My X1 Carbon purchase was a bad idea
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 10:36 pm
My beloved T40 has served me well for many years, but it's time to move on. I ordered an X1 Carbon with touch screen and Windows 8.1 Pro. It arrived in about five weeks.
The 2560x1440 resolutions screen feels short, if you will, probably in part because I'm so used to the T40's aspect ratio. But it gets trickier than that. At such a high resolution, they play some tricks so you can read the text under icons and such. But it doesn't always work as intended. There are times were text is too big and gets truncated, and heaven help you if you try to read a command prompt window. Get out your magnifying glass. After uninstalling Norton 360, I was unable to run the Norton Removal Tool for a more thorough cleanup until after I rebooted in "low video resolution mode." Bizarre.
Many have complained about the touchpad. I find it very difficult to do things like resize a window where you would normally left click and drag. It feels inaccurate to me, yet I am a devoted touchpad user on my T40. Windows 8.1 has a much lower mouse resolution (whatever that means--apparently important in gaming), and I wonder if that is some of the problem.
On the plus side, this sucker is FAST. It has an i7-4600U chip running at 2.70 GHz with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD.
I've tried to keep an open mind about Windows 8.1. The touch screen is nice, and I use it some. But I have discovered what may be an honest to goodness bug in Windows itself that is driving me batty. Lenovo will not help me with this EXPLORER.EXE crash even though I paid for Priority Support. Their troubleshooting skills are far less than my own. A rather curt supervisor told me that once a problem gets to the point of not being fixed by restoring back to the factory image, they recommend that the customer return the system! I was positively speechless. Lenovo needs to get the X1 Carbon out there where people can see it and get the WOW factor. Giving up and returning the system is rolling over and playing dead awfully fast.
Currently, the lack of support and unwillingness to satisfy the customer are being escalated in a couple of different ways that I hope will pan out in the next day or two. If not, I think I will pack it up and return it. It's gonna break my heart.
I just don't know what to buy to replace my T40. That thing is a workhorse, but it's creaky and cracked and runs XP and has had more upgrades than it was worth to keep it going. I use my laptop for applications, not watching movies (well, occasionally) or playing games. I'm open to suggestions. My super duper business work machine is a W520. That's too big for a personal machine that is carried around some.
If you care to read the gory details, I'm working through these two threads:
http://www.eightforums.com/bsod-crashes ... 2-dll.html
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-8-a ... -p/1509360
The 2560x1440 resolutions screen feels short, if you will, probably in part because I'm so used to the T40's aspect ratio. But it gets trickier than that. At such a high resolution, they play some tricks so you can read the text under icons and such. But it doesn't always work as intended. There are times were text is too big and gets truncated, and heaven help you if you try to read a command prompt window. Get out your magnifying glass. After uninstalling Norton 360, I was unable to run the Norton Removal Tool for a more thorough cleanup until after I rebooted in "low video resolution mode." Bizarre.
Many have complained about the touchpad. I find it very difficult to do things like resize a window where you would normally left click and drag. It feels inaccurate to me, yet I am a devoted touchpad user on my T40. Windows 8.1 has a much lower mouse resolution (whatever that means--apparently important in gaming), and I wonder if that is some of the problem.
On the plus side, this sucker is FAST. It has an i7-4600U chip running at 2.70 GHz with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD.
I've tried to keep an open mind about Windows 8.1. The touch screen is nice, and I use it some. But I have discovered what may be an honest to goodness bug in Windows itself that is driving me batty. Lenovo will not help me with this EXPLORER.EXE crash even though I paid for Priority Support. Their troubleshooting skills are far less than my own. A rather curt supervisor told me that once a problem gets to the point of not being fixed by restoring back to the factory image, they recommend that the customer return the system! I was positively speechless. Lenovo needs to get the X1 Carbon out there where people can see it and get the WOW factor. Giving up and returning the system is rolling over and playing dead awfully fast.
Currently, the lack of support and unwillingness to satisfy the customer are being escalated in a couple of different ways that I hope will pan out in the next day or two. If not, I think I will pack it up and return it. It's gonna break my heart.
I just don't know what to buy to replace my T40. That thing is a workhorse, but it's creaky and cracked and runs XP and has had more upgrades than it was worth to keep it going. I use my laptop for applications, not watching movies (well, occasionally) or playing games. I'm open to suggestions. My super duper business work machine is a W520. That's too big for a personal machine that is carried around some.
If you care to read the gory details, I'm working through these two threads:
http://www.eightforums.com/bsod-crashes ... 2-dll.html
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-8-a ... -p/1509360
)
) I also get loads of X201's & even a X220 which I found pretty impressive. I love the X201's except for the fact if you want optical it has to be separate or a dock which is why my favourite is my trusty T410. You could pick up a T4xx for £250 used & save yourself a bucket load & they have loads of power too!!