X120e likes/dislikes

[kge420]

I am considering the purchase of an X120e and would like to hear any comments from real world users. Thanks, Keith

[hmmwv]

If you are in the market, I would say definitely get it, it's arguably one of the most capable, affordable and durable 11.6" notebook you can find. The only complaint I have is that the E350 APU is slower than the previous generation Turion Neo X2 L625 in terms of raw processing power. It annoys me that my old x100e can play Netflix HD while the x120e can't, my only hope is that Silverlight 5 will solve it, so far the beta doesn't.

[force]

It's a pretty good little notebook for portability. I used it as a thin-client today (Win7pro, wireless on, remote desktop only) and the 6-cell estimated at least 6-7 hours. I like the small size- it's less deep than an X60s w/ 8-cell which fits my backpack better, and a bit lighter, too.

The CPU is definitely the greatest weakness and always seems to run at about 60C. However, you do get a bit of graphics horsepower, enough to play Counter-Strike Source and at least run TF2 and l4d2 (ran at native resolution; will probably have to turn some settings down).

It's a great notebook, but for me, doesn't feel like a true Thinkpad. The distinguishing features are the chiclet keyboard, the keyboard layout, and the lack of rubberized paint on the lid and body. It's a great replacement for a X60s, which can be had for about the same price.

[tbessie]

I've only been playing with mine for a little bit. I am amazed how hot it runs (due to the amount of heat coming out of the exhaust) and how the fan runs constantly.

This seems to have bothered some people not not bothered others, but for such a small device that's supposedly built for low-power kind of usage, it seems pretty darn hot and noisy (gosh darn it all to heck boy, those filters are strong here).

I got the 350 variant (the faster one), which might've made a difference.

I replaced the hard drive with an SSD, but that didn't do anything to reduce the heat and noise, unfortunately. I'm still looking forward to the day when we can have relatively silent laptops.

- Tim

[force]

If you fire up the ThinkVantage power monitor, it'll show you how much power it's consuming. Mine varies between 8-14W when idle.

If you're concerned about fan noise, you can run Thinkpad Fan Control. In the 'smart' mode, it will only turn on around 60C, which in my opinion is pretty hot. In comparison, my desktop i5 will idle at 38C, but it also has a ton of (near silent) fans moving air all around it.

[tbessie]

If you fire up the ThinkVantage power monitor, it'll show you how much power it's consuming. Mine varies between 8-14W when idle.

If you're concerned about fan noise, you can run Thinkpad Fan Control. In the 'smart' mode, it will only turn on around 60C, which in my opinion is pretty hot. In comparison, my desktop i5 will idle at 38C, but it also has a ton of (near silent) fans moving air all around it.

Yeah, 60 degrees is pretty hot. My T400 idles at around 45 degrees (although there's a bit more space in it than the x120e). Better thermal characteristics would be nice in a netbook-like Thinkpad, though.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Incidentally, RealTemp doesn't even know this CPU. What are you using to measure temperature?

- tim

[Colonel O'Neill]

8-14W seems too high during idle. =/

60C sounds about right though. My X100e with the MV40 is around 60C under an average workload on default BIOS controlled fan.
My T400 idles around 39C, but that's with undervolting and a P8700.

I'd avoid using CoreTemp/RealTemp. Use HWMonitor; works all the time.

[force]

It's 8-9W idle, wifi running, full brightness (15) on battery, 6-7 with the brightness turned down to 6.

I'm curious as to what Lenovo will cook up with LV Sandy Bridge processors. The processor idling close to 60C is a bit warm for my tastes.

I'm using Thinkpad Fan Control to see the CPU temps. For power consumption, the Thinkvantage Power Meter in basic mode will show the current power consumption.

[Colonel O'Neill]

I haven't found a situation where full brightness was necessary except for in direct sunlight, and even then there's a trick to use the sunlight with the screen at 0/15. I wish the screen went lower than zero for use in a dark room, though.

AMD processors tend to idle high. Not sure if RMClock still works with the X120e; it certainly does with the X100e.

I was also referring to CPU temperatures. Some programs underreport the temperature in ThinkPads by polling the wrong sensor. HWMonitor reports all the ones it can find.

[force]

I'm actually surprised at by how dim 0/15 is. LED backlighting covers a wider range of brightness than CCFLs do.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Indeed. 0/15 is still way too bright in a nearly completely dark room, especially without a ThinkLight to illuminate the keyboard and surrounding area.

[tbessie]

I have to say, I'm really starting to hate the cheap, washed-out, bad viewing angle screen.

One thing that a little notebook like this should be good for is watching movies (netflix or stored on disk), and even when you're dead-center on the screen's sweet spot, it still looks kinda lousy.

- Tim

[Colonel O'Neill]

Swap it out for the Samsung panel?

[tbessie]

Swap it out for the Samsung panel?

I've heard of people swapping out cheap panels for IPS panels - is that easily (relatively) doable on the x120e? I'll have to check into it.

- Tim

[Colonel O'Neill]

I'm not sure if there're any 11.6" IPS panels available. The Samsung X100e panel I found to be really good. Likewise, contrary to online responses, I found the Samsung 14.1" LED WXGA+ panel in my T400 to be better than the LG one in terms of clarity and viewing angles.

[tbessie]

I'm not sure if there're any 11.6" IPS panels available. The Samsung X100e panel I found to be really good. Likewise, contrary to online responses, I found the Samsung 14.1" LED WXGA+ panel in my T400 to be better than the LG one in terms of clarity and viewing angles.

Hmm, I think I have the LG one on my T400.

I wish I could find an 11.6" IPS panel - I searched for one, but couldn't find one. The interfaces would have to match (assuming there aren't "standard" interfaces for panels).

It sucks - I would like a beautiful panel for my x120e. Hell, even my x40's panel is better - tho' I guess that's to be expected, since it was the "high end" for its time.

Ah, I miss the old A31 - IPS panel n' all. I gave it to a friend to give to a poor Mexican family (in Mexico) that she knows, and now he's making a family business of copying and selling DVDs. At least it's moved on to a better life.

- Tim

[hmmwv]

I'm not sure if there're any 11.6" IPS panels available. The Samsung X100e panel I found to be really good. Likewise, contrary to online responses, I found the Samsung 14.1" LED WXGA+ panel in my T400 to be better than the LG one in terms of clarity and viewing angles.

Interesting because in terms of viewing angle I found the x120e to be way better than the x100e. But that's just me.

[jm1024]

I've only had mine for a few days but so far I'm very happy. I haven't touched my T410 since I got it and expect I'll be bringing it on all my business trips. The screen is definitely better than the terrible one in the T410, but still nowhere close to the quality on something like a Macbook.

The only downside I've seen so far is the gloss plastic shows fingerprints way more than the rubberized T series.

Would definitely recommend it for anyone who cares about size.

[thinklars]

I bought an X120e just over 2 weeks ago to use when traveling (non-business). I was also looking at an iPad, Asus Transformer, HP DM1Z, and Macbook Mini. I also already own a Thinkpad T500 which I love. I had an Asus EEEPC 701 and still have a 901.

First, the bad:
- The first one I bought had a problem with the speakers; absolutely no sound at all. So I had to return it and wait for another one (X120e's aren't a off-the-shelf item around here so it took another 3 days for the replacement to arrive).
- No keyboard light, which my T500 has. The lack of a light makes it hard to see some of the keys in the dark.
- Lid is shinier than my T500's, making fingerprints very visible.
- Noticeable amount of warm/hot air coming from side exhaust vent. Seems to run hotter than my T500. But this isn't really a problem. When holding the laptop on my lap, I don't feel any uncomfortable heat on my legs, plus the keyboard remains as a comfortable temperature. My friend's Macbook (not a Mini) gets uncomfortably warm when sitting on my lap.
- Screen contrast isn't very good when compared to an iPad or Transformer. I wouldn't use this for photo editing because the contrast and colour is too washed out to make an accurate assessment of what the image really looks like.
- Speaker volume could stand to be a bit louder, although I must admit that my hearing is on the weak side.
- Position of the CTL and FN keys is still opposite to most other keyboards.
- Touchpad is small and not nearly as smooth and sensitive as on a Macbook or my older HP laptop.

And now the good:
- Unlike my T500, the X120e allows you to easily swap the positions of the CTL and FN keys so they match most other keyboards. This is done via a BIOS setting and physically popping off the key caps and swapping them around (I used a credit card to pry them off).
- Built-in HDMI output makes this ultra light laptop suitable for replacing the laptop in our living room. That laptop is primarily used for checking mail, surfing the web, and streaming HD movies to our TV.
- The keyboard is wonderful. A hundred times nicer than the keyboards on my Asus netbooks, and remarkably close in feel to my T500.
- Touchpad, while not great, is better than my Asus netbooks, and the Touchpoint, which I rarely use with my T500 (because I usually use a trackball with it) turns out to be quite useable on this small laptop where portability is crucial. While I usually bring a trackball to use with my netbooks, the X120e's touchpad and touchpoint interfaces are good enough together that I don't bring anything else.
- Screen size and resolution improvements over my netbooks makes the X120e much, much more comfortable to use for long periods of time. Going from 9" to 11" is a big deal. For starters, I don't have to scroll side to side on web pages anymore, plus the extra real estate comes in handy when viewing maps (Garmin Mapsource). Because I recently started needing to use reading glasses, the FN + Space Bar command to instantly switch to a coarser screen resolution was very, very much appreciated when reading a lot of text. With my netbooks, I want constantly aware that I was using a small screen. With the X120e, I didn't think about it at all.


I wanted a device that allowed me to backup photos and video clips, tag images (using Adobe Lightroom), write documents, store important travel information, play games and movies, and provide Internet connectivity, while maintaining a relatively small and light footprint. I initially looked at tablets because they're so darned small and sexy. But they just weren't practical, especially since I generate a fair bit of content and some couldn't even read an SD card without an adapter, let alone write to an external HD. Likewise, an Ethernet port was a useful thing to have because some hotels still only provide an Ethernet connection. Netbooks were out of the question due to their small screens, keyboards, and slow performance. It also had to have a 5 hour or better real-world battery life.

Although it wasn't as cool as a tablet, and it was bigger and heavier, and it had a relatively slow start-up time (even from Hibernation mode), the ultra portable laptop made the most sense for me. So I bought the X120e and I have to say that it was perfect for the job.

The kids were able to watch a movie while on a long drive; my wife and I watched a movie on the plane; I was able to backup all the data from my digital cameras and catalogue them using Lightroom; I was able to run Garmin Mapsource to plot out the next day's route; and had a nice, comfortable keyboard and touchpad/touchpoint for web surfing and checking email. It was also small enough to fit in either of the two extra pockets in my medium sized camera backpack.

So all in all, I'd have to say that I'm 2 for 2 with my Thinkpad purchases.

[thinklars]

I forgot to mention the touchpad buttons. They've got a lot of travel and are easy to push. This is a big improvement on the stiff, shallow travel buttons I've experienced on most netbooks and some laptops.

[6SPDSER2002]

I have had my X120e for about 5 months now....I have the X120e 0596-24u
AMD E-240 Processor 1.50 GHz
AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics Card
Win 7 Pro X64
I have since upgrade to 6GB of RAM.......

I bought this machine mainly for travel to and from work for watching videos, basic computing, internet browsing and more recently some 3D Modeling...Hence the RAM upgrade.

Previoulsy I had a used T60 and T40. I was a big fan of the thinkpad T series. I wanted something a little more on the thin and light side but not a netbook...after reading a bunch of reviews i thought this would be perfect. So, far it is.

Things I like:
Awesome battery life
Thin and Light
Ultra Portable
Plays 1080p movies
Media Card Reader
Always on USB...and the amount of USBs
HDMI out connection
Screen size is perfect for my use...I hate huge notebooks..to me defeats the purpose of a notebook

Things I dont like:
I miss the keyboard light
I miss individual volume control...instead of Fn + ........
Processor speed is a bit slow but managable
Lack of option for docking station and connection as i do like to set it up as a workstation sometimes
The maximum allowbale memory although some have used more than stated



None of my dislikes are deal breakers because i know i cant have my cake and eat it too and i know other machines wont stack up. All in all i am happy with my machine and setting things up the way i like it and messing with the Catalyst Control Center.

I will be upgrading my RAM again to 8 GB

I do frequently connect to my HDTV and plays 1080p movies beautifully

[thinklars]

6SPDSER2002, what video player do you use?

One thing I've noticed about my X120e and HD videos is that when I'm using the HDMI output to my TV, the video isn't as smooth as when I use my quad core Toshiba with the TV. So I'm wondering if I can improve things by finding the right video player. Right now I'm using VLC and the Windows Media Player.

[6SPDSER2002]

I also use VLC...i get an occansional choppy...not so smooth video...i chalk it up to bad download...but 9 out of 10 are better quality than what i get out of my Western Digital WDTV video player...however i generally play only 720p...the occasional 1080p.........i have yet to try a full digital version of a blu-ray disc.....

i did have to tweak some settings in catalyst control center to maximize performance on both battery and power source


when i first got the machine before i figured out the CCC settings...i had pretty good luck with Real Player it played really well...i just didnt like the real player interface and such

[thinklars]

Thx for the info.