Android on X220t/X201t

Just wondering, has anybody else thought about this?

After a quick search, I didn't see anything about running Android on a pc, but I thought it'd be pretty neat to have it as a secondary OS to Windows on a tablet pc like the X220 and X201 (and X200 and anything else XD ). I don't know how plausible it would be, but Android is open-source, and maybe if enough attention is given to the subject, Lenovo would be helpful in the attempt (by providing drivers or something).

Sure, it'd be a cool novelty to have, but I think it'd be pretty useful too for those times when you just need a superlight OS to do super simple tasks (say read an eBook). Android would be a ton lighter than Windows performance-wise on a tablet pc, so I would imagine near-instant boots to Android if one so wanted.

Here are what I think would make this perfect:
Dual-boot Windows/Android (3.0 would be awesome), Improved battery life (due to lighter OS), Android games (!), cross-OS file browsing (read the entire contents of your hard drive in both Android and Windows)...

Maybe I'm crazy for thinking this, but I think it'd be a great idea, and I'm surprised I haven't seen anything on it.

Discuss.

 

Like this? [ LINK]

 

Not possible until Android has an X86 or X64 version.

 

Ech. I have enough trouble with Droid phones already.

 

There is already a x86 port of android for PC.
Android-x86 - Porting Android to x86

 

Kinda... only I'm talking about having Android on tablet pc's that are already in existence (X220t, X201t, etc).

Yeahhhh, like this.
It definitely still appears to be very much a work in progress, and even so, it is mainly just being developed with certain computers in mind (Eee PC's). I'd think twice about testing it, but who knows how it is?
I know it wouldn't be easy, but I'd like to see full support in Android for hardware we have, like multitouch (for multitouch tablet pc's), accelerometer-support (doesn't the X220 have one that detects falls?), camera, etc.

Anyway, I'll keep my out on the development of that project, see if it makes any significant developments for usage by the everyday man. Without Google (and pc manufacturers) backing an x86 version of Android, I suppose it will just remain a pipe dream. Windows 8 will pick up some slack in the touch friendly area, though I still think it'd be great to be able to dual boot to a really light (comparatively) mobile OS like Android.

 

Yeah I know but it sounds like they already intend to make an Android tablet but as a companion to the ThinkPad notebooks.

 

I have found some more (good) info on the subject...

BlueStacks.

Granted, it's not exactly what I wanted, as Android would be running inside Windows (thus decreasing battery life), but it looks very good and promising in every other aspect.
Plus, there is hope for the future to fully satisfy me:

Theoretically, in the future, it will be possible to boot straight into Android (it's gotta be damn fast with an i5 & SSD) and then run Windows if you like. They don't think dual-booting Android and Windows is very effective, and they make a good case for their system, so I'd hafta trust em there.

I am led to believe that there is (or at least, should be) full hardware support, but the only way to be sure is to sign up to be an alpha tester and try it out myself.

 

I bought a decked out x220t with the hopes of making it a dual boot win7/android machine. No dice yet. Very frustrating. I'm looking at the thinkpad tablet, but it doesn't make sense when I spent so much $ on the x220t. Here's to hoping the smart people come up with 64bit android. If any of you figure it out, let me know.

 

I know this topic is kinda dead. But reviving it lol. I installed the dev version of ICS (android 4.0) on my X201T. No sound, touch screen and pen didnt work. But other than that everything else worked fine.

Market works Wifi worked (phenomenally I might add) so this machine was amazing in that area. With a little more work this could be the epic tablet!

Keyboard, mouse support, external storage support (fat32 didnt try exFat)

I might try checking out the code and having a go at it (not much of a dev just fairly technical) seeing if I can incorporate the touchscreen support into the kernel.

 

Which one did you test? I see 4 different builds. Would love to give it a go.

 

The only Android that works on my X220 is the ASUS build. The WiFi (Intel 6205), Bluetooth, and touchscreen do not work. The rest seems to work for the most part. Can't do much without WiFi. :-(

 

Yea the ASUS build is the one I used. I did some reading, I'm trying at building a generic build with ICS. The touch screen issue is the main thing for me. If I can get at least that working it would be an epic tablet. Rotational buttons would be a whole other issue. Since I don't think the X201T has an accelerometer, there is no way to simply autorotate (I could be wrong but haven't seen anything for an accelo).

If anyone has any ideas on how to incorporate the wacom touch stuff please let me know I would love to get a build out there for alot of the PCs that use it.

Strange that you mention wifi not working. It worked just fine for me. No issues at all. In fact seemed to work better on android than with Windows.

 

The x201t has an accelerometer (I think all ThinkPads has one?).

The main feature of the accelerometer for ThinkPads is to detect high increase of acceleration (when you drop it) and then park the arm for the harddrive (to protect it). Since you can drop it from all positions so must there be an three dimensional accelerometer. In the x200t/x201t/x220t they also added an "auto rotation" feature.

You can also use it for other applications if you are handy. Here is someone who edited Neverball and Tux Racer so they will use the accelerometer as an input device. Works on my x201t.
IBM Research | People | Mark A. Smith | SDL

 

Nice then ICS should be able to take advantage of it. Loading it up on it seemed pretty pain free using the ASUS build. I was creating a generic one that seemed to have the wacom support built into the kernel. But I think I need to setup other drivers. Also the lenovo accelerometer support? Also looking at a way to build support for all the other lenovo parts like the accelerometer which I know doesn't work at this time.

Im still working on a functioning build for this. It works just fine with mouse/keyboard support. Seems like apps just work. So a decent amount of work to get this functioning with this machine. Im excited. It would be the heaviest tablet I own. But also a fairly powerful one too Quad Core action and 8Gb of ram. I might look at swapping out the SATA storage for an SATA SSD.

 

here's another thread about ubuntu on x220t. I think it has a lot of useful information about drivers

 

Which Wifi card do you have? I have the Intel 6205. I'm working with an X220T btw. I'm surprised that there's not a greater initiative to have supporting builds for these Thinkpads.

 

I think its just that not enough people know about android-x86 is all. Distrowatch and some others don't appear to consider android a "linux" distro. But seems to be very linux to me. Kernel and all is there. I found some drivers googling around (should have saved the page to link it) that had the wacom-drivers without the xorg stuff. otherwise they dont work correctly. They are just basic drivers which is what we need to get this to work on android.

I got a bit of a learning curve here as I am pretty new at this. But the laptop isnt doing anything so I figure I can just keep reinstalling and tinkering till I get it right.

 

I guess I have a question here. Been looking around but no solid answers. Could I compile the wacom drivers into android? Since the linux kernel is the linux kernel I imagine it should work. However what I dont know is how to compile the drivers in android. Linux easy stuff. I had some challenges doing it in android. Missing various build tools needed to make it happen. Anyone got any info?

 

Anyone who might want touchscreen and wifi support for android x86 on the x220 should visit the link below and vote for it as a fix on the URL below. I didn't submit it, I just stumbled upon when looking for solutions.

Issue 634 - android-x86 - WiFi and touchscreen not working on Lenovo Thinkpad X220 tablet - An open source project to provide android support on x86 - Google Project Hosting

 

x61t build in the works: first build for x61t - Android-x86 | Google Groups


I have not tried it yet.

 

I tested the x61t build. It appears to mostly work (even the touch screen). However, there are a few critical issues that I noticed so far:

- Wifi doesn't work. The developer has it working for the x61t (another Intel card than what's in the x220t)
- Bluetooth doesn't work.
- Auto-rotate doesn't work.
- Power-management doesn't appear to work. The CPU appears to be at full-throttle at all times based on how loud the fan gets.

 

No love for the x201T. Touchscreen hasnt worked for me in any builds. been working at it tho. trying to figure it all out in my spare time.

 

Try this build: Stefan Seidel

They're trying to make a universal ThinkPad build. Wifi still doesn't work on x220. :-(

 

I was able to get Wifi working on the build in my previous post. I had to switch channels for some reason (from 6 to 11).