X230(t) Owner's Thread

Why don't you check the WEI on a computer that can play Quake 3 well on full settings @125fps and compare that, it might give you a good idea of the possibilities. As I said, maybe I can try when my gets back from repairs in a couple of days. The other thing you might want to consider is that the display's refresh rate is 60Hz, so I'm not sure how much 125fps will do.

 

inaccurate and frustrating? hell yes.

but what are you going to do with it? i paint in ArtRage, Photoshop, and Illustrator. not only is the registration off, it's different all over the screen. edges are the worst, and that's where your menus and tools tend to go. my X220T went back twice before it went back permanently, and the X230T that replaced it is only slightly better after i ignored Lenovo and installed Wacom's driver. better enough that i decided to keep the machine, but it's a constant annoyance. my old HP Touchsmart had perfect calibration, though i never had pressure support in Adobe products. i guess pressure (and not blowing up) is more important to me.

i also make music with Reason, somewhat notorious for having myriad tiny switches and dials covering the interface. also frustrating with the pen.

if you're fiddling with big button stuff and messing with some handwriting, you may never notice or care. i think some people are ok with navigating via the cursor dot that appears when the pen tip nears the surface, too, rather than just trusting the tip. maybe that's you?

 

i don't care for the touchpad's texture, or button locations, and i used to have to hammer it to click. maybe i'm a much lighter touch than they are in China.

i dug pretty deep one day and found advanced settings where i was able to change the tap sensitivity, turn on cursor momentum, fine tune edge scrolling, resize edge auto-scrolling margins, define triple-finger clicking, and those sorts of things. pain in the butt, but it's great that the options were available, and i'm far happier with it now.

 

Appreciate the responses gentleman. Going by your respective experiences and my needs, I went with the exim 2 for $16 screen protectors. Waiting for them to arrive in the mail. Thanks once again.

 

Did you get the clear or the matte?

I want to try the 13.1" screen protector. Because of the inaccuracy on the right edge of the screen (dot is about 2mm left of where my pen is), I often find my tip of the pen falling off the screen protector. Also for touch actions especially on the edges, it would have been better to have the screen protector a little oversized than the screen itself.

Edit:
Just ordered a no brand name 13.1" screen protector from everydaysource on ebay. 11.4 x 6.4 inches size seems perfect to cover all the X220T/X230T's shiny part of the screen. That way it's easier to swipe from the edge. This is especially important for Windows 8.
Item number 400259847711. Two for $5.56 shipped.

 

Finally got my replacement X230t one week back after the first one I received suffered MB failure and had to be sent back. I've been playing around with it extensively, putting it through its paces, (as I would with my trusty T410s) and I am happy to report that I've had no major problems and my faith in Thinkpads has been reaffirmed I was worried about having the 3 legged issue and other quality control issues but, none were present.

For those who are thinking about purchasing the X230t in anticipation of windows 8 I say don't think twice, just take the plunge.
The digitizer accuracy with the pen might not be the greatest experience but, the finger touch experience with windows 8 is an absolute joy!!! I guess I am in the minority who purchased this system without the intent of using the pen input extensively but, I have a feeling, I won't be alone for too long. Most of the people I showed the X230t to loved it and are thinking about buying one themselves. Some might say why buy a tablet with a Wacom digitizer if you don't plan to use it but, I wanted a thinkpad (robust, and reliable)+track point+great keyboard+touch enabled and the X230t fit the bill perfectly (and pretty much the only choice I had ). And for 1k (i5-3320,500gb 72k HDD, 4GB ram, Intel 6205, Bluetooth, finger print reader, backlit keyboard, 6 cell,) I think I got a hell of a bargain.

The MSFT announcement of the surface tablet did provide me food for thought but, I highly doubt that "case keyboard" is going to be any match for a thinkpad keyboard. Plus the lack of upgradeability and port selection played a big role in my decision too. Would I have liked the X230t to be slimmer sure but, the ability to upgrade internal components plus the ruggedness the thicker chassis offers I believe will stand me better in the long run.

True there is some back light bleeding (negligible when the system is up and running & only evident during the startup screen), and the ugly issue of edge accuracy rears its ugly head once in a blue moon (for me during one note when trying to scroll the edges. I don't use one note that often except when taking notes during a meeting.) Overall though the X230t fits my bill perfectly and I think should fit the bill for the masses too. I would never hesitate to recommend this to anyone in the market for a tablet + regular laptop convertible such as myself.

Edit: With Windows 8 coming out I feel Lenovo should market the X230t more aggressively. Most people I showed the laptop to loved the convertible factor and some never knew that such a form factor existed and thought this was a completely new product category. I have a feeling Lenovo might release a slimmer sexier X series convertible tablet (along the X1 carbon lines maybe?) but, maybe not as feature rich next year once windows 8 has gone mainstream.

 

I went with the clear. The point you bring up about the easiness to swipe with a bigger screen protector makes a whole lot of sense. I will try out the exim and if I don't like it I will order the same one you just ordered. Please update your experience once you receive and apply the new one. Thanks.

 

Sure thing. The 12.5" screen protector is not bad, but because it's cut perfectly, it will exactly only cover the screen space. That is something I didn't think before ordering the 12.5" protector. But the quality seems to be good for the Exim.

Does your X230T also have the keyboard's both upper edges rubbing against the screen? I think it would do this since I didn't find any flaws under the keyboard or the body.

You are lucky to not have the three leg problem. I wish my second one doesn't have that problem. It's scheduled to be shipped out 8/1. I need to return my first one back, but first I need to pull out the msata ssd, and my ram.

 

I don't have the issue of the top right and left corners of the keyboard rubbing against the lower part of the screen when closed. Just to be sure I closed the lid and held a light through one end and looked through the other and nothing was touching. The light passed through clearly. If I had to guess, I say, this might be happening when transporting the system in a tight space (I.E a crowded laptop bag, backpack etc) causing it to compress because of the pressure from both sides. I will check again tomorrow morning once I get to work since I carry my X230t minus a sleeve in my bag which is pretty crowded.

 

I found this tip regarding bad touchpads on the Lenovo forums:

My x230 just shipped yesterday, hopefully I get it this week!

 

mostly use my finger to navigate and the pen to scribble on documents in microsoft onenote and irrelevant stuff like that. ok don't judge me for buying a $1400 computer to do this

 

I got my shipment notification this morning. But the tracking number doesn't seem to be recognized by UPS yet. Should this be a concern? Anyone else have a similar issue?

Lenovo's estimated delivery date is SUNDAY 8/5 which also seems weird to me, since UPS doesn't run on Sundays?

 

Same with DHL.......



Sent from my BlackBerry Bold 9900 using Tapatalk

 

Probably nothing to worry about. Also, the tracking number could have a typo.
I had my order status change to "released to manufacturing" today, and the estimated ship date changed from 8/1 to 8/5 now.

Don't be surprised even if weirder things happen, something like your package being shipped to Japan, and then Alaska, China, then Kansas, or something like that. You will get it without any delay.

 

Ok, first time testing out the battery life on my X230 with the 6-cell battery. With normal use, which involves browsing the internet, half an hour of Minecraft, a wasted hour of flash games, youtube videos, and installing new programs... I get 6 hours & 15 minutes before hitting 10%. And then it says I should be fine for another half hour, or maybe 20 minutes.

I'd say that's pretty good. Best battery life I've ever gotten out of a laptop.

And also, after disabling Rapidboot HDD Accelerator from the startup processes, my bootup time to a usable desktop, with the standard 320GB drive, has gone down from 55 seconds to 40 seconds. It's rather strange actually. It's not the only thing I had done, I also disabled other unneeded services and a few more optimizations, but that is pretty fast for a 7200RPM hard drive.

 

Dont have access to another systems WEI.... teh 125 is irrelevent to teh 60 hz....... hard to explain, quake stufff.... actually teh thing i really need to know is if it can play it at 1920x1080 external monitor....... But realy am asking too much there... In any case this is the trigger puling info i need and will find this out one way or another. Cheers again for your response.

 

Ordered X230T with the following configuration today:

• i5-3320M CPU
• 16GB Corsair RAM
• 256GB Samsung 830 SSD
• Multitouch screen
• Intel Centrino® Advanced-N 6205 WiFi
• Webcam
• Ericsson H5321gw
• Fingerprint reader
• Backlight keyboard
• ThinkPad UltraBase Series 3
• ThinkPad 90W AC Adapter (extra one for the docking station)
• 4 Year on-site warranty + protection
• Windows 7 Professional

Can't wait for it to arrive.

 

Yo I have been playing 'Portal' on my i7 x230T and it plays quite smoothly , even on a 1080p external monitor. Most settings on high. It does crash every now and then, though i think that is because of drivers for the hd4000 not being mature yet, though everything does get pretty toasty. As far as I am aware Quake 3 is pretty old yes ?

 

It takes about 24 hours for it to update. My estimated was also Sunday but it looks like it will be delivered Friday, Signature Required (Baltimore/DC area)

 

Did you read all the complaints about the X230t before spending so much money?

 

As to the touch screen, mine isn't inacurate at all. You might have to calibrate it at the beginning, but once you've done a good calibration you're good to go. I've used the touch screen a lot - in fact, the only time I use the mouse is when I'm typing in laptop mode and my arm is too tired to move up to the screen. Yes, the touch screen is accurate, the guy who reviewed it at HotHardware, I'm sorry, must have been an idiot, because he obviously didn't even bother to calibrate it. The pen, that's a different story - on the edges, it's not great, don't even bother trying to write on the edges, but in the middle it's just fine. For those having problems with the scrolling, I suggest you try putting your pen on the glass part of the bezel instead of actually on the screen, you'll hit it all the way at the edge of the screen guaranteed, so scrolling there is no problem.
As to the touchpad, you should set the sensitivity to the top setting, but after that, it's small, but good. That could also have to do that I'm coming from a touch pad that is pretty small as well. In general, though, the synaptics touch pads have a lot more features than their elantech equivalents - I can do miles more with the synaptics touch pad on the X230T than I can with the elan touchpad on this computer now, and actually the multi-touch gestures work pretty reliably - it took me far less practicing to learn them on this touchpad than on my previous touch pad. Just make sure to turn off gesture filtering and some of those filters - they mess up a lot of your attempts at gestures. If I would have designed this computer, I would have gotten rid of the top bar with the volume and power buttons, moved the volume and microphone buttons to the tablet's bezel, put the power button above the keyboard, and moved the keyboard up 1/4 inch, and used that extra 1/4 inch as touchpad space, and with that alone, you could have a nice and big touch pad. But then, I'm not working for Lenovo, so tough luck for me...
@del_psi, it's actually a very good computer, and the warranty is there for a reason. There's always the option of a return.

 

Yes, I've read all 68 pages of this topic.

 

he probably missed them because the overwhelming number of positive comments obscured them....

 

+1

Reading all of del_psi posts about how bad the X230t is and the threads he's created for the same purpose makes me wonder if his experience with Lenovo goes much more deeper than just a badly built, flawed digitizer X230t...

 

At first I was hesitant about getting my X230t since it was soon after release without reviews or feedback, but I'm glad I went through with it. So far it's been great.

It absolutely flies with a SSD and runs very cool. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it's a good machine and a pretty good value for what you pay. Usually those with complaints are more vocal about it, and those that are satisfied tend to post less about how great it really is.

 

haha you'll like it fine. no worries.
and if you don't, you can calibrate it about 250 times in a half dozen different ways in the soul crushing hope that the next attempt will make the magic difference, while shrinking all your windows to classic 1990s dimensions and clustering all your tools into a laundry pile in the middle of the screen, leaving a pleasant wallpaper moat around the perimeter.

 

Sure is, Q3 is from way back in 1999 lol! Quakelive is just a redress of teh same game....

 

LOL. If I don't like it by the end of week 1, It'll go back and I'll stick with my Acer TimelineX I got yesterday which has a blazin' fast SSD and 9 hour battery life. Oh and it is also capable of running BF3 with a dedicated Nvidia GPU.

Shame it has no touchscreen or I'd be sold.
.

 

My x220 with 6 cell says 10.5 hours when I first turn it on, doesn't mean I actually get that. I'd be extremely surprised if you got a full 9 hours while actually doing work.

 

Guys, the Mushkin Atlas M4 msata has DOUBLE the write speed of the Crucial M4 and is about the same price from Newegg
Will this work inside the X230T ?

Has anyone here tried it?

It is a Sata III drive so will it be compatible?

 

It will work, but you won't have double speed because of the mSata port, which only offers SataII speed.

 

What are you talking about??? The only problem is the pen, and that's only around the edges!

 

interesting observation.

 

Shipped yesterday. Eagerly waiting.

 

Just a follow up (no one is talking about it anymore but hey ;P) changing the hd4000 driver to version 8.15.10.2761 this is not the one it gives you if you do the auto update, though it fixes memory leak issues with games, no more crashing in portal 2, external monitor everything high (no AA). So over all some older games can make this little laptop quite the companion on long ferry journey without (too) much of a sweat.

 

Woo hoo! Just got my X230. Opened up this thing and I'm amazed how small the 9 cell battery is and how small the laptop is. I'm glad I got just the ThinkLight and no backlight. I'm going to put my mSATA inside this thing and upgrade to 8GB of RAM! . This thing is quiet unlike my previous Sony VAIO T.

BTW, why do all the review models have the Blue ThinkVantage Button and the customer models do not? It is a subtlety but just curious.

 

The black thinkvantage button is a bit odd, but I quite like it. I'm trying to find out how to link it to a different program, and the black color will fit better for that. haha


edit: I just updated my graphics driver to the latest version, and my WEI graphics score actually went down from 5.0 to 4.9.
Not too worried. I'll see if there is any improvement in the games I play.

edit2: The updated driver has completely fixed my problem with Portal! Before, looking at portals on even the lowest settings lagged me. Now I can play on all high settings pretty easily!

 

I have a weird problem. My system is stock except I am using an SSD alongside the stock HDD. Whenever I turn on "Media Streaming", the system promptly turns it right back off again. Every time I go to the setting, it is turned off. Has anyone else seen this? I am getting nowhere with Google searches for this problem.

 

I'm currently following Hearst's Clean Install Guide. I've already made my Recovery Disks and installed my mSATA and 2x4GB Dual Channel RAM Sticks (CL 9) .

I love this thing although mSATA II is disappointing.

 

^Awesome! Tell us how is goes, I'm going to be doing the same thing once I have the money. I may just restore my current image onto the SSD though, instead of a fresh install, since I don't want to reinstall 40GB of programs. lol
It all depends on how the performance compares. The current info I've heard is that the stock image gets better battery life, but a fresh install will boot faster.

 

Cant track. When I click the tracking number, it redirects me to some broken DHL page. When I input the tracking number manually into DHL it says no information found. Been like this for a few days

Good work on your -up Lenovo

 

Try updating your driver, fixed all these issues for me.
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS014979

 

I actually miss the blue "Enter" button more.

 

I actually miss both so much!

 

Decided to finally take the plunge. This baby needs to be as flawless as possible for 4 years for school. I think it will pull it off. I read the (few) negative comments, and it seems to me that most of them are superficial, irrelevant to me, or related to the x230t (I'm getting the regular one). It seems to me the biggest issue is that the mSATA is SATAII instead of III, and that a handful of people got bad units, which can happen from any manufacturer.



I tried to get the best deal possible, so hopefully I did. Now I just need to decide on an mSATA drive and which ram to buy. I know it ships with the 1600 RAM, but is it possible to utilize the 1866 (or what ever the next fastest speed is?) If so, will I notice a difference? Is the Crucial M4 the best mSATA right now? Seems like it based on the text of this thread.

Edit: Also, if down the road I wanted a dock the THinkpad Mini Dock Series 3 is the one I'd want, right?

 

Nice, almost identical config as me. But what's the language pack option?

 

Good question. I didn't catch that.

 

Ok, I got mine today, and here are my initial impressions after setting up for a few hours:

I set up the mSATA SSD and put Windows 7 on it. (Sadly, you cannot transfer OEM licenses, so that was a complete waste of a Windows 7 Professional license. If only Lenovo offered a configuration without any OS, or a free Linux distro.) { EDIT: It looks like you can transfer the license to another hard drive on the computer, but you cannot transfer the license between computers.} It runs really well, after installing over 200 updates and all the drivers from the Lenovo page. The fingerprint reader is a nice touch, being able to boot the computer with the swipe of a finger.

The trackpad. I had no problems with the pointer tracking, even before installing the proper drivers. The Trackpoint looks slightly choppier though, and I have the latest drivers for it. It's not a huge deal, but the cursor just doesn't feel as fluid as with the trackpad. The texture of the trackpad is only slightly annoying, compared to the impeccable surface of a Macbook's trackpad. However, I hate how it is angled on the top and bottom, rendering those areas useless, making the trackpad even smaller than it already is. For a 12.5" notebook, the trackpad is about average size, and I haven't found it to be /too/ small, and I have average sized hands. However, the single MOST ANNOYING thing about this trackpad is the little it dips before you click on it. This is because the entire touchpad is a clicker, but this is a detail they missed. There is no dip on the Macbook's trackpad, only a solid, tactile click when you press down on it. With this trackpad, there is air underneath the trackpad before you can register a click.

The IPS screen. I am using a Dell U2312HM IPS monitor for my desktop, and these two displays are comparable in their quality. Both are fairly entry level. I still wish they offered a 1600x900 screen, but this screen isn't bad at all. Do note that there is some backlight bleed on the bottom. The bevel around the lid is very solid, except for the bottom, where there is a little bounce, and consequently some backlight bleed as well. It is unnoticeable unless on a black screen.

The keyboard. I am very pleased with this keyboard. As I am a first time Thinkpad user, I have never experienced past keyboards, but this one is excellent. I only wish they engineered the touchpad as well as this keyboard. The keys are firm, yet easy to press down. It is extremely quiet, and there is a nice elevation to the keys. I am definitely a fan of this island style chiclet keyboard. Again, the MOST ANNOYING thing about this keyboard is the position of the Fn key. Really??? Why would you put the Fn key all the way to the left? The bottom left of the keyboard goes as follows: Fn, Ctrl, Windows, Alt. I have never seen a keyboard where Ctrl was not all the way to the left. Fortunately, you can switch the Fn and Ctrl keys (They even made an option in the BIOS to do this, why couldn't they have kept it the way it was, surely the vast majority of people prefer the Ctrl key to the very left!), but you cannot physically change them since they are different sizes. A huge bummer. All of the keys are fully sized however. Besides that little annoyance, this keyboard is world-class.

Overall build quality. It definitely feels solid, and there is a soft matte texture on the lid and bottom of the laptop. However, it picks up the oil on your hands and fingers quite easily. The metal hinges for the lid not only look good, but work incredibly well. It is fluid and has the perfect give, being able to adjust the angle without lifting the bottom part of the laptop. Also, it has been on for nearly 5 hours and it has not gotten hot yet. I do not foresee any problems with heat.

For OS X hopefuls, none of the wireless cards Lenovo offers are compatible (at the time of this post), so the only options are to purchase a USB wireless adapter (or ExpressCard once it is verified working) or replace the wireless card with a compatible one.

I guess the only regret is that I didn't opt for the webcam! My configuration is listed below. Final cost after taxes was ~$780. From the time I placed the order to delivery took 9 days.

 

Aw man that's a bummer, I didn't take into account that I won't be able to put windows 7 professional that I paid extra for onto my mSATA.

but wow you got it in 9 days? It's been a week for me already and no e-mail at all.

 

I feel ripped off that I paid $1376 after $120 mail in rebate (was paid within 5 days). Looking at the prices ($700-$900) on the US/CA websites, I may return it here in Australia and buy a computer somewhere else when it arrives as this is ridiculous. I mean even if I subtracted the SSD that they tossed in for $40, it's still over $1300.... Our frigging dollar is HIGHER then the USD.