X301 - any sightings? UFOs are a bore...

The X300 has been out for a while now, and has many in-depth-hands-on-reviews which re-assures me that it was a solid-well-featured-ultraportable... I will stop with the hyphens now

I was holding back, but when the x301 came out, I put in an order for one. (est. shipping date 23/9/2008)

The X300 has solid reviews, and the X301 looks good on paper. But has anyone actually received and tested the X301? I have a few questions that can only be answered by hands on experiences...

(1) Is the CPU really faster? I know it is clocked at 1.4GHz, but the X301's CPU has 1MB less cache than the 1.2GHz CPU in the X300.

(2) The 1067 MHz frequency of the DDR3 RAM is not realized due to the CPU's 800 MHz FSB cap... which is a 19.9% increase in speed over the 667 MHz (I guess that is where the "20% performance increase" in the press release comes from). True, this lifts the bottleneck by the RAM, but you still have a humble processor.

(3) I read in a forum somewhere that the Intel 4500MHD GPU is not much of an improvement over the X3100 found in the X300.

(5) I am justifying the ~$1000 difference on the fact that the ULV CPU, the DDR3 RAM, and the 4500MHD all consume less power, so the X301 has gotta have longer battery life. But then again, why not mention "longer battery life" in the press release???... it's kindda of a big deal, don't you think?

If you have recieved your X301, please tell us your experience with the machine... I think that Lenovo's policy on cancellations is as long as the product did not ship... so I've got till the 23rd to dwell on it

 

1. The CPU is definitely faster. Why? Well not only does it have the obvious 14% increase in speed and 20% increase in FSB, but it also carries new lower latency L2 (it may have less L2, but it is faster L2), as well as SSE4 instructions. It also brings to the table the Penryn power saving features where it can shut down one of the cores and overclock the other when use requires high single threaded performance.

2. The DDR3 memory decrease power consumption by about 30%, while increasing the bandwidth and decreasing latency. The memory bandwidth should saturate the FSB, which is a good thing.

3. The 4500MHD is showing to be about twice as fast as the X3100 in most game tests and 3dmark06! It also uses about 11% less power than the GM35 + X3100.

4 (or 5?) Lenovo's marketing team is run by goofs, I would consider what they say or don't say.

Depends on your budget wether the X301 is worth the extra $1000 or so.

 

I just read about the Penryn power saving features you talked about http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/434/3 it sounds like a big thing too. Those "goofs" could of easily generated more hype for the X301.

Is the current X301 WiMax upgradeable?

And one more question; whats the deal with the GPS reciever? which models is it build into? is it embedded only in the Verizon-WWAN card? I got the model without mobile broadband.. cause its locked and I am in Kuwait where Verizon and AT&T don't exist... we have a carrier called Zain; its the monopoly doing all the over-charging and big-brotherly stuff here... you could call it the AT&T of Kuwait

What ever happened to Google buying the 700 MHz spectrum and opening it up?

 

I have the possibility to order a X301 next week for a nice student discount here in Switzerland, but I'm still not sure if this is the right thing for me. In two weeks I can check out the models for real...

If only the X200 had a DisplayPort and a LED-backlit screen. The X200s would be such a nice machine, but unfortunately it didn't made this "shopping window" for the student discount and the normal retail prices here in Switzerland are just insane.

 

LED-backlit is nice.. but it's not a spec that should stop you from buying the x200. The x200 displayport is on the ultrabase. You can build an almost fully loaded X200 for a price that's lower than the base x301. I looked into this... and i took the X200 choice. I personally not a fan of Low Voltage cpu's so the x200... i basically just jumped for it when it came out lol. SSD is still over priced and not really optimized in my opinion so i settled for the 100gb 7200RPM. Didn't get bluray.. because i have a ps3 and the optical is over priced at the moment. But everything else i maxed out (4gb of ram, p8600, intel memory, webcam, media reader, 2 years of accidental damage + 1 from Visa credit card, basically everything).

 

The X301 should be easily upgradeable to WiMax based card, but it depends on wether or not you have to add an additional antenna or not. I don't think you do as the 3x3 antenna's for the Wifi 5300 are suppose to support WiMax.

The GPS chip is on the WWAN card. I am not sure how useful it would be at aquiring signal inside the laptop... They make small bluetooth GPS recievers for $50 or so.

 

GBM InkShow:ThinkPad X301 Notebook

looks awesome, this is gonna be my first thinkpad!

 

Weird that Lenovo would send this guy an X301, seeing that he doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable about Thinkpads, or the specs on the notebook.

 

Same here... Thanks for the link!

It sounds like there is a REAL performance increase (according to the anonymous dude in the video).

All I want to know now it what is the actual lifetime of the 6-cell battery with the DVDR. I know lenovo says you can get up to 6.5 hours if all youre doing is looking at the thing (apparently, just sitting there and looking ugly consumes battery life), I am waiting for someone to test actual-usage battery life.

I concur. I think this dude actually bought the unit on the first day it came out

 

and another x301 review, this time by laptopmag.

 

This is getting really complicated.

It seems the performance difference between the X301 and the Z is not that much, the Z getting 3,209 in Stamina mode, and 3,346 in Speed mode, while the X301 got 3,157 in PCMark Vantage. I thought it would be an enormous difference, given the ULV processor in the X301 vs the normal voltage cpu in the Z.

The X301 has very low battery life, getting 3:29 with the 6 cell, while the Z got 5 hours in stamina mode and 4 in speed mode, also with 6 cell. Of course, one could get the extra slim bay battery for the X301, but I thought the Montevina platform would give much higher battery time than that.

The only things that are keeping me on the X301 side, are the keyboard and TrackPoint (and ThinkLight, since non of these laptops have an backlit keyboard)

Too bad the X301 cannot be configured with normal HDD, since the Z with HDD is like 700 dlls cheaper than the X301.

I need higher than WXGA resolution and portability, so both have what I need. And I guess the SSD does give higher performance, but the price is very high right now...

On sunday I'll head on out to a Sony store, and see if the keyboard is anything remotely comfortable for a demanding person like me, lol. I guess I could live without the TrackPoint and ThinkLight... sigh.