x200/x300 thoughts

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miketoro · #1 Post by **miketoro** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:25 am

I went to J&R Electronics yesterday to manhandle all the pretty thinkpads. (If you guys aren't from the city and don't know it, it's a must stop on a visit.) One thing that really struck me: the x200 feels significantly smaller than my old x30. That horizontal diagonal really makes a different. (Duh! Some of you are probably thinking, but it really was striking to see.)

Another thought: x300 = sexy! The 13.1 screen is simply fantastic, size, brightness compared to the other thinkpads they had out. The processor speed, however, remains disconcerting. Any idea when it will get bumped up? (Customizing one last night on the lenovo site, they had a 1.6 upgrade option, but with that $8,000 price error.) Does anyone have their tea leaves out to predict when the x301 is going to get faster?

Best,
Mike

#2 Post by **archer6** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:41 am

miketoro wrote: Does anyone have their tea leaves out to predict when the x301 is going to get faster?

My tea leaves haven't a clue..ha..ha..ha.
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All kidding aside, and only a guess on my part, but given the current economic climate I doubt we will see anything soon. I hope I'm wrong. And yet when we take into consideration the collapse in sales of the premium priced Apple laptops of late, there we find a good indicator.
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Cheers
posted via BlackBerry Bold

miketoro · #3 Post by **miketoro** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 8:02 am

archer6 wrote: My tea leaves haven't a clue..ha..ha..ha.

I just want to state how dam jealous I am of your stock.
Look at that sig!

#4 Post by **tomh009** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:21 am

miketoro wrote:Another thought: x300 = sexy! The 13.1 screen is simply fantastic, size, brightness compared to the other thinkpads they had out. The processor speed, however, remains disconcerting. Any idea when it will get bumped up? (Customizing one last night on the lenovo site, they had a 1.6 upgrade option, but with that $8,000 price error.) Does anyone have their tea leaves out to predict when the x301 is going to get faster?

How fast a processor do you need? Anything you buy today will be substantially faster than the X30, and if you bump up the memory and get a fast disk/SSD, it will fly regardless of the clock speed.

Another option you could look at is the X200s, which also has the LED-backlit screen, but typically with a 1.86 GHz LV processor.

Thecla · #5 Post by **Thecla** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:44 pm

miketoro wrote: The processor speed, however, remains disconcerting.

Just my opinion, but I think worries about the processor speed are more illusory than real.

I have an older X300 with the 1.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SL7100, and it strikes me as a very capable cpu. I use it to run MATLAB, for example, just fine. I don't know how much better the newer 1.4Ghz cpu in the X301 is (not that much I'd guess, but it seems hard to find wprime benchmarks for the X301, for instance) but going from 1.2 Ghz to 1.4Ghz to 1.6 GHz is not going to make a large difference. The intel X4500 graphics on the X301 is a significant step up from the X3100 graphics on the X300 though.

#6 Post by **archer6** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:31 pm

miketoro wrote:The processor speed, however, remains disconcerting.

I'm in agreement with tomh009, and Thecla on this one.

Both of their posts are excellent and bring up some very valuable and accurate points when it comes to your real world experience using an X301. I too run MATLAB, Maya, 3D Studio Max, Autodesk and a host of others. Granted I run them primarily on either my T60p or my fully maxed out W500, but nonetheless I've run MATLAB on my X301 and found it quite acceptable.

Cheers...

miketoro · #7 Post by **miketoro** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:33 pm

I like what I'm hearing. And it rings true -- that with lots of memory, SSD and the upgraded graphics, the CPU speed shouldn't be a major concern.

I do a little Adobe Premiere work sometimes and rendering is dog slow on this x30 (no surprise). The jump, also, from 1.2 to 1.4 seems too minor in my one-dimensional thinking (especially for $2,000) but with the other factors, probably not. That list is programs, however:

archer6 wrote: I too run MATLAB, Maya, 3D Studio Max, Autodesk ...

is encouraging.

#8 Post by **archer6** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 4:22 pm

Moving up from your X30 (one of my favs back then) to the X301 will be so impressive, the moment you see it and begin using it, you will care less what processor it has.....

#9 Post by **tomh009** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:49 pm

miketoro wrote:I do a little Adobe Premiere work sometimes and rendering is dog slow on this x30 (no surprise). The jump, also, from 1.2 to 1.4 seems too minor in my one-dimensional thinking (especially for $2,000) but with the other factors, probably not.

Remember that there are two of those 1.4 GHz cores, too -- even if Premiere (for example) only were to use one of the cores, you would get the full 1.4 GHz for that application, with Windows bumping other processes to the other core. With 3+ GB of memory and a nice disk, you'll never regret the CPU choice.

Or, as I said, get the 1.86 GHz version in the X200s, albeit with a one-inch smaller screen.

miketoro · #10 Post by **miketoro** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:02 pm

tomh009 wrote: Or, as I said, get the 1.86 GHz version in the X200s, albeit with a one-inch smaller screen.

The size of that 12.1 bugs me, so x301 it is. Maxed out: 4gb, Intel 80gb SSD, Vista64, et al. I'm not going to pull the trigger just yet though. I'm going to sit back for a few weeks and watch the sales, see if the 1.6 comes out, etc.

The waiting game begins

#11 Post by **tomh009** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:15 pm

Sounds like a great choice, whether 1.4 or 1.6 GHz!

#12 Post by **archer6** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:31 pm

miketoro wrote:The size of that 12.1 bugs me, so x301 it is.

I'm with you on the topic of size. I find the difference between the two displays of my X200s and my X301 (+1.2") is actually very noticeable. In addition, the extra .9" width and .8" depth is just enough to give one a larger more comfortable palm rest. I believe your plan to wait is a good one, as they are just now beginning to discount the X301. Based on watching recent trends, I would think that there are deeper discounts ahead. Especially given the state of the economy, and the huge growth of Netbook sales. There seems to be a credible rumor that Lenovo will soon be releasing the 12.1" IdeaPad Netbook. It would not surprise me to see a reduction in price of the X301 around the same time.

Cheers...

akitaen · #13 Post by **akitaen** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 12:55 am

I have _never_ felt my x300 is slow. Mine has the SLC drive (which rocks), so it's probably important to get an SLC drive or the Intel disk. But when I benchmark my tasks side by side with my core2 t60 the x300 always finishes first. Fast disks have always been the best way to make a computer faster. One more "seat of the pants" figures I have always relied on is that, all else being equal, you get about 50% of the performance gain of the performance improvement of a single component. So if a computer has similar components but a 20% higher clock, it will bench 10% faster, which you won't notice.

I do not like screens with 800 pixel vertical resolution, it was no good in the XGA days and it's unforgivable now. 900 is almost adequate, though it's a darn shame SXGA+ ips seems to have gone the way of the dodo. That would make an x300 perfect as is, & I'd pay!

#14 Post by **archer6** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:10 am

akitaen wrote: I do not like screens with 800 pixel vertical resolution, it was no good in the XGA days and it's unforgivable now. 900 is almost adequate, though it's a darn shame SXGA+ ips seems to have gone the way of the dodo. That would make an x300 perfect as is, & I'd pay!

My guess is there are a lot of us who would happily pay as well.....

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Cheers,
posted via BlackBerry Bold

phr · #15 Post by **phr** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:23 am

The x300/301 has seemed like an overcute machine to me. If you look at the x40 forum, there is constant wailing about the hard to replace 1.8" hard drive in the x40. Well, the x300/1 also has a 1.8" drive, plus it has that weird 7mm dvd drive. DVD drives in subnotebooks are pretty useless these days since USB pen drives of higher capacity are so cheap now. So the x200 did the right thing: get rid of the dvd bay to make the machine smaller, use some of the freed space to hold a normal 2.5" sata laptop drive (so you can put in a 500 gb hard drive or your choice of 2.5" SSD), and offer a 9 cell battery that sticks out the back for those who want extended runtime. The x300's slight extra screen size is nice but I think with the same resolution, 12.1" is almost as good.

#16 Post by **archer6** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:43 am

phr wrote:The x300/301 has seemed like an overcute machine to me. If you look at the x40 forum, there is constant wailing about the hard to replace 1.8" hard drive in the x40. Well, the x300/1 also has a 1.8" drive, plus it has that weird 7mm dvd drive. DVD drives in subnotebooks are pretty useless these days since USB pen drives of higher capacity are so cheap now. So the x200 did the right thing: get rid of the dvd bay to make the machine smaller, use some of the freed space to hold a normal 2.5" sata laptop drive (so you can put in a 500 gb hard drive or your choice of 2.5" SSD), and offer a 9 cell battery that sticks out the back for those who want extended runtime. The x300's slight extra screen size is nice but I think with the same resolution, 12.1" is almost as good.

That's the beauty of the ThinkPad lineup, even for people that love to complain about this and that, there is a model for everyone....well almost. Some people are never happy....

miketoro · #17 Post by **miketoro** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:33 pm

phr wrote:The x300's slight extra screen size is nice but I think with the same resolution, 12.1" is almost as good.

If you haven't, make sure to look at that 12.1 diagnal screen. Coming from the old style x30 screen it feels shockingly small. Netbook small even. As for the DVD drive, you can get a 3cell batt instead, bringing the total, if one wanted, to 9cell ... As for harddrive, the upgrade would be to a bigger Intel SSD, which will certainly be 1.8" ... Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any deal breakers there.

Greg Gebhardt · #18 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 2:53 pm

I have have both the X301 and X200 and while the X301 screen is larger I am loving the IPS screen of my X200 tablet. I forgot what great saturated color looked like and with the Samsung 256GB SSD SATA2 drive and faster processor, it is going to be my favorite for a while. he tablet option works great in the field where I have to walk and use my computer at the same time.

AvalonXIII · #19 Post by **AvalonXIII** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 3:24 pm

Greg Gebhardt wrote:I have have both the X301 and X200 and while the X301 screen is larger I am loving the IPS screen of my X200 tablet. I forgot what great saturated color looked like and with the Samsung 256GB SSD SATA2 drive and faster processor, it is going to be my favorite for a while. he tablet option works great in the field where I have to walk and use my computer at the same time.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the LED variant of X200 tablet does not use BOE-Hydis IPS screen. Instead, they use Samsung PVA screen. If you got the CCFL variant, however, then it is still made by BOE-Hydis.

#20 Post by **tomh009** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 4:07 pm

miketoro wrote:If you haven't, make sure to look at that 12.1 diagnal screen. Coming from the old style x30 screen it feels shockingly small. Netbook small even. As for the DVD drive, you can get a 3cell batt instead, bringing the total, if one wanted, to 9cell ... As for harddrive, the upgrade would be to a bigger Intel SSD, which will certainly be 1.8" ... Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any deal breakers there.

The X200 screen height is 0.9" less than that of the X30/X40/X60 series. A little bit less, but with all the additional resolution it doesn't bother me at all, coming from an X61 (and still having an X31 as well). Yes, if you want the expansion bay, or the bigger screen, or the factory SSD, the X300/X301 can be a better choice. But the X200s is still smaller, lighter, has longer battery life -- and uses the much more common 2.5" drives.

But it all comes down to each person's priorities. Your choice likely wouldn't be ideal for me, nor mine for you.

Greg Gebhardt · #21 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:42 am

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the LED variant of X200 tablet does not use BOE-Hydis IPS screen. Instead, they use Samsung PVA screen. If you got the CCFL variant, however, then it is still made by BOE-Hydis.[/quote]

OK, why does it look so much better than my W500 or X301? Not just a little better but WAY better in color saturation and sharpness.

ssd_thinkpad · #22 Post by **ssd_thinkpad** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 6:49 am

Short notice here regarding ips and pva panels: IPS panels tend to have a better color range where PVA panels tend to be superior for contrast ratio. PVA is a more modern panel of VA panels which have greatly improve viewing angles. My desktop eizo PVA panel is far superior (not only obvious brightness, but also colors, contrast, viewing angles) in all aspects to my thinkpad t60 flexview ips panel. It all depends on your needs.

Greg Gebhardt · #23 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:02 am

ssd_thinkpad wrote:Short notice here regarding ips and pva panels: IPS panels tend to have a better color range where PVA panels tend to be superior for contrast ratio. PVA is a more modern panel of VA panels which have greatly improve viewing angles. My desktop eizo PVA panel is far superior (not only obvious brightness, but also colors, contrast, viewing angles) in all aspects to my thinkpad t60 flexview ips panel. It all depends on your needs.

It really does not depend on your needs. Getting a panel like on your t60 (flexview) is not an option on todays models no matter what your needs.

It is a sad thing as I would pay a premium for the old flexview screen on todays hardware.

Aroc · #24 Post by **Aroc** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:17 pm

I wanted to chime in regarding the CPU speed. I have many users running the ultra low voltage chips (1.2, 1.33, 1.4 GHz) without complaint. One of the users is a photoshop/ Web development girl. The 1.2G performs fine for her in Photoshop (bumped her up to 3GiB of RAM, though). We run the 5400rpm 120GB 1.8 inch hard drives, though I imagine you could also use a SLC solid state drive just as easily.

The only two apps we even noticed a difference was on MathCAD and Solidworks, and even then it was only for atypical complex datasets. There was virtually no difference we observed between a 2.53Ghz C2D and a 1.2GHz ULV C2D with 2D CAD (AutoCAD), MS Office, web browsing, e-mail, Adobe Acrobat Standard, etc.

ssd_thinkpad · #25 Post by **ssd_thinkpad** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:08 pm

Greg Gebhardt wrote:It really does not depend on your needs. Getting a panel like on your t60 (flexview) is not an option on todays models no matter what your needs.It is a sad thing as I would pay a premium for the old flexview screen on todays hardware.

I'd say with only looking at the specs the tablets ccfl ips screen is at good as the old flexview where the tablets led pva panel could be better for contrast. The Traditional Flexview Display only survived in the ccfl tablets

miketoro · #26 Post by **miketoro** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:26 pm

Aroc wrote:I wanted to chime in regarding the CPU speed. I have many users running the ultra low voltage chips (1.2, 1.33, 1.4 GHz) without complaint. One of the users is a photoshop/ Web development girl. The 1.2G performs fine for her in Photoshop (bumped her up to 3GiB of RAM, though). We run the 5400rpm 120GB 1.8 inch hard drives, though I imagine you could also use a SLC solid state drive just as easily.

The only two apps we even noticed a difference was on MathCAD and Solidworks, and even then it was only for atypical complex datasets. There was virtually no difference we observed between a 2.53Ghz C2D and a 1.2GHz ULV C2D with 2D CAD (AutoCAD), MS Office, web browsing, e-mail, Adobe Acrobat Standard, etc.

This is very encouraging. Thanks for the post

#27 Post by **archer6** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:01 pm

Regarding displays. It seems like Lenovo may be in the midst of a very extended transition period at the present time. As we are witnessing they have begun to introduce LED Backlighting in some models like the T400 on a very limited availability basis. Instead of simply migrating all models to LED back lights at once, as Apple did. It will be interesting to see what Lenovo is up to.

Cheers...

Marin85 · #28 Post by **Marin85** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:36 am

archer6 wrote:Regarding displays. It seems like Lenovo may be in the midst of a very extended transition period at the present time. As we are witnessing they have begun to introduce LED Backlighting in some models like the T400 on a very limited availability basis. Instead of simply migrating all models to LED back lights at once, as Apple did. It will be interesting to see what Lenovo is up to.

I´m really waiting to see WSXGA or WUXGA 15.4'' with LED-backlight(s). It´s just that it improves battery life so greatly

@OP: If not considering a tablet, then I would go for a X30x. In this case my only other concern would be the battery (life), as one needs an ultrabay battery for the X30x to get some more decent battery life out of it. But even so, I believe it cannot compete with X200 with the 8-cell (do they have 9-cell ?

)... I would go for the X30x, because it has bigger screen, most likely both screens are equally good (or crappy depending on the point of view), internal CD/DVD, excellent build quality...

Cheers,

Marin

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