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Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 7:29 am
by Erare
I bought one new back in 2011, it was on sale and it was at a great price. 11.6", E-350, 8GB RAM. It was a nice little machine and it was my first ThinkPad. Nowadays its x1xx successors are more expensive and not as aesthetically pleasing.
Was the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad (along the lines of the X series and the T series?). Or does it belong to the lower end line of laptops like newer the E series etc, which are not considered to be real ThinkPads by older users? I ask because the x120e was selling at a low price when new and it seems they might have cut some corners. Was it worth it?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v206/ ... 0929-1.jpg
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad?
Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 9:33 am
by RealBlackStuff
No, it's not a real Thinkpad, and will never be.
However, it does have a (valued) Touchpad and a Trackpoint, highly valued by many people.
Aside from that, yours has an AMD cpu, NOT very well liked in any laptop.
I have the newer X131e, which I only bought, because it had a BIOS-password and hence was reasonably cheap.
Removed the SVP and been trying to sell it, but no interest anywhere.
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad?
Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 9:51 am
by brchan
My old school had many X131e laptops. Durability was decent (especially regarding the lid), decent keyboard + trackpoint. 1366x768 screen was garbage, and touchpad was one of the worst I have ever used on a laptop. Slightly better than Edge and L-series, but still not on par with 'true' thinkpads.
Not a bad choice if you are on a budget, but your better off buying a slightly older 'real' thinkpad for a similar price but with better build and performance.
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:45 am
by Erare
I have the laptop, even with an ssd it has become slow, I am running Windows 7. Is there any way to get things faster?
I am still looking to sell it, just curious on what the price is. For the laptop, except for the slow cpu eveytthing else is good.
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:25 am
by ElbertR
Just a matter of opinion if it is a 'real Thinkpad' or not. It's made by the same company that makes Thinkpads. It's labelled a 'Thinkpad'. It has the same Trackpoint only 'real Thinkpads' have. Comes with Thinkpad software. Same support as other Thinkpads.
The X120e was an improvement of the X100e. I have both (the X100e is for sale). The X120e is a little faster, stays cooler and has better battery life. Still a great little computer if you are on the road and need something compact with a nice keyboard.
Many of the small 'Netbook' type laptops use AMD processors and chipsets, simply because they are smaller, cheaper, cooler and use less power than their Intel counterparts. On the X120e the processor and Radeon graphics are integrated into one chip.
To make it faster, make sure you are using 64 bit Windows on it, have a fast hard drive (7200 RPM or SSD) and max out the memory at 8Gb. Also keep your Windows OS clean, with no crapware installed.
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:32 am
by Erare
I am already running windows 7 x64 and haave 4gb ram and a 64gb ssd in there.
What are the prices for your x100e?
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:28 am
by ElbertR
Erare wrote:I am already running windows 7 x64 and haave 4gb ram and a 64gb ssd in there.
What are the prices for your x100e?
See my PM to you for info about the x100e and others.
To make it faster, look at upgrading the memory to 8Gb. Not much else you can do besides from keeping your Windows clean. Uninstall all programs you don't use and clean the registry with a (free) program such as Ccleaner or Wise Registry Cleaner. Disable any start-up items that you don't need (use msconfig or Ccleaner for that).
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:42 am
by dmdsoftware
ElbertR wrote:Erare wrote:I am already running windows 7 x64 and haave 4gb ram and a 64gb ssd in there.
What are the prices for your x100e?
See my PM to you for info about the x100e and others.
To make it faster, look at upgrading the memory to 8Gb. Not much else you can do besides from keeping your Windows clean. Uninstall all programs you don't use and clean the registry with a (free) program such as Ccleaner or Wise Registry Cleaner. Disable any start-up items that you don't need (use msconfig or Ccleaner for that).
Agreed, top it up to 8GB. I had an average SSD in mine, swapped it with a spare Intel one that is supposed to be one of the fastest ones on the market at the time.
I run linux on mine and it runs great for simple tasks. Even a large Dropbox sync makes it unuseable, but it's because of the inefficiencies of Dropbox sync in general to blame.
I can do some light development in eclipse. Even run KODI fine.
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2015 2:54 pm
by iMav
I had an X60s that I really like...primarily because of the form factor AND because I was able to purchase it sans trackpad (ONLY had the trackpoint...which I love).
I currently have an X120e that I too purchased back in 2011. Just recently dusted it off and installed Windows 10 on it (first time it has run windows, as I always ran some flavor of Linux on it). I had a nice SSD in it, but Win10 didn't support it, so I had to swap it out with a spare HDD I had lying around. Still is fairly snappy, considering its age. (I do have 16GB of ram in it...primarily because I pulled the ram from a laptop I was getting rid of and was curious if the X120e would support it...which it does)

Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 12:49 am
by Saucey
Upgrading the X140e from 2GB to 4GB RAM felt like night and day!
it has a subpar 1.4GHz AMD wherever it is, but I did not believe the difference it made.
Nah I don't think the X100 series are true ThinkPads, but the X130e was a lot more durable than I thought.
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 4:50 am
by axur-delmeria
2GB is the bare minimum for all Windows after XP. Even an X220 will
crawl if it runs out of free RAM and has to use the swap file. 4GB is almost heavenly, until you run out of free RAM again.

Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 4:16 am
by ElbertR
iMav wrote:I had an X60s that I really like...primarily because of the form factor AND because I was able to purchase it sans trackpad (ONLY had the trackpoint...which I love).
I currently have an X120e that I too purchased back in 2011. Just recently dusted it off and installed Windows 10 on it (first time it has run windows, as I always ran some flavor of Linux on it). I had a nice SSD in it, but Win10 didn't support it, so I had to swap it out with a spare HDD I had lying around. Still is fairly snappy, considering its age. (I do have 16GB of ram in it...primarily because I pulled the ram from a laptop I was getting rid of and was curious if the X120e would support it...which it does)

16Gb Ram in a X120e? Thought the max was 8gb. What kind of memory sticks do you use (brand / model)?
Re: Is the x120e considered a "real" ThinkPad? and the laptop is slow, how to speed up?
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2016 10:33 am
by iMav
ElbertR wrote:16Gb Ram in a X120e? Thought the max was 8gb. What kind of memory sticks do you use (brand / model)?
Just a couple 8GB sticks.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008JEZ4R8/