Anybody else hate the 1366x768 on the 12.5" screen? The 12.1" X200s had a 1440x900 screen, so don't tell me the screen is too small for all those pixels.
I understand that they have to go to 16:9 eventually, but couldn't they just jump straight to 1600x900 so we wouldn't have any vertical resolution hardships?
Besides, comparing 1600x900 and 1440x900 makes 16:9 seem better. If you have to persuade rabid business professionals about an aspect ratio change, wouldn't that be a decent argument to use?
The lack of vertical resolution is very bothersome - most business class laptops start at 1280x800 or 1366x768. It's very cramped, especially with MS Office Ribbon-enabled programs, or programming/photoshop apps with large toolbars.
Just don't forget. It's cheaper to make our laptops look like our tv's. Why would anyone possibly want a laptop that doesn't look like a tv anyways? [/sarcasm]
why must they go 16:9 eventually? Sure the market is pointing that way and all, panel availability and price must be favoring 16:9, but at some point a company should realize that for everything other than full-screen movie watching, wider is worse, and a big company or two could set up the supply for a panel with a better aspect ratio.
and who's buying a 12" notebook for a cinematic experience?
its too bad lenovo is still wasting space on a standard 2.5" hdd, when they could put extra battery in that space like apple did with the new air. especially when intel's micro solid state drive is already an option on this thinkpad. At least use a 1.8" hdd if they must.
because of the 16:9 screen, and the wasted volume on a 2.5" slot, I'm waiting a couple months for the sandy bridge refresh of the 13" macbook air (which will hopefully still not be 16:9), even though i vastly prefer the trackpoint as a pointing device.
is it significantly more? remember that the x201s which uses low voltage processors (like the air does) cost more than the air.
ive owned and used the x40, x41, x61, x201...
they are getting more bulky, and heavier.. the weight they quote is always with a 4-cell battery, while the battery life they quote is with 9+ cell.
my x40 with 12.1" screen is a better form factor then the modern x series... it had a 1.8" hdd, almost no screen bezel, and a non-widescreen aspect ratio.
they are making design choices to appeal to the mass audience, 2.5" hdds for consumers who want 320GB of storage cheap, and 16.9" screens.
clearly this is the time and the platform to commit to SSDs, which dont need a 2.5" space, or even a 1.8" one... lenovo played it too safe, and as a result, this design is significantly bigger than it could have been.
well as an owner of the x61 you shouldn't bitch about a 2.5" hard drive... they managed to squeeze a 2.5" hard drive in that series and it was just as small as the x40 albeit a bit heavier. besides as an owner of an x40 you should realize that the 1.8" option is a complete sick joke. I loved waiting 2 minutes to boot into windows xp, and another 3 minutes for the drivers and helper apps to finally load so I could actually start waiting the 1 minute for my app to show up after launching it. yeah give me a 1.8" hard drive in a modern system with a sandy bridge so i can be taken back to floppy drive load times...
the only problem with these systems that I can see is indeed the screen real estate being too small. however ips panels aren't that common and in this size they may be restrained in offering the pixel depth they want to. still the most impressive laptop announcement this year in small computing is the ips as standard touch screen x220 for $1199. as it has a standard 2.5" hard drive bay you can slap whatever you want in there aftermarket, intel ssd, velociraptor, 500GB green etc... pick your poison.
The reason they "have" to go to 16:9 is that while they could specifiy a 16:10 (or even a 4:3) screen if they wanted, the production volume is no longer there because all the mass market devices are 16:9 which means the price would be significantly higher unless they are able to buy them in massive quantities (eg iPad), or are willing to charge a large price premium on the device.
That's true, but why can't they offer a higher resolution option?
If I have to go 16:9, I'm ok with it as long as I'm using nothing less than 1600x900. I'll pay an extra $100, maybe $200, for it.
It's like everyone forgot about the 12.1" X200s (smaller than the 12.5" X220) with its 1440x900 screen. Now we're talking! A 900p X220 would have 146ppi, not far off the 140 ppi of the X200s.
This is like Apple denying the new MBP13 a 1440x900 option when the MBA13 defaults to 1440x900 for the same screen size! We know it can be done, why isn't it an option?
Just checked the Sony Vaio Z and it's wonderful 1920x1080 pixels in 13.1" of screen.
I had to use the UK site because the Z isn't offered in the US anymore, but the prices are close enough.
The Z has 1600x900 by default and the 1080p option is only £100. That's a little more than 150 USD! How can they offer such an insane density (168 ppi) for so little money?
Granted, the Vaio Z already costs quite a bit, but that is still a wicked price for an amazingly dense screen.
Agreed. The IPS display is nice, but the resolution is pretty crappy. Still, if I had to choose low res IPS and high res washed-out crap, I'd go with IPS.
Lenovo, bring me a 200+ppi 12in IPS (or something equally as good), preferably 4:3, and I will never look at another PC again.
I'm not so sure 768p is a "bad" resolution on a 12.4" device. Sure, 1280x800 would be better in a lot of scenarios, but dot pitch really is a problem if you go higher res. I supported a bunch of laptops at a large corporation at one point. They were all Dell Latitudes with 14" 1450x1050 LCDs. Is anyone surprised that we received regularly complaints from the users (who were almost all over 30) that they had trouble reading the display? So we ended up running every laptop at 1024x768 to avoid that problem.
Now, the nice thing about higher resolutions is that you actually have the option to drop to a lower than native res. But, don't say people should just use Windows' DPI setting. It doesn't always work well, and I say that as someone using it one several PCs daily; I regularly run into applications where some of the buttons or labels get messed up because they weren't designed with DPI scaling in mind. Considering these are business class laptops, I suspect a large number of business users would be more than a little unhappy with running at a native 1600x900 resolution.
I don't want old peoples' eye holding back progress.
I will admit your DPI related woes, though. The unfortunate thing is that more and more things are moving to the web (in web browsers that are basically DPI unaware) just when desktop OSes start to really support resolution independence.
I've got 30" LCDs for my two main PCs. Both have 120dpi setting enabled. I still end up using the "magnify" option ([CTRL][+]) to make text and images better on many websites for easy reading -- including AnandTech. It's not that I can't read the screen from three feet away, but it's a heck of a lot more comfortable to do so at a 150% magnification.
Now, when I open up Photoshop, you can bet I love having 2560x1600 pixels to work with. And I do that quite frequently. But for text work, I'm always "zooming" even with the high DPI.
Getting old sucks, kids. Don't do it! [From a 37-year-old. Yes, I'm now the old man of AnandTech, since Gary and Wes are gone.]
I'm over 30. I have a 22" monitor running 1680x1050, and I wish there was a 24" with the same resolution. It's not that I can't read it, it's that I'd prefer bigger letters because this is kind of tiring sometimes after a long day at work.
My boss is over 40. She just bought a laptop with a 15.6" display at 1366x768, and she complains that the text is too tiny.
My parents are close to 60. They have a 19" CRT at 1024x768 and I still see them leaning towards the screen.
I think I'd find 1366x768 on 12.5" quite unusable. Older people would probably find it completely unusable. Maybe one day we'll get perfect UI scaling so this will stop being a problem for some people, as well as higher resolutions to make everything look sharper and smoother.
My eyes are much worse than most people's (almost legally blind in one eye) and I have absolutely no problem reading the text on my 15.4" 1680x1050 laptop. Nor do I have any trouble on my 3.8" 480x800 smartphone.
We've been asking for decent notebook screens for so long and now we're finally getting an option! And what a nice option it is. Now it's up to us to put our money where our mouth is. Too bad I'm still *fine* with my 14" T61 and its crappy TN panel..
I've had an x201 for 6 months or so and I often wish I had a larger screen. The weight of a T410s/T420s is about the same, so unless your bag is seriously cramped for space I find little reason to choose one of these over the slim T400 series.
I'll be picking up a T420s in the next month to replace this x201, and the only problem will be trying to dump this x201 on somebody else here in the office. I hate 16:9 on notebooks, but I'll take 1440x900 over my current 1280x800. These new IPS panels seem like a downgrade with only 768 horizontal pixels. The 800 on my current display is a real PITA.
No, you quite clearly demonstrate that you do not know why people consider Thinkpads to be some of the best PC laptops in existence - they are QUITE different from other PC laptops.
They look just fine to me. A laptop is just a big rectangle that opens up. No need for fancy crap. Macs are fine looking too, but only if you want a silver rectangle instead of a black one.
Lenovo has put together a nearly perfect tablet PC... except they insist on not even offering the option of discrete graphics. Why? Consumers clearly can use a dGPU (gaming, video etc). Even businesses will be wanting a dGPU if they plan on keeping this machines for 5+ years, as the trend in computing is clearly lending towards using the GPU more often, so it would make sense to at least HAVE one, even if it won't be used extensively currently.
I realize Sandy Bridge integrated graphics can play todays games at low settings. That just means that in 2 years it won't be able to play anything.
and if it was even an option, that mean they reserved space in the laptop for it, so people who dont want it are still paying for it with weight and space wasted.
1) It's a business laptop. There is a difference between business and consumer lines. I doubt, for example, that you'll find a Fusion net/notebook with a magnesium chassis, an IPS display, or a Trackpoint. Business notebooks like the ThinkPad and Dell's Latitude E-Series cost more than Lenovo's IdeaPad line or Dell's Inspiron for a reason --and people who purchase business laptops are well aware of those reasons.
2) A Sandy-Bridge mobile processor can kick a Fusion around the block. Maybe you don't need that, but there is a corresponding difference in price. for that as well.
3) Fusion isn't even in the same market as Sandy Bridge. The Fusion APU is targeted for netbooks and value notebooks, not performance laptops.
Given how much time spent staring at it, it's great to see manufacturers bringing in cutting edge display technologies to laptops, like the IPS screen. Ever since I first picked up a Samsung Captivate in July 2010, I thought, "my next laptop HAS to have a Super AMOLED screen". This is kind of a pipe dream for the time being, but it's very exciting to see the almost-as-good IPS display make it into a not-ludicrously-expensive laptop.
However, I'm not sure that anything can make the Fn key being where the Ctrl key should be worth it. From the screen shots, it appears that the Lenovo is still putting their Fn keys in the far bottom left corner. WHY??? My college has some Lenovo laptops, and it's always a pain in the butt to use them for this reason.
Why would you want the Fn key, which is practically useless, closer to the center, and the Ctrl key, which is used a lot, farther away and harder to reach?
I wish they'd move the stupid Fn key somewhere else, like to the top next to the other useless keys PrtSc, ScrLk, and Pause. Then, make the Ctrl and Alt keys bigger and move the windows key over to the corner. Finally, get rid of the useless 'menu' key all together and make the space bar or right-side Alt and Ctrl wider. I think I've used the stupid menu key once in my life, if that.
It's easier to hit the last button in a row. I'm not the biggest person and don't have the biggest hands, but placing my pinky on the ctrl key is way too difficult - it's too close in my opinion.
But I don't care because you can switch the FN and CTRL keys in the BIOS. So really a non-issue for me. But I agree: they could move the FN key somewhere else. I use it a lot for the useful function keys thinkpads offer, but I can move my hand for that (it's not important if it takes 1s to reach it or 0.5s).
Sitting behind a T410 atm.
I really like the IPS display option - they are going in the right direction. But 16:9 definitely is the wrong direction, especially if you don't upgrade the resolution. I mean - it's not that bad with the T420 because instead of 1440x900 you get 1600x900 - so you don't "lose" any vertical pixels. Not saying 16:10 wouldn't be better, but if 1440x900 was okay, 1600x900 is also okay.
In all recent Lenovo laptops (as far as I know), there's been a switch in the BIOS config that lets you swap the Fn and Ctrl keys whichever way you like.
The "classic" reasoning for the Fn key position has to do with what happens when you hit the bottom left and top right keys on the keyboard - the keyboard light activation shortcut.
I was confused by that as well. The only thing I could think of was a hybrid disk, where the primary storage is the hard drive and it has some sort of flash memory. According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive "In May 2010, Seagate launched the Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive. It adds a new feature they call Adaptive Memory which is said to remove the OS, driver, and software dependency previously required to take advantage of the integrated Flash memory. The SSD portion of this new drive is also now a larger 4 GB, compared to 256 MB in the past."
I'm pretty sure the 4GB is right, and it's referring to a hybrid option.
No, doesn't look like a typo, 4GB SSD is what the spec sheet says. I assume it's just for rather specialized purposes (could be useful as a boot drive for e.g. linux...)
I saw it when editing and had to double-check to make sure Dustin didn't miss a 0. SSD sizes from Lenovo are limited to 80GB or 160GB I think, plus the aforementioned 4GB.
I've used Thinkpads ultralight line from x60 to x200s... their screen's resolution are on par with their peers. And it is absolutely usable: thanks to them I've made money exceeding their value, and any higher resolution will only strain my eyes.
I applaud the IPS display on the tablet, but is the resolution really sufficient on a Tablet? I think not. Toshiba at least had an optional 1400x1050 display on their 12.1" screen M400 tablets. I seem to recall the Lenovo tablets used to have the higher res screen option. For tablets the high rez screen goes directly to space for writing, and pen resolution.
I'd presume a refreshed Vaio Z would have a 1920x1080 screen option, since the previous one did. I'm not sure what type of screen it uses (or will use), but I have the impression (and hope, for the price) that it's a good quality screen. I was myself considering the Z almost solely because of the screen. It's not on Sony's website at the moment, however, probably because it's awaiting a refresh.
Hi, I am thinking of buying the lenovo x220 convertible and it has the option of the standard screen or an outdoor screen. Both backlit led. However, on forums I see lots of people talking about upgrading to an ips screen. This may sound stupid, but, is the ips both of these or is one of them the upgrade? Because on the spec description it doesn't specify. I simply want the screen that looks the best. Cheers.
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ImSpartacus - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Anybody else hate the 1366x768 on the 12.5" screen? The 12.1" X200s had a 1440x900 screen, so don't tell me the screen is too small for all those pixels.I understand that they have to go to 16:9 eventually, but couldn't they just jump straight to 1600x900 so we wouldn't have any vertical resolution hardships?
Besides, comparing 1600x900 and 1440x900 makes 16:9 seem better. If you have to persuade rabid business professionals about an aspect ratio change, wouldn't that be a decent argument to use?
crimson117 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
The lack of vertical resolution is very bothersome - most business class laptops start at 1280x800 or 1366x768. It's very cramped, especially with MS Office Ribbon-enabled programs, or programming/photoshop apps with large toolbars.martajd - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Is it possible to orient the screen in portrait mode? That way you could gain necessary vertical resolution when there are thick toolbars.AnnihilatorX - Sunday, March 13, 2011 - link
Definitely. Any graphic driver allows rotation. Whether it's easy to use is another matter, without easy access to keyboardDrag0nFire - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Just don't forget. It's cheaper to make our laptops look like our tv's. Why would anyone possibly want a laptop that doesn't look like a tv anyways? [/sarcasm]8steve8 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
why must they go 16:9 eventually? Sure the market is pointing that way and all, panel availability and price must be favoring 16:9, but at some point a company should realize that for everything other than full-screen movie watching, wider is worse, and a big company or two could set up the supply for a panel with a better aspect ratio.and who's buying a 12" notebook for a cinematic experience?
its too bad lenovo is still wasting space on a standard 2.5" hdd, when they could put extra battery in that space like apple did with the new air. especially when intel's micro solid state drive is already an option on this thinkpad. At least use a 1.8" hdd if they must.
because of the 16:9 screen, and the wasted volume on a 2.5" slot, I'm waiting a couple months for the sandy bridge refresh of the 13" macbook air (which will hopefully still not be 16:9), even though i vastly prefer the trackpoint as a pointing device.
martajd - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
So it being slightly thinner is a reason to pay significantly more?Does not compute.
Although moving to 16:9 truly is a poor decision for productivity and/or anything but watching movies.
8steve8 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
is it significantly more? remember that the x201s which uses low voltage processors (like the air does) cost more than the air.ive owned and used the x40, x41, x61, x201...
they are getting more bulky, and heavier.. the weight they quote is always with a 4-cell battery, while the battery life they quote is with 9+ cell.
my x40 with 12.1" screen is a better form factor then the modern x series... it had a 1.8" hdd, almost no screen bezel, and a non-widescreen aspect ratio.
they are making design choices to appeal to the mass audience, 2.5" hdds for consumers who want 320GB of storage cheap, and 16.9" screens.
clearly this is the time and the platform to commit to SSDs, which dont need a 2.5" space, or even a 1.8" one... lenovo played it too safe, and as a result, this design is significantly bigger than it could have been.
wetwareinterface - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
well as an owner of the x61 you shouldn't bitch about a 2.5" hard drive... they managed to squeeze a 2.5" hard drive in that series and it was just as small as the x40 albeit a bit heavier. besides as an owner of an x40 you should realize that the 1.8" option is a complete sick joke. I loved waiting 2 minutes to boot into windows xp, and another 3 minutes for the drivers and helper apps to finally load so I could actually start waiting the 1 minute for my app to show up after launching it. yeah give me a 1.8" hard drive in a modern system with a sandy bridge so i can be taken back to floppy drive load times...the only problem with these systems that I can see is indeed the screen real estate being too small. however ips panels aren't that common and in this size they may be restrained in offering the pixel depth they want to. still the most impressive laptop announcement this year in small computing is the ips as standard touch screen x220 for $1199. as it has a standard 2.5" hard drive bay you can slap whatever you want in there aftermarket, intel ssd, velociraptor, 500GB green etc... pick your poison.
DanNeely - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
1.8" HDDs are slower than the 2.5" variety.The reason they "have" to go to 16:9 is that while they could specifiy a 16:10 (or even a 4:3) screen if they wanted, the production volume is no longer there because all the mass market devices are 16:9 which means the price would be significantly higher unless they are able to buy them in massive quantities (eg iPad), or are willing to charge a large price premium on the device.
ImSpartacus - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
That's true, but why can't they offer a higher resolution option?If I have to go 16:9, I'm ok with it as long as I'm using nothing less than 1600x900. I'll pay an extra $100, maybe $200, for it.
It's like everyone forgot about the 12.1" X200s (smaller than the 12.5" X220) with its 1440x900 screen. Now we're talking! A 900p X220 would have 146ppi, not far off the 140 ppi of the X200s.
This is like Apple denying the new MBP13 a 1440x900 option when the MBA13 defaults to 1440x900 for the same screen size! We know it can be done, why isn't it an option?
ImSpartacus - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Just checked the Sony Vaio Z and it's wonderful 1920x1080 pixels in 13.1" of screen.I had to use the UK site because the Z isn't offered in the US anymore, but the prices are close enough.
The Z has 1600x900 by default and the 1080p option is only £100. That's a little more than 150 USD! How can they offer such an insane density (168 ppi) for so little money?
Granted, the Vaio Z already costs quite a bit, but that is still a wicked price for an amazingly dense screen.
shiznit - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
It's not an option because if would make the more expensive 15" MBP even less attractive while the 13" MBA is the top model.Frustrating I know, I was really hoping for 1440x900 for my first mac since the MBA doesn't have a backlit keyboard but the wait continues.
the_chillmaster - Thursday, March 31, 2011 - link
dan, you a smart man!! :)quillaja - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Agreed. The IPS display is nice, but the resolution is pretty crappy. Still, if I had to choose low res IPS and high res washed-out crap, I'd go with IPS.Lenovo, bring me a 200+ppi 12in IPS (or something equally as good), preferably 4:3, and I will never look at another PC again.
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Playing devil's advocate here....I'm not so sure 768p is a "bad" resolution on a 12.4" device. Sure, 1280x800 would be better in a lot of scenarios, but dot pitch really is a problem if you go higher res. I supported a bunch of laptops at a large corporation at one point. They were all Dell Latitudes with 14" 1450x1050 LCDs. Is anyone surprised that we received regularly complaints from the users (who were almost all over 30) that they had trouble reading the display? So we ended up running every laptop at 1024x768 to avoid that problem.
Now, the nice thing about higher resolutions is that you actually have the option to drop to a lower than native res. But, don't say people should just use Windows' DPI setting. It doesn't always work well, and I say that as someone using it one several PCs daily; I regularly run into applications where some of the buttons or labels get messed up because they weren't designed with DPI scaling in mind. Considering these are business class laptops, I suspect a large number of business users would be more than a little unhappy with running at a native 1600x900 resolution.
quillaja - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I don't want old peoples' eye holding back progress.I will admit your DPI related woes, though. The unfortunate thing is that more and more things are moving to the web (in web browsers that are basically DPI unaware) just when desktop OSes start to really support resolution independence.
JarredWalton - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I've got 30" LCDs for my two main PCs. Both have 120dpi setting enabled. I still end up using the "magnify" option ([CTRL][+]) to make text and images better on many websites for easy reading -- including AnandTech. It's not that I can't read the screen from three feet away, but it's a heck of a lot more comfortable to do so at a 150% magnification.Now, when I open up Photoshop, you can bet I love having 2560x1600 pixels to work with. And I do that quite frequently. But for text work, I'm always "zooming" even with the high DPI.
Getting old sucks, kids. Don't do it! [From a 37-year-old. Yes, I'm now the old man of AnandTech, since Gary and Wes are gone.]
AnnonymousCoward - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
"It's not that I can't read the screen from three feet away" - why are you 3 feet away? I sit 1.5 feet from my 30".I think 1366x768 is absolutely perfect on a 12.5". It's virtually identical density as 14" 1400x1050, and it's an extremely common res.
AnnonymousCoward - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
btw, Firefox add-on "Default Full Zoom Level" is great. I use 115% by default for all pages.Pinkynator - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I'm over 30. I have a 22" monitor running 1680x1050, and I wish there was a 24" with the same resolution. It's not that I can't read it, it's that I'd prefer bigger letters because this is kind of tiring sometimes after a long day at work.My boss is over 40. She just bought a laptop with a 15.6" display at 1366x768, and she complains that the text is too tiny.
My parents are close to 60. They have a 19" CRT at 1024x768 and I still see them leaning towards the screen.
I think I'd find 1366x768 on 12.5" quite unusable. Older people would probably find it completely unusable. Maybe one day we'll get perfect UI scaling so this will stop being a problem for some people, as well as higher resolutions to make everything look sharper and smoother.
synaesthetic - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
My eyes are much worse than most people's (almost legally blind in one eye) and I have absolutely no problem reading the text on my 15.4" 1680x1050 laptop. Nor do I have any trouble on my 3.8" 480x800 smartphone.This DPI-vs-resolution crap gets on my nerves.
MamiyaOtaru - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
I miss 4:3. heck I miss 5:4MrSpadge - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
We've been asking for decent notebook screens for so long and now we're finally getting an option! And what a nice option it is. Now it's up to us to put our money where our mouth is. Too bad I'm still *fine* with my 14" T61 and its crappy TN panel..MrS
Lifted - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I've had an x201 for 6 months or so and I often wish I had a larger screen. The weight of a T410s/T420s is about the same, so unless your bag is seriously cramped for space I find little reason to choose one of these over the slim T400 series.I'll be picking up a T420s in the next month to replace this x201, and the only problem will be trying to dump this x201 on somebody else here in the office. I hate 16:9 on notebooks, but I'll take 1440x900 over my current 1280x800. These new IPS panels seem like a downgrade with only 768 horizontal pixels. The 800 on my current display is a real PITA.
Alexo - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
You can't have the T420 with an IPS panel.MeesterNid - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
and it's still freaking FUGLY!Is it really true that in the past 20 years nobody has decided to make this thing look better than just cheap-looking, black piece of plastic crap!?
LoneWolf15 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
You have no idea what a ThinkPad is, and are not worthy of one.Go thou, and buy a shiny purple teenybopper Dell Inspiron.
MeesterNid - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I use a MacBook Pro, you douche! And I know exactly what a ThinkPad is...it's the same thing as an ugly HP or a Dell just with a different name.mino - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
The Duck was hit!akse - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Yeah those mackbooks looks just alike for the couple of years. Really gotten bored of how macbooks look, they all look the same.LoneWolf15 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
A hipster calling me a douche. That's rich.Pylon757 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
No, you quite clearly demonstrate that you do not know why people consider Thinkpads to be some of the best PC laptops in existence - they are QUITE different from other PC laptops.quillaja - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
They look just fine to me. A laptop is just a big rectangle that opens up. No need for fancy crap. Macs are fine looking too, but only if you want a silver rectangle instead of a black one.MeesterNid - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Right, and you also drive a box with four wheels? Because we all know that cars are just rectangular boxes with wheels, no need for fancy crap, no?mino - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
You drive your notebooks at 60mph?The cars WERE, and buses still are, just bricks before we cared about aerodynamics and energy consumption.
You know, brick just happens to be the shape with the most usable internal volume at a given footprint. :)
Pylon757 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw78gcU713gsynaesthetic - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I wish I had a screaming fast gaming laptop that looked like and had the build quality of a Thinkpad.I would pay five grand for one, seriously.
martajd - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Lenovo has put together a nearly perfect tablet PC... except they insist on not even offering the option of discrete graphics. Why? Consumers clearly can use a dGPU (gaming, video etc). Even businesses will be wanting a dGPU if they plan on keeping this machines for 5+ years, as the trend in computing is clearly lending towards using the GPU more often, so it would make sense to at least HAVE one, even if it won't be used extensively currently.I realize Sandy Bridge integrated graphics can play todays games at low settings. That just means that in 2 years it won't be able to play anything.
8steve8 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
x series is about mobility, and productivity, not about gaming.we don't want to pay for a dGPU with money, heat, volume or weight.
8steve8 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
and if it was even an option, that mean they reserved space in the laptop for it, so people who dont want it are still paying for it with weight and space wasted.LostPassword - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
899 seems unseemly to me. Hope street price is lower or I'm getting a fusion for half thatLoneWolf15 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
1) It's a business laptop. There is a difference between business and consumer lines. I doubt, for example, that you'll find a Fusion net/notebook with a magnesium chassis, an IPS display, or a Trackpoint. Business notebooks like the ThinkPad and Dell's Latitude E-Series cost more than Lenovo's IdeaPad line or Dell's Inspiron for a reason --and people who purchase business laptops are well aware of those reasons.2) A Sandy-Bridge mobile processor can kick a Fusion around the block. Maybe you don't need that, but there is a corresponding difference in price. for that as well.
3) Fusion isn't even in the same market as Sandy Bridge. The Fusion APU is targeted for netbooks and value notebooks, not performance laptops.
mino - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Umm, you will. And, coincidentally, it is a Thinkpad.Pylon757 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Well, x120e's battery life isn't anywhere close to the X220, and build quality is worse.Lifted - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
$899 is bare minimum - nobody will pay that.I paid $2,249 for my x201 with a pretty standard configuration.
drsilverworm - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Given how much time spent staring at it, it's great to see manufacturers bringing in cutting edge display technologies to laptops, like the IPS screen. Ever since I first picked up a Samsung Captivate in July 2010, I thought, "my next laptop HAS to have a Super AMOLED screen". This is kind of a pipe dream for the time being, but it's very exciting to see the almost-as-good IPS display make it into a not-ludicrously-expensive laptop.However, I'm not sure that anything can make the Fn key being where the Ctrl key should be worth it. From the screen shots, it appears that the Lenovo is still putting their Fn keys in the far bottom left corner. WHY??? My college has some Lenovo laptops, and it's always a pain in the butt to use them for this reason.
quillaja - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Why would you want the Fn key, which is practically useless, closer to the center, and the Ctrl key, which is used a lot, farther away and harder to reach?I wish they'd move the stupid Fn key somewhere else, like to the top next to the other useless keys PrtSc, ScrLk, and Pause. Then, make the Ctrl and Alt keys bigger and move the windows key over to the corner. Finally, get rid of the useless 'menu' key all together and make the space bar or right-side Alt and Ctrl wider. I think I've used the stupid menu key once in my life, if that.
Chloiber - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
It's easier to hit the last button in a row.I'm not the biggest person and don't have the biggest hands, but placing my pinky on the ctrl key is way too difficult - it's too close in my opinion.
But I don't care because you can switch the FN and CTRL keys in the BIOS. So really a non-issue for me. But I agree: they could move the FN key somewhere else. I use it a lot for the useful function keys thinkpads offer, but I can move my hand for that (it's not important if it takes 1s to reach it or 0.5s).
Sitting behind a T410 atm.
I really like the IPS display option - they are going in the right direction. But 16:9 definitely is the wrong direction, especially if you don't upgrade the resolution. I mean - it's not that bad with the T420 because instead of 1440x900 you get 1600x900 - so you don't "lose" any vertical pixels. Not saying 16:10 wouldn't be better, but if 1440x900 was okay, 1600x900 is also okay.
kepstin - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
In all recent Lenovo laptops (as far as I know), there's been a switch in the BIOS config that lets you swap the Fn and Ctrl keys whichever way you like.The "classic" reasoning for the Fn key position has to do with what happens when you hit the bottom left and top right keys on the keyboard - the keyboard light activation shortcut.
PhatoseAlpha - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Both come with support for either SSDs or mechanical hard disks (with a 4GB SSD option as a special order).I assume that should be 40GB?
secretmanofagent - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I was confused by that as well. The only thing I could think of was a hybrid disk, where the primary storage is the hard drive and it has some sort of flash memory. According to Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive
"In May 2010, Seagate launched the Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive. It adds a new feature they call Adaptive Memory which is said to remove the OS, driver, and software dependency previously required to take advantage of the integrated Flash memory. The SSD portion of this new drive is also now a larger 4 GB, compared to 256 MB in the past."
I'm pretty sure the 4GB is right, and it's referring to a hybrid option.
bhassel - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
No, doesn't look like a typo, 4GB SSD is what the spec sheet says. I assume it's just for rather specialized purposes (could be useful as a boot drive for e.g. linux...)DanNeely - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I wondered about that as well; but a midget PCIe SSD serving as a cache similar to the hybrid drive concept is a possibility as well.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I saw it when editing and had to double-check to make sure Dustin didn't miss a 0. SSD sizes from Lenovo are limited to 80GB or 160GB I think, plus the aforementioned 4GB.Teknojnky - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
with a 1600x1200 IPS.
Anything else is a downgrade.
T60P - 4gig ram - intel g2 80g - win7
beginner99 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
would buy if offered with a usable resolution...ismailfaruqi - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
I've used Thinkpads ultralight line from x60 to x200s... their screen's resolution are on par with their peers. And it is absolutely usable: thanks to them I've made money exceeding their value, and any higher resolution will only strain my eyes.mike8675309 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I applaud the IPS display on the tablet, but is the resolution really sufficient on a Tablet? I think not. Toshiba at least had an optional 1400x1050 display on their 12.1" screen M400 tablets. I seem to recall the Lenovo tablets used to have the higher res screen option. For tablets the high rez screen goes directly to space for writing, and pen resolution.the_guy - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Same issues with resolution as what others posted. What are our options for a decently High Res portable / ultraportable Sandy Bridge Laptop?quillaja - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I'd presume a refreshed Vaio Z would have a 1920x1080 screen option, since the previous one did. I'm not sure what type of screen it uses (or will use), but I have the impression (and hope, for the price) that it's a good quality screen. I was myself considering the Z almost solely because of the screen. It's not on Sony's website at the moment, however, probably because it's awaiting a refresh.lili53 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
welcomeebolamonkey3 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
So is Anandtech going to review this laptop? By the way things go, this could be my next laptop!lili75 - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
welcomelili94 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
welcomethe_chillmaster - Thursday, March 31, 2011 - link
whoever is going to choose a notebook, to get me for my birthday. I think important you get this one!!I need to be able to take notes during class,AND type, AND play games, AND do touch-screenapps..so,this is a win/win/win sitation!!!
James91 - Saturday, November 26, 2011 - link
Hi, I am thinking of buying the lenovo x220 convertible and it has the option of the standard screen or an outdoor screen. Both backlit led. However, on forums I see lots of people talking about upgrading to an ips screen. This may sound stupid, but, is the ips both of these or is one of them the upgrade? Because on the spec description it doesn't specify.I simply want the screen that looks the best.
Cheers.