Thinkpads Forum

Hello!

I am planning to upgrade my x series Thinkpad (x32 currently) and I am looking at two options at the moment.
First one is x220 with IPS screen and the second one is x201 Tablet.

For me the positive sides of x220 are 2nd generation Core i CPUs, IPS screen, fresher machine. The negatives (for me) are: 7.5mm hard drive (will be difficult to upgrade for a larger capacity drive), the new integrated touchpad (I have t420 so I have seen this touchpad and I don’t like it), and absence of screen latches.

Looking at x201T I like bright screen (IPS?), 16:10 screen (vs 16:9 on x220) standard size hard drive, latches on the screen. The things I am not sure about are – how much slower is core i7 620 (used on X201T) vs core i5 on x220 (I will not be getting i7 on x220)? How reliable / durable is the hinge on Lenovo Tablet PC vs two traditional hinges on X220?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

A few things to think about would be while the X220 is limited to a 7mm drive, it can also use the mSATA drives. You can use a mSATA drive for speed and a platter drive for storage. The X201t would be limited to a platter drive or a SSD, but not both. That's one thing I disliked about my X200t. I had the Intel SSD, but had to keep everything on the external.

A tablet has a touch surface which does effect image quality. The X220 does not have this issue. I'd say consider the tablet only if you plan to use the tablet features. Having come from a 1280x800 notebook, the difference between it and 1366x768 is very small, and hardly worth mentioning. The lid on my X220 is very sturdy. I don't foresee not having a latch being a problem.

If you're coming from a X32, I'd assume you're a stick person, in which case you can just disable the touchpad and be done with it.

Well, your battery life is going to suffer with a first-gen i7 CPU. The second-generation ones are quite a bit better at idle (this isn't your case, but second-generation quad-core processors are far better at battery life than the first-gen ones were).

The X201t also has an integrated touchpad- the only difference between that and the X220 is that the X220 has no buttons so it's easier to ignore if you disable it in the BIOS. The texture might be one thing, but your palms shouldn't be there to touch it while typing. And the touchpad on the X201 isn't flush with the rest of the palmrest where the X220's is.

And, while the X220 may only take 7mm hard drives, some common SSDs can be made that high (the Intel X25/320 and the Crucial M4) without voiding their warranties. And there's also the mSATA slot.

You only really lose 32 pixels from your vertical resolution (not like going from, say, 1600 x 1200 to 1600 x 900, which is 25% less screen when you think about it!)- so you'll still have 96% of the screen.

Also, I've heard that the X220's latchless mechanism is also pretty sturdy. It won't open on you.
(Actually, the X220 is the only laptop I would tolerate latchless because of the matte screen and bezel- can you say fingerprints?)

I had an X200-AFFS with the same IPS screen X200t and X201t come with, except for my screen doesn't have any touch panel attached to it. IPS screen of X220 is significantly better in both brightness and contrast, there is just no point in comparing these. Keep in mind that screens in tablets have a touch layer attached, further reducing picture quality. So, X220-IPS will provide much much better display experience when compared to X200t/X201t.
Also, battery life is much better on X220 lineup when compared to X201 lineup; power consumption is about 1.5x lower, and correspondingly battery life is about 1.5x higher. Additionally, tablets do not have such wide choice of batteries regular models have; with tablet you have to choose between 4-cell (about 50% of regular model 6-cell capacity) and 8-cell (about 100% of regular model 6-cell capacity), while with regular model there is an option of 9-cell battery with capacity of about 1.5x higher than the highest-capacity tablet battery. Which means that in the end you may get about 2.25x longer battery life from X220 (with 9-cell) when compared to X201t (with 8-cell).
Also, tablets are considerably heavier; AFAIK tablet with tiny 4-cell battery is about as heavy as a regular model with the juicy 9-cell battery.

So i would only choose X201t if its tablet features are the must. Otherwise, X220 offers significantly better screen, a couple of times longer battery life and a lighter weight (let alone newer faster CPUs and a hybrid storage option), while X201t doesn't offer anything.

You get a better CPU and a better screen with slightly fewer vertical pixels in X220. Go with X201T only if you need the tablet features. If you want to try a tablet, it may be better to go with X200T or wait until Win 8 is released.