Thinkpads Forum

Hi all, wonder if someone else w/ a 9 cell on their x220 could give me some feedback. Are the 4 feet supposed to lie flat on a surface w/ the 9 cell battery installed? My front right foot is 1-2mm off of the surface. It's pretty minor, just a bit annoying that the corner wobbles slightly whenever I rest my hand on it. With the battery removed all feet have contact with the table.

hhkb wrote:Hi all, wonder if someone else w/ a 9 cell on their x220 could give me some feedback. Are the 4 feet supposed to lie flat on a surface w/ the 9 cell battery installed? My front right foot is 1-2mm off of the surface. It's pretty minor, just a bit annoying that the corner wobbles slightly whenever I rest my hand on it. With the battery removed all feet have contact with the table.

It's made like that on purpose. Only the 4 cell battery is completely flush.


But yeah, yet another one of the X220's many flaws unfortunately.. I've had a few, and all have been unstable as you mention, and all have had a loose 'upper part' of the lid and crappy touchpad.

The X220 should sit flat on a flat surface, regardless of which battery it has. Has it always been this way? If it's still under warranty, you could call support.

I've not had a single issue with my X220 and would not say it has any design flaws, though your particular X220 may have QC issues.

The 6 and 9-cell batteries are thicker than the laptop base, and have their own feet, which sit lower than the laptop feet.

Thus, with any of these batteries, the laptop's own feet (both left and right) will not be touching the surface. However, it should not cause significant balance problems.

Oh BTW! Mine had that glitch too where it didn't touch in the corner. I just gave the entire laptop a decently powerful twist, which fixed it.

Cola wrote:Oh BTW! Mine had that glitch too where it didn't touch in the corner. I just gave the entire laptop a decently powerful twist, which fixed it.

Same here. My X220 has been out of shape quite few times. Just bend it back and everything's fine again.

Cola wrote:Oh BTW! Mine had that glitch too where it didn't touch in the corner. I just gave the entire laptop a decently powerful twist, which fixed it.

Wow that actually worked. Thanks! It's a little concerning that the case warps like that.

That explains another issue I had with the keyboard popping out on the lower right corner. After it happened a few times, putting a white pressure spot on my screen, I called up support. It was an unpleasant experience, so I'm hesitant to call support again.

Having owned an x20, x40, x41 and x200, this is definitely not the thinkpad quality of old . But the IPS screen is pretty darned awesome, and I don't think I could ever go back to the older models.

hhkb wrote:Having owned an x20, x40, x41 and x200, this is definitely not the thinkpad quality of old . But the IPS screen is pretty darned awesome, and I don't think I could ever go back to the older models.

It's also not the Thinkpad price of old.

steveg47 wrote: It's also not the Thinkpad price of old.

So true! I remember buying a used, 1 year old x40 for just over $1k. I later sold it for about the same price a year later. They had amazing resale value. I picked up my x220 for just under $500 with warranty, so I guess I should stop complaining.