My X300 experience & screen disappointment

[jketzetera]

Keyboard of the Y7 feels better to me, the keys of the x300 need more pressure, definitely.

I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with your x300 purchase.

When it comes to the Y7, how was the circular trackpad and circular scroll are to work with? My biggest fear in getting the Y7 is that i will miss the Thinkpad Trackpoint to much. I even prefer to use the Trackpoint over having an external mouse attached to my Thinkpad.

[wibbler23]

By the way, and I don't see anyone else mentioning this;

What's up with the terrible colors on this screen?

I have installed the Monitor's driver, the correct Intel graphics driver, but it looks awfully blue and cold, missing the reds like I've never seen before.

Man am I sorry to have bought this crap x300 hardware.

Christ you're a moaning sod aren't you? Multiple threads on this forum have you on it complaining about the X300. Perhaps you should have looked before you lept?

I'm pretty convinced most of the posters complaining on here are from teenagers or students who jumped from a glossy consumer notebook to a Thinkpad and can't come to terms with the differences.

If you can't deal with a matte screen stop complaining about it and go out and buy a laptop with a nice, shiney glossy screen. There are plenty of garish, flashy laptops out there? Alienware, XPS etc.

mmmm do me a favour, deal with it. We've all bought laptops that we don't really like from time to time. It doesn't make the laptop in question a bad laptop just not to your personal taste or pehaps Lenovo should be tailoring their design to your exact requirements e.g changing the position of the CTRL + FN keys despite many millions of Thinkpad users being quite happy with it?

Get rid of the X300 and go buy another brand. Next time take some personal responsibility and go check the laptop before you buy.

All laptops have designs and features we may find personally annoying and that includes all Lenovo laptops and Sony and Panasonic....

However it takes a real ego to buy a laptop clearly with little or no knowledge of what they are buying and then to complain about the laptop and declare it as rubbish just because it doesn't match your exact requirements.

[naus]

naus,

If I understood you correctly, you have hands on experience from the Panasonic Y7 and currently own the Lenovo X300. If that is the case you are the man I want to talk to.

I am considering my next notebook purchase and the two notebooks left on my shortlist are the upcoming X301 and the current Y7. Unfortunately, I will not be able to do a hands-on test with either machines.

I would be very grateful if you could elaborate somewhat more (than you already have) on your impressions of the Y7 vs the X300. I am especially interested in how you found the circular trackpad on the Y7 suited for work (including the circular scroll area) and some more details on how the screen looked compared to the X300.

I don't own an X300, though I've played with the X300 for a few hours. The Y7 screen looks a lot better than the X300, but nothing too special either, outdoor use is pretty crap on the Y7. The X300 was similar to many other Thinkpads (bluish tint, low contrast). Basically the screen on the X300 is decent if you just word process and use Excel. For photos, it seems quite a bit lacking. The colors don't look too realistic. The circular trackpad on the Y7 was a little tricky for me as my thumb is a bit too short to use the buttons easily (seemed like a distance to stretch). The reason the trackpad is circular is that you can do continuous scrolling (simply by moving round and round around the perimeter). You don't have to lift your finger and drag down as you would on the square trackpad.

I would recommend you consider the Sony Z-series since you can afford the X301. The Sony Z-series is 13.1" (1600x900 resolution), carbon fiber casing, optical DVD-RW drive, with HDMI port and hybrid graphics (both Intel integrated and 256mb nVidia). If you get the 320gb harddrive (which is pretty fast because of its density), all that will cost you $2200 and will weigh 3.4 lbs. You can also opt for a BluRay-R for an extra $500. There is also an 128gb SSD option, but it is expensive.

The screen on the Sony Z is amazing, better than all the other Sony screens (which are already very good). It's matte, LED, and has 100% color saturation (very realistic colors). I was in Houston this weekend and saw the Z in action at the Galleria. The screen is also supposed to be scratch proof.

IMO the Sony Z blows away the X300 in performance and functionality (but the keyboard doesn't have spillproof though). Sony currently has a promotion where you get a 300 dollar credit for extended warranty and 2 accessories (so basically free 3 year warranty and 2 accessories like charger or privacy filter). Also when you open a SonyStyle credit card and spend more than 300 bucks, you get a $150 credit on your statement. The Z series is either Made in USA or Made in Japan. SonyStyle has a good return policy too (30 days, no restocking fee).

Sony Z-series:

img]http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/vaio_sony ... c5e0d3.jpg[/img]

Ctrl on the left of Fn:
img]http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/vaio_sony ... 2e78e8.jpg[/img]

img]http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_ ... -87ad9.jpg[/img]

img]http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_ ... -dc17f.jpg[/img]

img]http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_ ... -e1534.jpg[/img]

img]http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_ ... -8fde6.jpg[/img]

img]http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_ ... -52872.jpg[/img]

Note from Admin: No warning in the subject line = no in-line images.

[naus]

Dimensions comparison:

X300: 31.8 W x 23.1 D x 2.3 H (cm), 3.08 lbs, 1440x900
Sony Z: 31.4 W x 21.0 D x 2.4-3.3 H (cm), 3.4 lbs, 1600x900
Panasonic Y7: 31.0 W x 24.6 D x 4.8 H (cm), 3.4 lbs, 1400x1050

Prices are about the same.
The Sony Z has a full wattage processor (2.26ghz-2.6ghz) AND gets more battery life than the X300. It also has the ability to switch between Intel graphics and the dedicated 256mb graphics.

[PaulO]

How does the Sony Z keyboard compare with the ThinkPad keyboards?

[naus]

It looks like the Macbook keyboard (but Macbook copied the old Sony X505 keyboard). The key travel distance for the Sony is 2.5mm which is I believe identical to the Thinkpad (and long for a laptop keyboard). The action is very smooth yet solid, and it's very very quiet. The Macbook has much shorter travel, no varying resistance, and is cheap/clicky (like a calculator). So while they look similar, the Sony keyboard feels nothing like the Macbook one.

I like the Sony keyboard a lot, it does feels different from the Thinkpad one. The keys doesn't have the Thinkpad's extreme groove/cup (but it is slightly grooved, not completely flat). It's also very different feeling from the last generation Sony SZ keyboards.

[jketzetera]

Many thanks for sharing your impressions and the info on the Sony! Now I have three interesting choices to consider.

[billj32]

As someone who has owned eight ThinkPads and who has looked at and used a colleague's X300 a couple of times, I must say that I agree with "mmm" rather then "wibbler23". I found the screen on the X300 to have very narrow viewing angles, harsh contrast, non realistic colors, bottom light bleed and a somewhat mottled background lighting.

It is totally beyond understanding why Lenovo would make such excellent machines otherwise and then put these horrid LCD's on them. Sony, Fujitsu, Mac, and HP all are able to put screens on some of their notebooks with better viewing angles, contrast and color rendition...why is Lenovo unable to do this. I guess I will go with the Sony Z for my lightweight machine but I sure will miss the Trackpoint.

[mmm]

The x300 has the ugliest computer-screen colors I've ever owned myself. It just does not fit the times we live in, and I'm pretty angry about that actually. I feel ripped off, cheated, lied to.

[mmm]

Christ you're a moaning sod aren't you?

No I'm not. You seem to like being sold crap for your money, and I don't. I can buy 3 working automobiles for that kind of money, and those 3 would function perfectly for this kind of money.

This is an EXPENSIVE laptop. You don't get what you pay for. Even the drivers for the hardware are bad and buggy. It's a true pain in the rear that none of the reviews are honest about this machine.

I'm warning readers: Don't buy the x300, you WILL be sorry!

[H1]

Why don't you sell your X300 and buy a better one? Btw, what would that computer be - MacBook Air?

How is your X300 buggy? Mine with Vista SP1 is completely stable.

Note to readers: X300 = happiness. Just don't buy it at ridiculous European prices.

[mmm]

I'm trying to sell it, but nobody likes to buy it, and I understand why.

By the way, I bought it for € 1850 including shipping cost etc. and still think that's an idiotic price for hardware like this. Even the iPhone has better colors than this!

[H1]

Really? Could it be that you don't know how to sell?

Many X300s have been sold at eBay recently. Of course, you can't get €1850 for a used machine, especially when prices have come down.

To help I can share a positive story about Lenovo's warranty. I had X300 keyboard replaced and Lenovo sent a new one with courier in less than 24 hours - at no charge.

That's something that wouldn't have happened with my old Apple laptop.

Hopefully someone buys your crappy X300 and let's you out of your misery.

[dr_st]

To help I can share a positive story about Lenovo's warranty. I had X300 keyboard replaced and Lenovo sent a new one with courier in less than 24 hours - at no charge.

That's something that wouldn't have happened with my old Apple laptop.

Yes, but this is something true about Lenovo Thinkpad service in general and has nothing to do with the X300 per se.

The X300 has its advantages and its share of problems, and overall, when you factor everything in - is not worth the premium price that you pay for it.

But with all its flaws - it's not as bad as the Macbook air, at least, since you brought Apple to this discussion already.

[akao]

Even the iPhone has better colors than this!

#1 sign that a Thinkpad is not for you.

[chrisc28]

While the screen can be improved, I see nothing really wrong about it. I love my X300 and find it an absolutely nice machine. The ergonomics are just perfect and being so thin and light really helps as I carry it almost everywhere, everyday.

The Sony Z will be a great machine too, but Sony's warranty sucks, it's overpriced where I am (the X300 was relatively cheap when I got it) and it wasn't available when I purchased the X300.

[H1]

Even the iPhone has better colors than this!

#1 sign that a Thinkpad is not for you.

I have iPhone but still like Thinkpads! I had a Mac and won't buy one for awhile. The hardware is beautiful but suffers from usability and quality issues. Also software could be better - OS X plainly sucks. It isn't productive, not until Finder is fixed. IPhone is ok, although iTunes (Windows) is crappy.

Ok, off-topic. Back to scheduled programming.

when you factor everything in - is not worth the premium price that you pay for it.

Isn't that true of every premium product?

[dr_st]

Isn't that true of every premium product?

In one way - yes, but not entirely. It is one thing to pay a lot more for a little more (as in the case of the -p suffix series with their overpriced FireGL/Quadro FX cards). In such a case one can argue how much exactly the extra is worth for him. However, it is a different thing to pay a lot more for a product that, alongside some big advantages, also has some glaring flaws, as in the case of the X300.

[naus]

I would get the X300 in a heartbeat if it had a decent screen. That's really the frustrating part. How come Macbook Pro and VAIOs have such good screens?

Hopefully the X301 will resolve this glaring flaw in the series.

[mattbiernat]

i've read through this post and it seems that there are a lot of negative feedbacks from two kinds of people (with few exceptions):
1. Those that owned a flexview
2. Those that owned a glossy screen.
and so I bought my X300 and it will arrive here in 2 weeks. i will give a feedback and compare X300 screen to 14.1 T60 and 14.1 T23.