X201 Tablet: i5 or i7?

[Daniel Bakker]

I am thinking of buying a X201T in the near future, and I saw there are 2 processors available: an i5-520UM (1.06-1.86GHz, 3MB L3, 800MHz FSB), and an i7-640LM (2.13-2.93GHz, 4MB L3, 1066MHz FSB). It seems to me that the i5 is a big step back in performance, but battery life is important to me, does anybody know how much the difference in battery life is going to be between the i5 and the i7?

[ZaZ]

It seems to me that the i5 is a big step back in performance

Unless you're running the CPU at full capacity often, I doubt it makes much of a difference. Plus the i7s run hotter, which may be of concern.

[Daniel Bakker]

ok, but I like my tablet to be 'snappy', if I turn the screen from portrait to landscape I don't want to wait, I don't like a annoying lag between the moment I put the pen on the display and the moment the line appears on the screen and I want an almost instant sleep and resume. I'm going to put in a SSD, so that should at least help for the sleep, but how about the display turning and the drawing, do the CPU speed and/or slower FSB affect them?

how much would you guess the gain in battery life? the i7 gives somewhere about 5 hours normal use with the large battery.

[erik]

a good SSD is the only thing that will make your system 'snappy.'   the processor won't affect this one bit outside of synthetic benchmarks.

[Colonel O'Neill]

I'd think a faster processor would make the portrait-to-landscape transition snappier; I highly doubt significant disk activity is necessary for that. Writing on the tablet would probably also do better with a faster processor. Disk speed would come into play if you don't have enough RAM and paging has to occur to accommodate the input data.

EDIT:
Also, the i5/i7 temperature discrepancy probably only comes into play when doing work that the i7 handles faster than the i5. Idling, it'd be logical that there wouldn't be much of a difference. However the i7 appears to be vastly more powerful than the i5, and probably reduce/eliminate input lag with the stylus.

[Daniel Bakker]

I see. so, the only way how I can know for sure which one is best for me, is to try them both. I'll see if I can arrange something to test them, and I'll let know my results afterwards.

[sanjuro]

I am thinking of buying a X201T in the near future, and I saw there are 2 processors available: an i5-520UM (1.06-1.86GHz, 3MB L3, 800MHz FSB), and an i7-640LM (2.13-2.93GHz, 4MB L3, 1066MHz FSB). It seems to me that the i5 is a big step back in performance, but battery life is important to me, does anybody know how much the difference in battery life is going to be between the i5 and the i7?

i5 520UM is rated at 18W and i7 640LM is rated at 25W. These numbers include heat from the GPU - intel HD graphics. So i5 consumes about 28% less power. But overall battery life include power draw from LCD and other components. So i5 may last about 15% longer though it will depend on real world usage.

If you want a snappy performance, go with i7 with SSD. The battery life may be 15-25% shorter with i7 but if you get the larger battery, it should be long enough.

[fongalv]

Hi all,

I was doing research and was wondering how much real world difference in battery life would there be for 2 similar specc'ed machines(8 cell batt) one running the 18W i5-UM chip and the other running the 25W i7-LM chip?

I'm in a similar boat as the OP but instead of "snappy" response, I am more concerned about being able to do 3D/photoshop/cadding work smoothly on it.

[sanjuro]

Hi all,

I was doing research and was wondering how much real world difference in battery life would there be for 2 similar specc'ed machines(8 cell batt) one running the 18W i5-UM chip and the other running the 25W i7-LM chip?

I'm in a similar boat as the OP but instead of "snappy" response, I am more concerned about being able to do 3D/photoshop/cadding work smoothly on it.

Without a properly configured test of two types of CPUs, it's hard to say anything about the battery life.

For 3D and photoshop work, i7 will do much better than i5-UM. Installing RAM up to 8GB and having a SSD will really help as well. For such CPU intensive tasks, should expect i7-LM to be underpowered compared to regular voltage i7's.

[fongalv]

Hope I'm not going off topic, but it is still kinda the same question as the OP.

Please allow me to rephrase my situation:
Coming from a 6yr old T41P 1.6Ghz PentiumM 2GB ram, it has served me well until the infamous loose GPU issue kicked in recently, hence me looking for an alternative while I try to send it in for repairs(intending to pass it to my dad if it is salvageable). While the T41P has served me well for everything that I have thrown at it, I also do not expect my need for "computing muscle" to change(in fact I'm expecting it to lower due to a shift in job scope). I will probably be doing some cadding/photoshopping/sketchuping/etc, nothing too graphically intensive.

What attracted me to the X201T is that it is alot more portable and with the extended battery could easily last twice as long as my T41P.
After a brief check over at the intel website, I found several new i7-UM procs that have probably not made it to the mainstream yet. I believe those are the best bet but I can only wait for another month or two before going for a long trip.

SO the main question begets, coming from a happy T41P user, would the i5-UM be good enough? Eitherways, I will be sticking 4gb of ram inside, but SSD would have to wait until I get more funds.

oh and btw, I was reading up some old reviews of the X200T and found it weird that the brighter sunlight readable LED screen to outperform the standard LED screen by a good 3 hrs? Anyone knows why?

[sanjuro]

SO the main question begets, coming from a happy T41P user, would the i5-UM be good enough? Eitherways, I will be sticking 4gb of ram inside, but SSD would have to wait until I get more funds.

i5-UM probably is good enough; if I were buying X201T, I'd go with i7 620LM since it's only $50 more in usa; sure it will be hotter and battery will not last as long, but you will have enough performance.

oh and btw, I was reading up some old reviews of the X200T and found it weird that the brighter sunlight readable LED screen to outperform the standard LED screen by a good 3 hrs? Anyone knows why?

It may have to do with how efficient the LCD backlighting is on the different panels and how much overall light is transmitted through the panel to achieve comparable brightness.

[fongalv]

i5-UM probably is good enough; if I were buying X201T, I'd go with i7 620LM since it's only $50 more in usa; sure it will be hotter and battery will not last as long, but you will have enough performance.

Thanks for the headsup, and yea, the i7-LM is also just a little more than the i5-UM over at my retailers, but I really would like a lower power consumption system that can still run decently fast, and 1Ghz-1.66Ghz just feels...rather backwards to me right now. After checking out the processor lineup over at the Intel website, it seems that the i5-520UM cores were launched at the same time(Q1 2010) as the i7-620/640UM with the i7-660 being launched in Q2 2010 and all being 18W TDP. Seeing that the previous offerings of the X200T comes with a myriad of processor choices, so I think I will just hold out for a few more weeks(hopefully) until they adopt the faster i7-UM 18W ones.

It may have to do with how efficient the LCD backlighting is on the different panels and how much overall light is transmitted through the panel to achieve comparable brightness.

I queried a local retailer and it seems that the touch screen being a capacitive screen, sucks more power than the 400nits outdoors display which is only a tablet screen, can anyone confirm this?

[David Ross]

I have an x201t with i7 and a SSD (Intel, not Lenovo); I can't compare it to the i5 version, but it runs cooler, with better battery life, than the X61t it replaced (and I still have). It is also substantially faster on everyday tasks, even with Windows 7 on both machines (the X61t with Vista was horrible).

[Daniel Bakker]

great, now i've got some questions for you
do you have the multitouch or outdoor screen?
what battery life can you get at normal use? (browsing, word etc.)
is there any annoying lag when you draw something on the screen, or is there a small time between the moment you put the pencil on the screen and the moment you see a line? how long/annoying is that time?
is sleep/resume almost instant? how long does it take?
startup/shutdown?
when you turn the screen, how long does it take before the image is turned? is it annoying long?
thank you in advance

[David Ross]

do you have the multitouch or outdoor screen?

Outdoor; I've never seen multitouch screens on Lenovos, but the one's I've seen on HPs always seemed soft to me.

what battery life can you get at normal use? (browsing, word etc.)

5-6 hours if I don't use Firefox or IE. Firefox+java seem to use much CPU time.

is there any annoying lag when you draw something on the screen

None.

is sleep/resume almost instant? how long does it take?

Sleep: screen blank is instant, crescent moon in 3 seconds. Resume: 4 seconds to login screen, 4 to everything back to normal.

startup/shutdown?

Around 30 seconds to full on (I use the fingerprint reader to both turn the machine on and log me in), shutdown depends on what is running.

when you turn the screen, how long does it take before the image is turned?

Just under three seconds.

[elee532]

i7 version here... just upgraded to 4gb RAM, SSD drive, and fresh Windows 7 install. At 3 to 4 seconds, I still find the lag in display rotation a little less snappier than I would like. Into and out of sleep is also about 3 seconds. I have experienced no pen lag.

[ZaZ]

do you have the multitouch or outdoor screen?

I have the standard frameless display with the Hydis LCD. The frameless display is really nice, though if you want to touch the screen or take it outside, perhaps it's not the best fit.

[erik]

I'd think a faster processor would make the portrait-to-landscape transition snappier; I highly doubt significant disk activity is necessary for that.

my SL9600-powered X200T boots, shuts down, and rotates the display just as quickly as David Ross' i7-powered X201T.   we both have intel SSDs yet my processor is clearly "slower" by definition.   infer from that what you will.

[elee532]

So, what would it take to get that screen rotate down from 3 seconds? Faster CPU? More than 4gb RAM? Faster video processor? Different video drivers? Different O/S?

3 seconds isn't the end of the world, but it would be nice if it felt more instantaneous.

Sorry if I'm taking this away from the original poster's discussion!

[erik]

rotation is driven by the accelerometer, a few background services, and the display controls / video driver.   given that it takes time for all of these to talk to one another (which requires disk access, btw), it would require faster combination of software for this process to happen more quickly.

a faster GPU won't help given the results i'm seeing.   and, with 8GB in my system there's no way that's of any benefit.

my advice is to live with it.   under 3 sec rotation is certainly better than i used to get on my X61T so it's certainly an improvement over past systems.

i still stand by my original statement that if you want a responsive system, an SSD is by far the better investment over a CPU.   i'd take an i5-540UM + intel SSD over an i7-640LM + HDD any day of the week.

[elee532]

Thanks for the additional info Erik. I currently have 4gb RAM, a new SSD drive, and very clean Windows 7 install. Apparently 3 to 4 seconds is as good as its going to get on this model.

Sorry again if I took us off track from the original poster's discussion.

[Daniel Bakker]

@elee532: what SSD do you have?

[Eduard]

So the main question begets, coming from a happy T41P user, would the i5-UM be good enough? Eitherways, I will be sticking 4gb of ram inside, but SSD would have to wait until I get more funds.

I recently upgraded to a Seagate Hybrid Drive. Very noticeable difference and IMHO a reasonable cost to performance ratio especially when you have larger storage requirements.

Check out this video from Seagate.

[elee532]

Sorry for the delayed reply... been out of town.

I went with the OCZ Technology 120 GB Vertex 2 Series SATA II 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003NE ... ss_product

I can't recall where, but this drive got some pretty favorable reviews when compared against a slate of other SSD drives.

[Daniel Bakker]

indeed, it's the best affordable drive out there. at annandtech it's somewhere at the top in the list of best drives, behind a few extremely expensive ones. I was also planning on buying this drive, but with that LOGICBUY coupon I could buy the 160GB intel drive for a thrilling 150 dollar extra! so off course, I took that one. I looked a bit around, and especially at continous writes, the intel drive is way behind the OCZ, but at random writes and reads the intel is better. I guess that for normal usage, the intel drive should actually be a bit better, as normal use is mostly random. but power consumption from the intel is also higher, and actually I don't like that...

[jvarszegi]

The X25-M are as good as you can do for all-around performance, low power draw, and price.

There's no way to predict actual battery life of a system without testing; you certainly can't predict that an i7 will run hotter and use more battery than an i5 under the same load. An i7 should have faster time-to-idle, lowering battery consumption and heat, for example.

I would pretty much always go for the i7 option over the i5, unless I were exclusively using simple office tasks and other light stuff that doesn't stress the processor. (And I have an X100e, which actually is fine for that kind of stuff.) Since I run Photoshop and some other stuff that does take advantage of the processor, it's a no-brainer.