X250 review by an old school ThinkPad fan
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 6:52 am
There are a lot of reviews of newer ThinkPads out there, but none focused on the kinds of things I am interested in. So, for the sake of Googlers, I will share my thoughts on my new (to me) X250.
First, the specs of my X250
CPU: i7-5600u
display: 1920x1080 IPS non-touch
RAM: 8 GB
disk: 250 GB Samsung 850 EVO
operating system: OpenBSD -current (snapshot dated 4-APR-2016 as of this moment)
The display is excellent, certainly better than most ThinkPads of old. My most modernish laptop was a T420 with the 1600x900 display and the X250 beats it in every conceivable way. Black looks black, not grey or blue. Viewing angles are great. No more tilting the panel to read text on the top of the screen, then tilting it again to read the bottom. There is some backlight bleed, but not enough for me to care. It offers retina-searing brightness levels, which works well for outdoor use.
The aspect ratio is not excellent. I understand there are supply issues that have caused Lenovo to go with a 16:9, but it's really frustrating. Now, vertical space is good with the FHD panel, but it could be even better if it was 16:10, or ideally 4:3. This is a common complaint and no surprise to longtime ThinkPad lovers. For me though, the real advantage of a taller aspect ratio is compactness. If you sit the X250 on a university desk, you'll have less space on either side than with the X201. Again, nothing you need me to tell you, but worth considering.
The keyboard is leaving me with really mixed feelings. The key feel is a bit hard to describe. If you haven't used a chiclet ThinkPad yet, I would ignore all the review sites saying it's wonderful, amazing, or somehow exactly as good as the classic keyboard. It's not. It's an un-bad keyboard. It's actually better than any ultrabook keyboard you can find today. It's light years better than the MacBook Air and similar laptops, which I suspect is why a lot of people rave about it. To me, that's like saying that drowning is great because you're not on fire. In any case, the key travel feels greatly diminished compared to my X201, even if tactile feedback is decent. It does feel solid and doesn't flex when typing. I suspect I can get used to the feeling and won't complain about it a few months from now.
The keyboard layout is a disaster. Things are where you think they are, except when they're not, assuming they're there at all. The forward and back buttons by the arrow keys are page up and page down. These, of course, are now nowhere near the home and end keys, which is frustrating because I typically would use them together when browsing a document or website. The top row is the function keys by default, not the F keys, but this can be trivially switched in the BIOS. I did that immediately once I got tired of hitting F5 to refresh a page and only turning down the screen brightness.
The keyboard is also backlit. This is inferior to the ThinkLight in my opinion, though it is better than nothing. The dimmest setting for the backlighting is too bright. I just want to see the keys, not signal a rescue helicopter. It is nice that the control for this is the Fn+spacebar, so you can always find it even at night. In a pitch dark room, my MacBook Pro required you to innately know which of the F keys doubled as the backlighting control since you couldn't see them. The spacebar is easy to find.
The TrackPoint is fantastic. It's buttons have returned and they are better than before. My X201's TrackPoint buttons were smaller and mushy. Maybe it was due to wear, but I always wondered if they were connected to the chassis by goo. The X250's buttons have a very solid, tactile feel to them. Which is a good thing because...
...the TrackPad is annoying. It's way too small. Sorry, did I say small? I meant enormous. Really enormous. It arrives with its own ZIP code and your property taxes will likely go up. It's also a royal pain because your palm is always on it when you use the TrackPoint. You can disable it in the BIOS allegedly, but I tried that and it still works in OpenBSD anyway. I'm assuming this is either a bug, or it is designed to work in conjunction with the Windows driver since Lenovo never expected you to commit the inconceivable sacrilege of not running Windows. If you like to use the TrackPads you'll be happy, provided you can tolerate the lack of physical buttons. If you primarily use the TrackPoint it's unacceptable.
The build quality is very solid and I don't feel anything rattling, squeaking, flexing, or breaking. The lid has no latch, but it stays down when you want it down, and stays where you put it when it's up. The surfaces don't attract finger smudges. A convenient side effect of a chiclet keyboard is that it is easy to keep clean. It's fairly thin and light, but still offers more ports than most ultrabooks. Only 2 USB ports, which is unfortunate, but at least you still get VGA and ethernet, for those of us who live in the real world and actually use them. The power connector is flat and therefore incompatible with the usual round connector, so you can forget about using your carefully hoarded supply of Lenovo power adapters. This is irritating. Also irritating is that you have to remove the entire bottom panel to get to the hard drive.
I won't spend too much time on performance, since there are tons of benchmarks out there and it really is OS specific. It's fast and I have no complaints at all about it. Battery life is good, and the dual battery system is a great idea. OpenBSD 5.9 and later support Broadwell graphics pretty well, though I have noticed a few graphical glitches that I have not been able to reproduce. Wireless works well for me on -current. All of this should only get better with time.
Overall, it's a very good laptop, but not really a good ThinkPad, which has more to do with what this laptop could have been than with what it is. Too many compromises have been made and too much has been ritually slaughtered on the altar of thinness. It's as if they are trying to attract Apple users without realizing that the customer base for the X series doesn't want a MacBook. Still, it has great performance, great battery life, a superior keyboard by 2016 standards, a great TrackPoint, great build quality, and a great display. If you want a newer ThinkPad and you aren't able or willing to wait for the Retro ThinkPad (if it ever is made), the X250 is still worth buying IMO.
First, the specs of my X250
CPU: i7-5600u
display: 1920x1080 IPS non-touch
RAM: 8 GB
disk: 250 GB Samsung 850 EVO
operating system: OpenBSD -current (snapshot dated 4-APR-2016 as of this moment)
The display is excellent, certainly better than most ThinkPads of old. My most modernish laptop was a T420 with the 1600x900 display and the X250 beats it in every conceivable way. Black looks black, not grey or blue. Viewing angles are great. No more tilting the panel to read text on the top of the screen, then tilting it again to read the bottom. There is some backlight bleed, but not enough for me to care. It offers retina-searing brightness levels, which works well for outdoor use.
The aspect ratio is not excellent. I understand there are supply issues that have caused Lenovo to go with a 16:9, but it's really frustrating. Now, vertical space is good with the FHD panel, but it could be even better if it was 16:10, or ideally 4:3. This is a common complaint and no surprise to longtime ThinkPad lovers. For me though, the real advantage of a taller aspect ratio is compactness. If you sit the X250 on a university desk, you'll have less space on either side than with the X201. Again, nothing you need me to tell you, but worth considering.
The keyboard is leaving me with really mixed feelings. The key feel is a bit hard to describe. If you haven't used a chiclet ThinkPad yet, I would ignore all the review sites saying it's wonderful, amazing, or somehow exactly as good as the classic keyboard. It's not. It's an un-bad keyboard. It's actually better than any ultrabook keyboard you can find today. It's light years better than the MacBook Air and similar laptops, which I suspect is why a lot of people rave about it. To me, that's like saying that drowning is great because you're not on fire. In any case, the key travel feels greatly diminished compared to my X201, even if tactile feedback is decent. It does feel solid and doesn't flex when typing. I suspect I can get used to the feeling and won't complain about it a few months from now.
The keyboard layout is a disaster. Things are where you think they are, except when they're not, assuming they're there at all. The forward and back buttons by the arrow keys are page up and page down. These, of course, are now nowhere near the home and end keys, which is frustrating because I typically would use them together when browsing a document or website. The top row is the function keys by default, not the F keys, but this can be trivially switched in the BIOS. I did that immediately once I got tired of hitting F5 to refresh a page and only turning down the screen brightness.
The keyboard is also backlit. This is inferior to the ThinkLight in my opinion, though it is better than nothing. The dimmest setting for the backlighting is too bright. I just want to see the keys, not signal a rescue helicopter. It is nice that the control for this is the Fn+spacebar, so you can always find it even at night. In a pitch dark room, my MacBook Pro required you to innately know which of the F keys doubled as the backlighting control since you couldn't see them. The spacebar is easy to find.
The TrackPoint is fantastic. It's buttons have returned and they are better than before. My X201's TrackPoint buttons were smaller and mushy. Maybe it was due to wear, but I always wondered if they were connected to the chassis by goo. The X250's buttons have a very solid, tactile feel to them. Which is a good thing because...
...the TrackPad is annoying. It's way too small. Sorry, did I say small? I meant enormous. Really enormous. It arrives with its own ZIP code and your property taxes will likely go up. It's also a royal pain because your palm is always on it when you use the TrackPoint. You can disable it in the BIOS allegedly, but I tried that and it still works in OpenBSD anyway. I'm assuming this is either a bug, or it is designed to work in conjunction with the Windows driver since Lenovo never expected you to commit the inconceivable sacrilege of not running Windows. If you like to use the TrackPads you'll be happy, provided you can tolerate the lack of physical buttons. If you primarily use the TrackPoint it's unacceptable.
The build quality is very solid and I don't feel anything rattling, squeaking, flexing, or breaking. The lid has no latch, but it stays down when you want it down, and stays where you put it when it's up. The surfaces don't attract finger smudges. A convenient side effect of a chiclet keyboard is that it is easy to keep clean. It's fairly thin and light, but still offers more ports than most ultrabooks. Only 2 USB ports, which is unfortunate, but at least you still get VGA and ethernet, for those of us who live in the real world and actually use them. The power connector is flat and therefore incompatible with the usual round connector, so you can forget about using your carefully hoarded supply of Lenovo power adapters. This is irritating. Also irritating is that you have to remove the entire bottom panel to get to the hard drive.
I won't spend too much time on performance, since there are tons of benchmarks out there and it really is OS specific. It's fast and I have no complaints at all about it. Battery life is good, and the dual battery system is a great idea. OpenBSD 5.9 and later support Broadwell graphics pretty well, though I have noticed a few graphical glitches that I have not been able to reproduce. Wireless works well for me on -current. All of this should only get better with time.
Overall, it's a very good laptop, but not really a good ThinkPad, which has more to do with what this laptop could have been than with what it is. Too many compromises have been made and too much has been ritually slaughtered on the altar of thinness. It's as if they are trying to attract Apple users without realizing that the customer base for the X series doesn't want a MacBook. Still, it has great performance, great battery life, a superior keyboard by 2016 standards, a great TrackPoint, great build quality, and a great display. If you want a newer ThinkPad and you aren't able or willing to wait for the Retro ThinkPad (if it ever is made), the X250 is still worth buying IMO.
