A small "review" of the x201t, x230t and t430

This is a consist and short review, only considering what I believe is important as a professional user. I mean with professional user as someone who uses the computer daily in a office environment (or on the road) with MS Office or specialized application, and thus value productivity features more than the average user. I will also only consider aspects which cannot be determined through official specs, mainly what I myself would want to know from other users.

The computers are the two ThinkPad convertible tablets, x201t and x230t, and the ThinkPad t430.

Spec:
ThinkPad x201t: Outdoor display (400nit, PVA-panel, polarized anti-reflective layer, digital digitizer input), 8-cell battery
ThinkPad x230t: Multi-touch display (300nit, IPS-panel, anti-glare layer, digitizer input and finger-touch input), 6-cell battery
ThinkPad t430: Standard display (250nit, TN-panel, anti-glare layer), 6-cell battery

The display.
Outdoor performance.
This is the performance of the displays in harsh light conditions and with brightness turned to maximum. Each display has been cleaned from any grease or dirt.


This image shows the morning sun shining straight on the displays. The image does well represent the real perceived performance of the displays, and the t430 is significantly worse than the other two. It’s worth to mention that the x201t has till this day the best performance I have ever seen from any kind of display in harsh light conditions.

Indoor performance.


The displays are adjusted to what I believed is the same brightness. The x230t and x201t does perform better than the t430 even from a straight angle.


The IPS and PVA panels of the x230t and x201t are doing an excellent job, and the x201t has almost no color, brightness or contrast shift. The TN-panel of the t430 however, performs poorly.


Not only is the t430 worse with the actual image representation, but it has more problem with lights from the environment.

Dark representation.
Each display is set at maximum brightness in darkness, showing a black image.


The x201t has severe problems with backlight bleeding, which could be my particular unit. This problem is however, and strangely, only visible when the display trying to create dark images, but does not affect light images. I believe that this is also the result of Lenovo trying to put the protective glass as close to the panel as possible to minimize the distance from the pen-tip and panel, which I will talk about later. The x230t does an excellent job, and the t430 is if even possible as worse as the x201t.

The keyboards.
The x201t differs from the others and have the older ThinkPad keyboard. The keyboard does not have backlight, and hade some flex when I got it which was bad enough that it had to be fixed. The x230t and t430 have the same keyboard, and the typing experience is excellent.


Not much to say, the x230t and t430 is superior to the x201t when typing, and the backlight does an excellent job in dark conditions.


The t430 is unlike the others equipped with a small diode which illuminates the keyboard. This is a feature I personally is found of since it becomes a desk mini-lamp and gives the ability to read from physical papers while using the computer.

Battery life.
This is not measured, but the time I have experienced using the different laptops. Do not use these numbers as facts, but more as guidelines.

x201t. The 8-cell battery gives ~4 hours of use on normal brightness setting. The strange thing with the x201t is that the computer seems to consume a lot of power with a little concern of the application.
x230t. The 6-cell gives ~5 hours normal use during the day (maximum brightness) and with WiFi. Working with MS Office in the dark gives almost 9 hours, which is excellent!
t430. The 6-cell gives ~3.5 hours of battery life with normal usage. Have not tried to work only in MS Office in the dark. This computer also has the Lenovo version of Windows 7, while the x230t has a fresh install.

Cooling.
x201t. The fan is basically soundless and very efficient. However, some component did give away a very tiny high frequency sound when it was brand new, but which has disappeared with time.
x230t. The fan is as with the x201t, basically soundless until a heavy application is started (as CAD).
t430. Very loud! The fan will activate even when surfing the web, and gives away a sound which sounds like a mixture of a Harley Davidson and a Spitfire. It’s very annoying, and I must warn everyone to be aware! The computer has been "repaired", and the technicians said they had very big problems with companies returning the t430 because they were unsuitable for an office environment! The new fan helped a little bit, and the technicians claimed it could not get better for this model despite still being unacceptable.

Drivers.
x201t. Have problems with the pen accuracy. It’s barely suitable for fine art applications. The computer has otherwise been very good with no driver problems.
x230t. The big flaw of this computer is the drivers. The finger-touch is not accurate enough when close to the edges of the display (as with the digitizer, but the finger-input is automatically accurate in Linux(!)), the sound driver is completely corrupted and breaks constantly, the SD-card reader does seldom to almost never work, the microphone effect completely distorts the sound (can be turned off with some trix), the network managers (there are three of them (Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft)) are in conflict and the display has some very weird power saving feature which distorts the gamma level in battery mode. However, everything works perfectly in Linux (Ubuntu 13.10), which means that there is nothing wrong with the actual hardware. There have been some software updates recently, and I’ll update this review if the problems have been dealt with. The network is fixed by un-installing the Lenovo and Intel firmware, but the sound and SD-card reader must be fixed!
x430. Everything works.

Durability
I cannot test the x230t and t430, but the x201t have been through some challenges throughout the years. It has almost every day been transported in a bag, experienced cold climate to -24C, been through some wet weather, been dropped a couple of times etc. and nothing has happened. The moment of proof for the x201t was when I accidently dropped a whole cup of coffee on the keyboard and thus “drained” the computer with coffee when it was on. I pushed down the power button in panic, which disappeared beneath the coffee level of the keyboard, and the computer was still running as the coffee was “pouring” out from beneath the computer. Incredibly, nothing happened with the computer, and it has been working flawlessly for a year after the incident. I am impressed of how well the "spill resistant keyboard" actually worked.

The x201t has been the most durable computer I have ever had and is still running strong. Hopefully will this also be the case for the x230t and the t430.

Comparison of the tablets.
Displays.


This is the tablets facing the sun. The x201t is without doubt completely superior to the x230t. As said before is the old x201t the best display, of any computer, phone or tablet, that I have ever seen in a harsh light condition.


This shows the computers with the sun coming in from the sun and it’s a little bit cloudy. The iPad 2 is put there as reference, and the x201t is superior while the iPad despite strong backlight produces more reflection and gains some color distortion. The x230t is however somewhat usable in this condition.

The digitzers.
The difference from the x230t and x201t is that the protective glass of the x201t is much closer to the actual display (and thus the problem with backlight bleeding?). The benefit of the x201t is the short distance.


As the image shows, taken from a very short angle from the display, is the pen-tip very close to the actual panel on the x201t.


However, the user won’t be looking from the side when annotating, but from above. From this perspective does the x230t perform well, and better than the x201t. However, I have noticed that some users liked the small gap of the x201t and is therefore worth to mention.

Summary:
x201t.
Pro: Excellent outdoor performance (display), proven durability, quiet, good drivers
Con: Severe backlight bleeding, small touchpad, some keyboard flex, battery life and digitizer accuracy could have been better.

It’s a good computer, with excellent performance in some areas, but someone has to be aware of the cons. I can barely recommend it.

x230t.
Pro: Excellent battery performance, quiet, pen accuracy better than x201t, excellent keyboard, excellent display in low light conditions.
Cons: Some drivers are worthless (SD-card and sound are the worst!), finger-input accuracy is bad at the edges (driver problem since it’s perfect in Linux), the strange power saving feature of the display (also a driver issue), the touchpad is not good for those who uses it (I use the TrackPoint). It's worth to mention there is some "ghosting" with the display, but in such a small amount that I would not consider it a problem.

I cannot recommend this computer with such poor drivers. But the hardware is very good, and is an excellent machine as soon as they take care of the driver issue. It might also be the first time in my life when everything works, and works well, in Linux out-of-the-box, but not in Windows.

t430
Pro: Excellent keyboard, ThinkLight (the little lamp), good drivers.
Cons: The fan is unacceptable (be aware!), the screen performs poorly, mediocre battery life.

I will never recommend this computer, and the fan can even make the desk to vibrate! It is also strange that Lenovo cannot even deliver a mediocre solution for the t430 when the x230t is on the other hand completely quiet. The poor display is also a problem, but not as serious as with the fan.

 

I thought my X220t panel was accurate enough, of course I only drew on it very rarely. The fan on extreme load was pretty loud, but what laptop isn't. My biggest issue was the chunky 6 cell battery and the way Lenovo decided to make the excess go downwards instead of out the back like with all other X series tablets. Battery life was great, I could hit almost 9 hours dimming the screen and doing light work. I refuse to buy the X230t due to the newer style keyboard. Also I wish the X series tablets had the ThinkLight, no point of having the ThinkLight button on the keyboard and not having a ThinkLight...

My X200t was very close, being far quieter, offering similar performance in terms of just browsing the internet and doing light tasks. The screen quality was good, ran cooler, took awhile getting used to TrackPoint only, but eh I knew what I was buying. Never really installed 7/8 on it, ran XP Tablet as I bought it used from Commander_Wolf. 8 cell got me 6-7 hours.

My X61t while responsive, ran way too hot, and the fan was on all the time, not uncommon being a Merom Core 2 Duo. Loved the IPS SXGA+ screen, and I transplanted that from an X60t, so no bubbling issue. RAM was pricey, ran okay with Windows 8 preview, eventually put it back to XP Tablet, battery life was FAR better, also bought a new 8 cell OEM battery for it, easily hit 7-8 hours on it.

 

Do you have the latest BIOS for your T430? At launch, the first fan speed on my T430 was 3000rpm, which is fairly obnoxious, but somewhere between now and then they released a BIOS update that reduced the first fan speed to a more palatable 1500rpm (speeds measured with TPFC). It might not apply if your T430 has discrete graphics, but I figure it's worth mentioning.