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    x230t review

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by nrk112, Jul 16, 2012.

  1. nrk112

    nrk112 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi, I'm not a professional reviewer so I'm not sure if this belongs in the review portion of the forum. If so, please move it.

    I did just finish a full review of my new x230t for anyone interested. I tried to cover all areas of the machine.

    Link
     
    nrk112, Jul 16, 2012
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  2. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    Looks good to me. Thanks for the effort.
     
    ZaZ, Jul 16, 2012
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  3. hotsauce

    hotsauce Notebook Evangelist

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    Good review! The second photo of the side profile clearly shows how awful the battery "lift" is. This is well-hidden by Lenovo's marketing department. If only it sat flat...and didn't have the gigantic plastic hump on it...
     
    hotsauce, Jul 16, 2012
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  4. grodem

    grodem Notebook Guru

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    Nice Job.

    I too was set back by the slight movement of the battery. After all the whole idea of such an ugly battery was for gripping and holding the laptop. It is very slight and really doesnt bother me. This is a work machine for me and I bought the tablet sleeve since I do a lot of survey work with it, and need to walk with it all the time. I really like it.
     
    grodem, Jul 16, 2012
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  5. nrk112

    nrk112 Notebook Enthusiast

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    nrk112, Jul 17, 2012
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  6. Domski

    Domski Notebook Enthusiast

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    @nrk112: You've wrote, that the multitouch display is capable to regognize 5 fingern simultanously.
    Is there any way to test it? For example: Paint seems to support 2 fingers at the same time....so I've thought, that the display of the x230t is supoorts only two.

    Would be nice, if it will be realy five... :)
     
    Domski, Jul 18, 2012
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  7. Titivillus

    Titivillus Newbie

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    That was a great (and thorough) review. I found it very helpful--thanks! :D
     
    Titivillus, Jul 18, 2012
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  8. Mech0z

    Mech0z Notebook Evangelist

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    Nice review, could you maybe test how onenote 2013 preview works pretty please :)
     
    Mech0z, Jul 18, 2012
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  9. nrk112

    nrk112 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I can only get Windows 8 working with two fingers at the moment since it wont install the multitouch drivers from Lenovo. It keeps telling me that it cant find a supported tablet.

    However, I did read that the x220t supported 5 finger touch in a Lenovo data sheet somewhere. Since the x230t has the same screen, it should apply as well. If you want to see it in action, head over to Jesse B Anderson's site at:
    JBA: Lenovo ThinkPad X220 Tablet - Two, Four and Five Finger Touch Gestures

    That particular post goes over some stock gestures using up to five finger touch.

    So really it just depends what drivers you are using, but the hardware is limited to 5 afaik.
     
    nrk112, Jul 19, 2012
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  10. nrk112

    nrk112 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Onenote 2013 works well from what I have tested so far. Not much different from 2010 as far as tablet functionality. OneNote MX on the other hand is definitely geared more to the tablet in Metro style, but its not working properly at the moment. I'm about to revert to the Microsoft video drivers to see if they help. Ill update here when I see how it goes.

    Edit:
    Ok well reverting to MS provided drivers did nothing. Here is a video showing the problem in OneNote MX
    http://youtu.be/sJNFgrzqXa4

    One thing that is fixed in 2013 is pinch zoom functionality.
     
    nrk112, Jul 19, 2012
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  11. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

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    That seems to be a pretty significant increase in performance...do you think it is just the dual channel, or does the hd4000 increase the amount of ram it shared when you double the system ram?
     
    gerryf19, Jul 19, 2012
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  12. nrk112

    nrk112 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I personally think that's the improvement gained just from going to dual channel, although you bring up a good point I should have covered in the post. That assumption is just from my previous computing experience, I'll see if I can look into it further to get evidence.
     
    nrk112, Jul 19, 2012
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  13. nrk112

    nrk112 Notebook Enthusiast

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    @gerryf19
    I updated the post with more graphs and data if you want to see the full analysis but the conclusion I came up with is no, the increase in memory size didn't affect the benchmarks. As it came close, I can see it being a concern in other scenarios.
     
    nrk112, Jul 20, 2012
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  14. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

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    OK, thanks....I still find it remarkable that dual channel would increase performance by that much. Generally speaking, I've always found dual channel memory to result in a 6 to 10 percent performance boost. Seeing more than double that is stunning. I am surprised that Intel has not trumpeted this more.

    Wish I had two sticks of 2gb ram laying around....
     
    gerryf19, Jul 20, 2012
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  15. nrk112

    nrk112 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Well, If you go by PCMarks score as a general productivity indicator, its within your 6-10% range. However, dont forget that the more powerful the graphics engine gets, the more constrained it will be by its memory bandwidth. If the graphics core can't pump enough information through a single channel memory setup then going dual will net it almost nothing. These new generation chips are finally powerfull enough to show some decent gains.
     
    nrk112, Jul 20, 2012
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  16. del_psi

    del_psi Notebook Consultant

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    The digitizer performance on the X230t is horrible when compared to the T901 or even the ancient T5010.
     
    del_psi, Jul 21, 2012
    #16