X220 Quandry

[Paachi]

Hi Everyone,

A longtime lurker; this is my first post and a loooong one at that . I was in the market for an ultraportable which would do daily tasks (word, excel, ppt, internet, etc) and once every fortnight crunch camera RAW files in Lightroom. I looked at the Macbook Air 13" before settling in for something which I have a legacy with (been using Thinkpads for 14+ years now).

I got an X220 (Core i5 2520M + IPS + 6 cell) and upgraded it to 8GB RAM (G-Skill - NewEgg) and Intel 160 GB SSD (320). The machine beats the crap put of most Windows machines out there and is definitely a step up in speed from my X61t. However, coming from a long line of Thinkpads I am a little disappointed and here are my gripes:

- The build quality is definitely a step down from the X61t. The X61t lasted me 2.5 years through grad school, got beaten to a pulp and still sings. The X220's screen creaks if i press it on its sides. The 6 cell battery has a slight play (maybe less than an mm) which is [censored] irritating
- The IPS screen is uber excellent but when I i pull one of the edges (top left or top right) the screen changes color (blacks arent perfectly black). I dont know if this is an issue with my piece or a general issue with the X220's. Secondly, the vertical resolution or lack there of irritates me once in a while, when I am working on Lightroom or big spreadsheets
- Battery life is strictly okay. With the 6 cell I manage to eke out about 5+ hours of real life use. I hate to get the 9 cell or the slice because portability is very important to me.
- The SSD and 8GB of RAM havent given me a blinding performance boost. Boot up takes about 30 - 45 seconds. Wake up from sleep is near instant but resume from sleep takes 30 seconds. I have tried culling the startup items (using msconfig) to improve start times but meh..not a lot of improvement.
- Finally, the fan noise. Even on the i5 the fan is on 60% - 70% of the time and in a quiet workroom it is quite noisy.

On the upside..the machine is incredibly light, looks very professional, definitely a powerhouse, excellent screen, Thinkpad's accident protection warranty is unmatched. Oh, and lets not forget the price..my machine with all the specs and 2 years accident protection warranty set me back by $1200 incl taxes. The highest speced Macbook Air 13" even is bought used on eBay will be at minimum $1350 w/o warranty.

The Macbook Air's build quality might be good for average use, but I suspect the aluminum will dent and scratch easily. Apple doesnt give accident protection warranty. I dont mind the MBA keyboard or the switch to a different OS. I love the reliability of OS X, the excellent battery life and most importantly the ability to instantly wake up from sleep.

So, here's my question, given my perspective on the pros and cons of X220 and MBA should I return the X220 and go for the MBA (current model or the new one which Apple will release this month)??

Thanks in advance for all the inputs.

Best,
PK.

[ausmike]

hi Pk;
Glad you finally did a POST ! ...welcome to the forum

I have had the early X200 -i3 model and than got one of the first IPS model with i7 and can confirm - your worst fears - screen does 'react same way as yours' ,,,,, and Noise is ALSO "too loud" in my view.

Boot times - if you have fresh install of Win7x64 - maybe then you need to rmove any Tinvanatge apps - they usually slow and resource hungry! I can bootup and ready for use somewhere below 18 sec with intel SSDs 8GB etc ,,,, so maybe there is something you can look into is Linux - Ub'tu 10.x seems to what most pple want to use .... I have dual boot with SuSe Lunix Wkstn and things work nicely! But I dont have that heavy RAW file stuff like you -- however I always dealing with lots of larger (200MB+) .db files etc etc....and never misses a beat!

Mac vs x220 - am sure every apple user would stick to apple - for lots of their personal preferances .......my view is same the MONEY!

Hope this helps
Cheers

[ZaZ]

Have you updated the BIOS on your X220? I don't know if you're running the latest version, but it largely fixed the noise issue on mine. Now that the fan is fixed I consider mine to be excellent, as good as any Thinkpad I've used. Every Thinkpad I've owned has had some play in the battery. You can use some paper to fix it, if it really bothers you.

Before you get too enamored with the Air, the grass is always greener on the other side isn't it, you might want to poke around some Mac centric forums to see what users are saying about them. You might find up close it's not what you think.

If you do go with the Air, you might want to consider a rider on your homeowners or renters insurance. In addition to accidents, it will cover things like theft, which TTP would not. Plus I think you can stop/start coverage whenever you like.

[Paachi]

@ausmike: Thanks for the welcome. I have been a lurker and its good to be contributing back to the community. I installed a clean copy of win7-64 from a bootable USB stick. Then I selectively installed the Thinkvanatage utils (Powermanager, UPEK fingerprint reader, camera drivers and touchpad/ trackpoint drivers). I will see if I can tweak it even more. Ubuntu is another path I wanna explore but my daily bread and butter is MS Office and compatibility and ease of use is a big factor for me.

@FredGarvin: Thanks for the inputs. I did see the paper fix for the battery..but I was afraid if thats a recipe for setting the paper on fire due to excessive heat (or am I being daft here??)..and agree with your comments on the MBA. I have played with my friends' MBA and yes it has its limitations but the screen (both quality and resolution) is awesome and so is the battery life.

I have BIOS version 1.16..I see that Lenovo has a 1.17 in place. I will upgrade the BIOS and check if that makes a difference. Thanks.

[ZaZ]

I keep mine parked in low power mode, which for me, helps keep a lid on the noise and I'm not really doing anything where I need more. One thing I'd say about returning your X220 is your probably looking at fairly hefty 15% restocking fee.

I really like my X220i. Sure, the WXGA is lame, but that sort of the price for getting an ultraportable.

[ausmike]

Hi pk;
Thankvantage apps - only ones I use = Power Manager (with matching BIOS + hOTKEY + uLTRA KEY); FP Reader and rest I skip. The ToolBOX = a huge resource hog for my liking and offers little use - and all the rest I uninstall - even the HD shock Dec'tor etc ..... I dont even use the ACCESS CONNECTIONS - as I windows ultility to connect as needed.

I also have the TABLET(know you have a std x220); and that has newer SSD from intel(my travelling /play laptop etc) ,,, and that boots up well under 20 sec ,,,,,all three version has the lenovo 'fast boot' "secret sause" .....i AM NOT SURE IF THAT 'dll' helps much more than a couple of secs off the the boot time (IMHO)...
So be aware that if you REINSTALL windows Fresh; there is no way to correctly re load that 'fast boot' stuff ( thats what I am being told by lenovo tech Support) here is a link for that ,,,,,,
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... /RapidBoot

X220 is great for Photo use , and am assunming you using it in the QUITE CAMERA room; so its simialr to most situations where I get to a lot of my work (often too quite for me ).... but all X Series have simailiar 'fan' noise issues to me ,,, but its not unberable for my use . I jsut love to see the FHD (dreaming) Screen on these machines !

Havnt seen anything from Apple re anything close to FHD screens , but yeah love their LONG LASTING BATTERY!

Cheers

[bill bolton]

Boot up takes about 30 - 45 seconds.

You definitely have something unusual in your software config then. How long did it take to boot from factory build, before you blew it away?

Cheers,

Bill B.

[Paachi]

Thanks for the replies guys. So here is what I found out from Lenovo forums (this is a reply by Lenovo staff) : http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-Thi ... 021/page/3

"Thanks for all the great info! It appears there are multiple issues being reported in this thread:

1. POST time increases when TPM is in active state (compared to TPM in inactive state)
2. POST time increases when 8GB of memory is installed (compared to 4GB of memory)
3. POST time increases when certain SSDs are installed.

I can easily repro #1 and #2 and I think this is something BIOS team has to look at for a future BIOS release.

For #3 (SSD issue), I could not reproduce it with the Lenovo version of the Intel X25 G2. Usually issues like this are caused by a bug in SSD firmware. I know you said you are using Intel X25 G2, but it is the Lenovo version? Because the Lenovo version and the OEM version probably use different firmware that could explain why you are having an issue and I'm not."

So, I updated my BIOS to the latest version 1.17, deactivated TPM and my boot time came down to about 22~25 seconds. I will try tonight by removing one 4GB memory module to see if that improves boot up time. Looks like there is some issue with Intel SSD's with boot up performance. I will play aroudn with the SSD firmware and update this thread.

Thanks for all the help once again.

Best,
PK.

[ThinkRob]

Thanks for the replies guys. So here is what I found out from Lenovo forums (this is a reply by Lenovo staff) : http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-Thi ... 021/page/3

"Thanks for all the great info! It appears there are multiple issues being reported in this thread:

1. POST time increases when TPM is in active state (compared to TPM in inactive state)
2. POST time increases when 8GB of memory is installed (compared to 4GB of memory)
3. POST time increases when certain SSDs are installed.

I can easily repro #1 and #2 and I think this is something BIOS team has to look at for a future BIOS release.

Er... I'm not sure that the BIOS developer can or should do anything about those two.

On boot most BIOSs do a basic RAM check. Naturally, this is O(n), provided you're actually checking all the RAM. I'd say that you probably don't want to skip this sort of thing, as the ability to spot catastrophically-faulty modules before you use them is generally a good thing.

As far as TPM slowing boot, that too is something that I'd expect. Part of a TPM chip's job is to enable a chain of trust for the boot process, and the requisite hashing, etc. takes time.

[iamdmc]

Every new ThinkPad has some major improvements (speed, battery life, temperatures, features) but some drawbacks. I've noticed this through the entire X series since my first X31. They become less solid feeling, but all around they are still built very well, and are still the best on the market.

The X31 retailed for around $2,000.
I got my X61s for $1200
I got my X220 for $670 (specs in sig)

The market is driving down prices, and Lenovo has to keep up with that or die. Unfortunately, this also means that overall build quality will decrease too.

Everything considered, I'm still extremely happy. I'd never buy another brand or series. ThinkPad X and T series forever. May they never be discontinued.