Thinkpads Forum

Hello, new to forum. I'm on my 3rd? Thinkpad now(T42, X31, X61t, X201). Purchased the following mint condition X201 used for $700 free shipping:

X201

Intel® Core™ I5 processor I5-520M (2.4 GHz), 3-MB L2 cache
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
4GB Ram
160 GB HD 7200 RPM
INTEL CENTRINO ADVANCED-N 6200 AGN
QUALCOMM GOBI 2000 HS MOBILE BROADBAND 9205
THINKPAD BLUETOOTH 2.1
9 CELL BATTERY (8 cycles showing)

Warranty:

Status: In warranty
Expiration date: 2013-11-09
Location: UNITED STATES

Description:
This product has a three year special bid limited warranty and is entitled to parts, labor and on-site repair service. Service is available Monday-Friday, except holidays, with a next business day response objective.

Question:

I have an Ultrabase for the X31 and am looking at getting one for this machine but really only for an external monitor. What is the best option(s) for size etc. for the X201? I will be truthful here as I'm still using an old 19" LCD I bought many years ago, 2003? so obviously it does not have HDMI etc.

Thanks!!

I use a Samsung 24" monitor regularly with my T60p.
1920x1200 resolution. Brilliant!
The image is great even using good old analog VGA.
You may want to try your laptop on monitors with a VGA cable first. If the quality is good enough, you can save a few dollars from not buying the dock.

zern wrote:I use a Samsung 24" monitor regularly with my T60p.
1920x1200 resolution. Brilliant!
The image is great even using good old analog VGA.
You may want to try your laptop on monitors with a VGA cable first. If the quality is good enough, you can save a few dollars from not buying the dock.

X200 and X200s have very poor analog output, the image is quite blurry even on 1680x1050, independent of whether display is connected to the laptop itself or to the ultrabase. Of course, everything is fine when using DisplayPort output on the ultrabase.

503ducati wrote:. What is the best option(s) for size etc. for the X201?

As for the display, if you want to get something cheap yet of an acceptable quality, i'd recommend 24" Benq VW2420H or EW2420H. It is darn cheap (less than $300 in Russia), based on some sort of PVA, has the great viewing angles, good contrast and an acceptable colors rendering, and the backlit is WLED-based (of course, it does not improve the picture, but it makes the display really thin). We recently purchased a dozen of these, and they're really great, better than my Samsung F2380 despite being 1.5x cheaper.

24" monitor is the smallest you can get with WUXGA(1920x1200), so if resolution is important to you, keep this in mind. If you don't care that much about resolution, you can go with smaller size monitors. I'd recommend at least a 20", but that's up to you.

I prefer Samsung 24" WUXGA monitors, but that's just my preference. I get 'em cheap off of ebay, for under $200. They pop up often enough in this price range that I don't have to wait forever for a good deal. Used are even less. I just bought a used one recently for just over $100, but that's cheaper than I usually find for the used ones.

AMATX wrote:24" monitor is the smallest you can get with WUXGA(1920x1200), so if resolution is important to you, keep this in mind.

We have a couple of ThinkVision L220x displays (based on S-PVA), and the resolution is 1920x1200 despite the screen being 22" only.

I prefer Samsung 24" WUXGA monitors, but that's just my preference. I get 'em cheap off of ebay, for under $200. They pop up often enough in this price range that I don't have to wait forever for a good deal. Used are even less. I just bought a used one recently for just over $100, but that's cheaper than I usually find for the used ones.

F2380 is $200 on ebay, IMHO it is much better to get a C-PVA display despite being one inch smaller and 1920x1080 resolution, than live with some generic TN.

See my sig - I use a 24" HP LP2475w 1920x1200: only problem is that it's a wide gamut display. There's a newer and cheaper 24" monitor in the HP professional range (ZR24w) which could well be a better bet as it's S-RGB (and I'm not even sure if mine is still available). Both have S-IPS panels, and Display Port and DVI-D inputs.

penartur wrote:We have a couple of ThinkVision L220x displays (based on S-PVA), and the resolution is 1920x1200 despite the screen being 22" only.

My sister has one of those Lenovo ThinkVision L220x 1920x1200 monitors. Very nice. However, I think those are long out of production and not available as new/current stock. There may still be some in the retail pipeline or on ebay, if one is particularly interested. When I first started putting together my setup last year I looked around for some of these and didn't find any on Lenovo's retail site. That's when I found out that production of 1920x1200 displays seemed to have settled in at 24" and bigger. Too bad, as I'd have been interested in a slightly smaller 1920x1200 monitor.

AMATX wrote:My sister has one of those Lenovo ThinkVision L220x 1920x1200 monitors. Very nice. However, I think those are long out of production and not available as new/current stock. There may still be some in the retail pipeline or on ebay, if one is particularly interested.

Yes, it seems that the production stopped a long ago.
We purchased these a couple of years ago for about $500. Then the price went up to $600, and then Samsung released F2380 for $400. Personally i don't see any advantages of L220x (except for maybe "ThinkVision" logo and extra 120px of height) so it is pointless to purchase 22" 1920x1200 L220x for $600 after its EOL when there are 23" 1920x1080 F2380 for $400.
Lately, the same story seems to happen with Samsung F2380 vs. Benq VW2420H/EW2420H. The former is 23" 1920x1080 with a CCFL-backlight (=thick) for $400 (although it didn't reach its EOL yet), and the latter is 24" 1920x1080 with a WLED-backlit (=really thin) for $300. It is just a bit more expensive than TN, and three years ago the cheapest non-TN displays were 3x-4x more expensive than their TN counterparts.

AMATX wrote:Too bad, as I'd have been interested in a slightly smaller 1920x1200 monitor.

If your reason for that is to conserve desk space, you may want to Google up photos of the L220X and pay attention to side views of the monitor. The stand is huge and makes the monitor a lot deeper than some 24" monitors. So, while this monitor does save space along the width dimension, it takes up more space along the depth dimension.

AMATX wrote:Too bad, as I'd have been interested in a slightly smaller 1920x1200 monitor.

pianowizard wrote:If your reason for that is to conserve desk space, you may want to Google up photos of the L220X and pay attention to side views of the monitor. The stand is huge and makes the monitor a lot deeper than some 24" monitors. So, while this monitor does save space along the width dimension, it takes up more space along the depth dimension.

Yeah, I noticed the extra thickness the last time I was out visiting my sis. I attributed that likely due to earlier development and technology of this display compared to the stuff on the market today. I don't remember the weight, but I'd guess it's at least as heavy, if not heavier, than the Samsungs I use now.

Thanks for the heads up, but I've kind of standardized on 24" now. Cheap, easily available, etc.

Monitors have come a long way very quickly within the last couple of years, which is nice for we consumers After all of these years, we finally have great laptops and supporting devices with which to work. 'bout time, took kind of forever to get to this point.

AMATX wrote:After all of these years, we finally have great laptops and supporting devices with which to work. 'bout time, took kind of forever to get to this point.

If you are talking about cheap-but-decent monitors, I agree with you that there are a lot more now than there were just 3 or 4 years ago. But if you are referring to quality in general, I sort of disagree with you. For instance, Dell (the monitor manufacturer I am most familiar with) has been using IPS and *VA panels in most of their UltraSharp LCDs for about a decade. My Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP from 2006 is still much nicer than virtually all monitors I have seen at Best Buy, Frys and Micro Center.

AMATX wrote:My sister has one of those Lenovo ThinkVision L220x 1920x1200 monitors. Very nice. However, I think those are long out of production and not available as new/current stock. There may still be some in the retail pipeline or on ebay, if one is particularly interested.

Good news: As of this writing, more than 400 L220X monitors (new, open-box) are available for $230 shipped from Compuvest.com! In fact, I've found that if you close your browser and revisit the page, the price drops to $210 shipped:
EDIT: In mid January, compuvest.com changed its domain to http://www.compuvest.us/ The site no longer reports how many units remain in stock.
http://www.compuvest.com/Desc.jsp?iid=1574612 Or else they've just lowered the price.

Thanks, I appreciate everyone's input on the matter. I really love this machine thus far, truly do not have any complaints as of yet. I tried an atom powered netbook but had to update to an x series Thinkpad instead. This is still my favorite size of notebook.


Cheers!

All of a sudden I have three L220X monitors in my possession, all of them from eBay. I bought them because I needed to pack the most horizontal real estate into the least amount of desk space. For the most part I like them, but all three are so grainy/sparkly that text looks kind of fuzzy. And similar to my Dell IPS monitors (27" and 30"), all three L220X's have regions that are slightly more red than the rest, an issue that I thought was common only to the largest IPS monitors.

All three are hooked up to the same desktop computer (a Dell OptiPlex GX280), two via DVI and one via VGA. This computer is also driving a Dell 2007FP through VGA. I have to admit I like the 2007FP's PVA panel more than the L220X, the Dell U2711 and the Dell 3008WFP. It's not as grainy and doesn't have patches with a red tint.

APRIL 7th UPDATE: Now this OptiPlex is driving four L220X's! It's quite a sight!

Look at this:

Hannspree, 23", $149.00

http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/ ... a=CIRCULAR

pianowizard wrote:All of a sudden I have three L220X monitors in my possession, all of them from eBay. I bought them because I needed to pack the most horizontal real estate into the least amount of desk space. For the most part I like them, but all three are so grainy/sparkly that text looks kind of fuzzy. And similar to my Dell IPS monitors (27" and 30"), all three L220X's have regions that are slightly more red than the rest, an issue that I thought was common only to the largest IPS monitors.

I think you would be better off with the Dell 2007WFP with the S-IPS panel.

I would highly suggest getting DisplayPort. I found VGA to be unusable and DP to be perfect and simple. DP to DVI cable.

lead_org wrote:I think you would be better off with the Dell 2007WFP with the S-IPS panel.

I think I had one for a short while, and if I remember correctly it was even grainier than the Lenovo L220X. Another problem with the 2007WFP: the resolution would be too low. The Lenovo L220X has 1920x1200.

The 2407WFP remains my favorite external monitor, which is why I have three. But it would be too big for the rig that I just set up, and so I opted for the Lenovo L220X.

I just bought a couple Samsung 2333Ts for my main desktop. They're PVA panels and seem to offer pretty good PQ. They occasionally drop into the $150 range on NewEgg.

Newegg has a 22" LG for $129.00, with coupon.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 005147-L0B