviewers are big Apple fans they tended to give higher scores, I don't see any review rating criteria methodology on Engadget (other than what each number means, see quoted list below, it's still open to interpretation by an individual) so you have to look at a reviewers past reviews to see what scores they've given to other machines to see how they rank the existing review machine against others. I don't see any laptop Joanna has given a 9 to, so the 8/10 is the highest she's doled out, and the only laptop I see in the past year that has a 9/10 is the recent MBP model review by Nilay.

 

@erik: That's my take on it too. I have no use at all for USB 3.0, as I have no intention of upgrading my existing enclosures and such to USB 3.0 for speed gains that are apparent only when I'm making backups and copying over some files (in which case I do other stuff on my laptop anyway, so speed doesn't matter all that much to me).

But the reason why Lenovo doesn't include it on all X220 models is probably purely cost-based. Many more businesses than before buy the lowest-priced models, and Lenovo has to offer a low and competitive starting price. If that means cutting out a new feature that not everyone needs, it's not a bad choice in my opinion. I'd much rather have the USB 3.0 be an upgradeable option that comes along with more expensive processor options than the touchpad

bsoft's analysis makes sense--the fewer different types of mainboards that Lenovo stocks, the shorter the turnaround time for depot system repairs.

 

correct.   that's essentially my point.   if very few people want or need a feature, why increase costs on every system just to please those in the minority?   when business contracts are won or lost over $5~10 per-system costs, what seems insignificant in a single system becomes quite significant across thousands of systems.

at the end of the day, it's better to err on the side of saving money for the masses and letting the rest buy the i7/USB3 combo if they truly want or need the feature.

 

That's good research, but readers generally don't look at who's doing the review... They just know Engadget gives it a score of x out of 10...

 

Well, I guess that wont happen until official support is forthcoming from Intel, and that wont happen until 2012. :\

 

what rating do you think the x220 is worthy of?

i can readily acknowledge that even with all the nice features that are in the x220, i don't think i would give it 10/10. the highest that i would probably rate, even if it met or exceeded all my expectations, would be a 9.

for starters, i would deduct for the resolution and the HD form factor. i'd have to see how the 'button-less' trackpad performs too.

 

I just feel the cons they listed are pretty interesting: the look and overpriced battery??

 

That's not the way I read it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/7270385-post5.html

 

Engadget fawns over consumer products. It doesn't surprise me that they have different tastes than people who use their notebooks for work. Sometimes their preferences match ours, often they don't (hence the complaints about the looks, for example.)

I'm just glad they didn't complain that it didn't come in multiple colors...

 

You guys think that awesome ips screen would be standard?

What type of base price we looking at for one of these babies?

 

Ugh just found out the ips has to be an upgrade. That sucks. :/

 

As a mainstream tech blog, it would be expected that Engadget caters to the general crowd of tech-oriented users, so business laptops naturally don't have as great a focus there. The praise and criticism that the X220 received, though, seems to indicate that it's a very strong ultraportable: and Thinkpad fans will appreciate the preservation of the traditional Thinkpad look

It's likely still possible to configure the X220 with the IPS display for only a tad over $1000, if you stick with other basic options. Setting the IPS display as standard would likely cause supply issues and increase the base price.

 

Out of interest does anyone know where you can see lenovo laptops in London as the x220 looks interesting but would need to use one to see what the touchpad thing is like.