X230(t) Owner's Thread

ty.
i configured laptop- price 994$ its ok


but after "add to cart " - price 1286$

 

My issue is with the protrusion from the back but I will think about it.

I definitely agree that the 6-cell on the X230T looks UGLY!

 

You will have to click on "Activate Coupon" at the checkout page to give you the price you saw during customization, then you will also have to pay the taxes.

 

where is this button "Activate Coupon"

 

You won't see it until you add the machine to cart and continue to do the checkout, then you will find it as the last checkout page (not the one you shared). Just go with the checkout process and you will be able to see it.

 

ok.... I have said a couple of times prior to receiving my X230T (and immediately on receipt) that the 6cell battery is an abomination and the guy that designed it should be sent to design batteries for outposts at the North Pole. However, I now wish to retract this (in part) for the following reasons:

1) You don't see the battery when using it.
2) Good battery life
3) It actually doubles as a really good *and comfortable* handle when in tablet mode.
4) It is rock solid against the laptop chassis. Some laptop batteries wobble, this is very rigid.

(I don't have any 3feet laptop wobble issues when on flat surface)

So.... yes it is ugly, but the capacity and the form factor when in tablet mode have convinced me not to order the slice or 3cell. Prior to this realisation I was 100% ordering one of those. All in all, its not that bad.

 

These actually were the state purpose of the design decision. Some time back, I saw a hands on preview with a Lenovo design team person and the reviewer and that was exactly why they made it that way.

I dont use my x230t in tablet mode too often, but when I do, I've found it to be true as well.

 

ok. where is checkout

 

So I guess customs doesn't work on Sunday ? My beloved 3434CTO is just sitting in Kentucky...

 

i'm having trouble with a Bluetooth audio speaker adapter attached to my stereo, and realized i don't understand what all the Bluetooth device stuff is in this X230T. does anyone know what all this is?

- under Bluetooth Radios, what's the difference between the Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator and the ThinkPad Bluetooth 4.0?

- under Network adaptors, there are a couple Bluetooth Devices (Personal Area Network and RFCOMM Protocol TDI don't mean much to me :/ ), but i also noticed that the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 has a Bluetooth AMP property...what's that?

 

in case anyone is still unsatisfied with the accuracy and registration of their pen/digitizer, i finally ended up installing a Wacom "Tablet PC" driver and saw improvement immediately. it's still not as perfect as my old HP convertible, but probably finally good enough, even near the edges.

PLUS i now have pressure sensitivity in Photoshop

Drivers | Wacom Americas

 

So there is no option at all to swap the 6 cell for a 9 cell? I don't want to have to pay for the 6 cell and 9 cell.

 

This should be pre-installed but somehow Lenovo messed up.

Here is a more direct link : http://www.wacom.com/en/customercare/Drivers.aspx?model=Tablet+PC&os=Windows+7

 

Since you mention this, I wonder if the fat bulge underneath is also meant to improve one's grip while in tablet mode. It looks like the (lower) bulge would rest against the heel of the left hand, with your fingers curled around the side bulge. With the wide bezel I've wondered why people say the side bulge makes for a good handle/grip, but maybe it's actually the combination of the two that does the trick. Some have said that the bulge underneath seems like it's hollow and thus pointless, but maybe it adds a firmness to one's grip.

As ugly as it is, they must have had a good reason for it. I just wish they would have a graphic somewhere (or better, a video) showing that the design is intentional and how it works ergonomically. I'm guessing the vast majority of X tablets are bought for industrial use where this is a big advantage.

 

For me, the concave valley along the stop of the battery and the extended bulge beneathe make operating the laptop in tablet mode more secure in the hand....not sure how to explain it...it just does.

The drawback in tablet mode is that the heat exhaust vents just beneathe the battery...so sometimes your wrist can get warm. Now, normally, you wouldn't expect the fan to be exhausting warm air in table mode since you don't usually work the laptop hard, but sometimes it does.

It actually seems to be worse in Windows 8 preview...granted it is non-optimized code and lacking Lenovo's power management so the CPU might be running a little hotter

 

More questions!

So it seems lenovo screwed up with my order. So i might need to reorder.

My old order had an i5 processor, so i went ahead and bought a Samsung 830 SSD for the primary hard drive. My question is does the i5 or i7 have a slot for a mSATA SDD or is it just the i7?

 

All X230's regardless of which processor fitted should have a slot available for mSATA SSD. It's actually the spare Mini PCI-e slot for WWAN cards but some prefer having a SSD in there instead.

 

Fantastic. whats the best thing to put in its place if no WWAN card is used

 

Nothing, if you have enough ssd space in the main 2.5" slot.
Otherwise msata 80-128GB for the OS/programs and leave the slow big 2.5" hdd it came with in.
I dont know what else you can use it for.

 

Just ordered my X230T today with the 3yr. Onsite NBD/TPP warranty too!! Super excited to have it arrive!! $1347 to my door, tax included using B&N Promo. Thanks to the forum members for the promo details and directions. I first built it on my own using the B&N site then called a rep and he was able to knock a little more off the price, so it was worth a call to the rep. Just a tip for others that might be buying soon.

Rob

 

Around $1600 from Lenovo AU for this setup :/

Intel Core i5-3320M Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.30 GHz)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
12.5" Multitouch HD (1366x768) LED Backlit Display, Mobile Broadband Ready, 3x3 Antenna
4 GB PC3-12800 DDR3 (1 DIMM)
UltraNav™ with TrackPoint® and buttonless multi-touchpad
180GB Solid State Drive, SATA3
No Optical Drive
6 Cell ThinkPad Battery X67+
Bluetooth 4.0 with Antenna
ThinkPad 1x1 b/g/n
Mobile Broadband upgradable
1 Year Depot/Express Warranty

Do any international customers know how I can get a better deal?

 

Add a ssd yourself aftermarket. I see 256gb goes for less than $200. Just make sure you get a 7mm height and not 9.5mm height drive.

 

this may help a few people, works a treat:

F5521GW WWAN install on Windows 8 CP (Lenovo X220t) | Bibble-IT.com

 

its not fair, you guys get so many coupons. I had to buy it for the regular price in the netherlands here .

But so far I'm happy with the laptop. Fan is very quiet!
But the bottom of the screen seems to be really fragile as somebody mentioned earlier. Press on it and you'll see a lot of light bleeding. Also the charge cable seems not to fit perfectly in the back, and you can move it if it's plugged in. Anybody else with the same problem?

 

My charging port seems like it is loose as well. Works fine though.

 

Charge port wiggle is common in laptops by design. It prevents cracking the motherboard when someone trips on the wire. All my thinkpad X series are like that, and so does my toshiba portege r835.

 

The DC in power connector in my X200 is not soldered directly to the motherboard. The yellow plug is actually a part with a pig tail connector that bridges the AC plug and the motherboard. Lenovo calls it a “DC in cable assembly” in the HMM. I feel this is a better solution versus the flimsy engineering of a DC connector that is soldered directly to the motherboard. I would not be surprised if this power supply arrangement is retained on the X230. My yellow port has some play however since it is not directly soldered to the motherboard I do not worry about broken or loose soldered point(s).

Source: First-hand experience from X200 disassembly and HMM (Hardware Maintenance Manual)

EDIT:

Just looked at the X230 HMM and it shows that the DC in cable assembly for the X230 is not directly soldered to the motherboard. It is joined by the same pigtail connector arrangement I have for my X200.

 

Thanks for the in depht answer!

One other thing i noticed is that there is some slight background noise when there is no audio playing . I was hoping that after my edge 13 that problem would be done with, but nope. I noticed it both on good headphones as well as on a pair of cheap apple ear plugs.

I have the i7 version.

Anybody else with this problem?

 

Stupid question again, sorry,


Where are the stock drivers located on the x230t? I would prefer to transfer over my drivers from a USB, since last time i wiped a computer/did a fresh install of 7, I lost my wireless driver and had to jump through hoops to get it working again and updating the other drivers?


I figured after i did the SSD clean W7 install i would use the Lenovo system update to update the drivers on the comp, but i'd like to keep the old ones just in case

 

They're in the "SW/tools" folder. You can just copy that entire folder to a thumb drive then add them as necessary.

 

I swapped out the OEM 320GB drive on my X230t for a Crucial M4 SSD at 256GB and my drive performance index on the Windows Experience Index went from 5.4 to 7.9.

 

Yes, but you get to live in the Netherlands so I think you win.

 

AboutThreeFifty, where did you find a 9 Cell for the x230t? I've been looking everywhere for one.

 

I don't own a x230t.....

 

Oh woops, gotcha. Guess I'll be getting the slate battery.

 

chaps. I know X230T not a gaming machine, but I like to game so I have eGPU on my desk at home... however while on the move and staying in hotels I'm not going to bother to lug the eGPU around and HD4000 is "acceptable" at 1366x768 anyway so I'm just thinking of ways to squeeze every last ounce from the little fella:

I've got 16GB 1333Mhz RAM, but as the HD4000 uses system RAM I'm willing to bet that if I put 16GB 1866Mhz RAM in there I'd get a reasonable bump in performance (clearly it will still be a HD4000, but every little helps).

So I'm just looking for confirmation that:

a) The X230T supports 1866Mhz RAM - does anyone have it installed?
b) Anyone using 1866Mhz RAM with the i5 3320 and able to post some benchmarks/3dmark/etc?

Cheers guys

 

speaking of which... anyone know if there are even any kits of 2x 8GB 1866Mhz sticks available to buy?

 

Pulled the trigger for $896 (including the tax). Base price is $838.



--

 

838 dollar! that machine costs 1200 euros here! That is without taxes i suppose?

 

With taxes and shipping it cost me $896.


--

 

Yeah, there is no 9-Cell for the tablet, but considering how enormous and ugly the 6-Cell is, can you imagine what a 9-Cell would be like?

 

It would be pretty cool if they managed to fill some of that "hollow space" inside the 6 cell with a couple more battery cells though...

 

I think the 6-cell has reached the ugly threshold where I'd rather take a 9-cell regardless of how it looks. At least with a 9-cell we can back it up with incredible battery life.

 

Well that is unfortunately the problem. The battery actually gained 3 WHr over the previous "8" cell on the X60/61/200/201 tablet, from 63 WHr but it looks so much worse.

Might as well go slice + 6 cell, you'll easily hit like 16 hours..

 

I'm about to buy an x230 and want to upgrade to a 256 GB ssd.

Do a lot of people have trouble with crucial ssd's? I just found out about the 5000 hour problem. do newer models still have this problem?

also, how useful is their cloning software?

thanks

 

The M4's issue has been fixed since firmware 0309. I think the latest is 000F. As long as you have the latest firmware, you should be fine. The M4 series with the newest firmware seems like one of the more reliable SSDs available.

You can see here for more info:
M4 firmware 0309 is now available - Crucial Community
M4 Firmware 000f is now available - Crucial Community

 

Hi,
Got my x230t some days ago and I'm very happy with this product.
I've performend a clean install of Windows 7 64Bit, have installed the newest Wacom Driver (mentioned some pages before)....but now, if i put the laptop in Hibernation-mode, no pen or touchinput is possible after resuming the device. Just mousepad and trackpoint.

Any suggestions?

 

If you download the driver from the Wacom site you're downloading a BETA driver. It has known issues with unloading when resuming from sleep. Thank Lenovo for not including it in our factory machine build. My suggestion is to get the latest from the Lenovo site.

From Wacom the details page:

http://www.wacom.com/en/Shared/Downloads/Drivers/Tablet PC - Enhanced Graphics Driver-1.aspx

KNOWN ISSUES AND FAQs for Tablet PC Driver ISD_7.0.9-5 (BETA) DRIVER

Last Updated: June 28, 2012

KNOWN ISSUES WITH ISD_7.0.9-5 BETA driver
1. Some sleep and resume issues have been observed.

 

Thanks a lot!!!!
I didnt read the "know issues"

Again: Thank you!

 

Today I tried the Card Reader and I noticed that my card reader is extrem slow. I only get about 100 kbyte/s and so it is nearly imposible to copy pictures.
I reinstalled the driver but the reader stayed slow
Does anyone have this poblem too?