Thinkpads Forum

I would love to have a tablet and use the stylus for generating diagrams and taking hand written notes. Please give me feedback, those who have the x201 tablet. I'm considering it with the multi-touch screen, getting it on ebay as IBM is quoting 19 days to build. Also, on ebay, the models offered are mainly the i7 620LM. How different is that from the i7 640LM? I have read that the i5 has higher performance but less battery life than the i7 processors. So .. should I get the tablet or go the safe route with the x201 and perhaps buy a wacom usb "slate".

How different is that from the i7 640LM? I have read that the i5 has higher performance but less battery life than the i7 processors.

no, the other way round, the i7 takes more power at higher performance. the difference between the 620 and 640 is marginal, the only difference is a little higher benchmark score.

Hmm .. here is a quote from review in notebookreview.com where the reviewer says the i7 is low voltage and slower than the i5. Do you think he is wrong? [Full review at http://www.notebookreview.com/default.a ... D=5546&p=2]

"I have to admit that when I first heard Lenovo was sticking a Core i7 processor in the X201 I had the mental image of a 12-inch gaming or workstation-class notebook. That was not the case as the Core i7-640LM processor included in our X201s and X200 Tablet are dual-core processors designed with power efficiency in mind and not breakneck performance. It also turns out that the low-voltage Core i7 processors are slower than the Core i5 processor we tested—making things even more confusing for the average consumer who might be purchasing a notebook on model numbers alone.'

The Core i7 low voltage 620/640LM CPUs will be every so slightly slower than the Core i5 520M/540M, respectively. The difference should be really marginal in most cases. Not to be confused with the standard version of the i7 (i.e., 620M), which will be faster.

be careful with which i5 you compare it, the i5 offered with the tablet is a 520um, which has way lower performance than the i7. and also lower power.

That is why I said 520/540M, not UM. If I undestand eaglelynn's question - it is about whether to go with the X201 Tablet, or the regular X201, and part of the question is the performance issue between the regular Core i5's used in the X201 and the low-voltage i7's used in the tablet.

Of course when comparing the 520UM with the 620/640LM, the latter will be more powerful.

sorry, I thought the normal x201 used the same processors as the tablet.

no, the other way round, the i7 takes more power at higher performance. the difference between the 620 and 640 is marginal, the only difference is a little higher benchmark score.

correct me if i'm wrong, but this is not totaly exact: i7 is indeed more performant than i5, if in the same family !
If you compare an ultra low voltage i7 with a normal voltage i5, then the i5 will have better performance, but lower battery life...

Difficult decision.
Coming from an X60, I can tell you the x201tablet is much bigger...
So I am a little bit dissapointed by the dimensions...

But the reason for me to go for this tablet is performance, and multi touch will be the future, and I wanted a futureproof system, where I can try new stuff that a lot of people dont have acces to...

So I am happy with my bright x201 tablet

ah, I see you're dutch. where did you buy your new x201? did you find any place with interesting prices?

I Ordered trough bluelink.nl , they have very good prices and their service is good