First impressions of the x220

Some brief first impressions:

My x220 was shipped on 4/26 and arrived 4/28 with the upgraded shipping option. Box contents included the laptop (i7 2620, 4GB RAM, 320gb 7200rpm HD, bluetooth, fingerprint reader, webcam), battery (9 cell), AC adapter, and a small booklet of instructions.

Out of the box, my first impressions were positive. Build quality feels solid. The latchless design works--there are two large magnets under the lip of the palmrest, and the lid snaps shut when closing. Aside from very mild keyboard flex on the far left side, there is no creaking. The 9 cell battery wobbles slightly, but not enough to bother me. The keyboard is quieter and not as "clacky" as my last x41 thinkpad, but still one of the best out there.

The premium IPS screen is wonderful. It's identified in windows as a "flexview", so I'm not certain if it's truly IPS or AFFS. It has slightly lower viewing angles and similar brightness compared to the iPad 1, with a higher dot pitch and matte surface. However, I can't help but feel that the screen should have been taller. A few more vertical pixels would have made a difference for documents, coding, excel, etc...

I haven't had a chance to test battery life. At 12/15 brightness, using wifi, and typing email/light internet browsing the battery meter claims between 9 and 10 hours. Watching 720p video on youtube cuts this to 6 hours. I'll reserve judgement until I have real world experience.

After hitting F1 at the splash screen, you're greeted with a standard BIOS screen. Aside from the words "UEFI BIOS" on the front page, there was no visual difference from a standard BIOS. There are several typos in the BIOS menus--Lenovo must not expect many users to see it.

After making my recovery media, I installed an Intel 310 mSATA 80gb SSD. The install was straightforward with the online x220 service manual ( Lenovo Support - Hardware Maintenance Manual - ThinkPad X220 and X220i) and videos ( http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/X220/index.html). Four pointers: 1. there was a screw waiting for me in the mSATA slot, 2. Some wiring is taped down into the base of the mSATA slot--in my case it fit underneath the SSD 3. Remove the stock HDD before your first boot with the SSD. 4. Some aspects of the install, particularly disengaging the ribbon cables and reattaching the palm rest and keyboard, are better explained on the video than the manual and vice versa. I recommend referring to both.

For those of you without experience taking apart electronics, I'd watch the service video before purchasing the mSATA SSD. Lenovo has clearly gone to great lengths to make the x220 user serviceable. That being said, the install involves removing, and more importantly replacing the keyboard and palmrest. If this sounds like too much, either get a friend to help or consider a 7mm SSD in the main bay (a considerably easier install).

I highly recommend an SSD. While the Intel 310 is far from the fastest drive out there, application loads and boot times were noticeably faster compared with the stock HD. Boot up and shut down is particularly impressive, even before installing rapidboot. That being said, the stock Hitachi 320gb 7200rpm HD is no slouch. It's also quiet; I can barely hear its seeks over the system fan and it's essentially inaudible at idle.

A clean install of Windows 7 was in order. As others have noticed, Lenovo's stock install of windows does not include SP1. Nearly all of the necessary drivers were on the lenovo support site ( Lenovo Support - Drivers and software - ThinkPad X220, X220 Tablet, X220i, X220i Tablet) or automatically downloaded by the thinkvantage support tool. The exception was the "Renesas USB 3.0" driver.

Because the x220 is not as deep as previous x series laptops, the palm rest is short and doesn't provide much palm support. The trackpoint works as expected. At first I had interference from my palm brushing against the touchpad, but setting the palm detect sensitivity to maximum in the ultranav driver fixed this. You can also turn off the touchpad altogether with the ultranav driver or in the BIOS. The touchpad is serviceable, but as a die-hard trackpoint user it doesn't get much use.

Overall my first impressions have been positive. High points include the build quality, IPS screen, keyboard, trackpoint, friendliness towards user upgrades, and battery life. Low points include the aspect ratio of the screen and ergonomics of the short palm rest. It's not the perfect laptop, but in my opinion it's the best out there in this form factor and price point.

Addendum:
It turns out there's a registry edit to enable "maximum power savings for wifi adapters" on the original factory image that's not on the lenovo website. It's located here:

main drive:\SWTOOLS\DRIVERS\EnablePS

For those interested, the Renesas USB 3.0 driver/install is also in SWTOOLS:

main drive:\SWTOOLS\DRIVERS\USB3.0

 

I'm ridiculously jealous that you got your X220 already. Congrats and thanks for taking the time to post this. (When I get mine I'll probably disappear for a few days just mucking with it on my own ^^

 

Why does the manual distinguish between x220 and x220i. I thought i was JUST a i3 and x220 was i5 and i7. If they are exactly the same computer aside from the processor, why would the manual say x220 and x220i?

Can someone shed some light?

Sorry to be off-topic but I got the x220i version and I hope it's build quality isn't inferior or anything

edit: Called in and the rep said there is abosloutley no difference between the two aside from the processor. I asked why the manual makes a distinction and he said it just does but there's no difference at all aside from the processor. Still seems like an odd practice. Why put i3 in one naming convention but put i5 and i7 in the same one and not make a distinction between those?

Oh well, at least it's exactly the same

 

As far as I can tell there isn't any difference between the x220 and x220i except for the i3 processor and available options. We'll have to wait for people to get their hands on it before we know for sure.

 

I think the "i" label is a special case configuration. Instead of having people remember specific builds or configurations (like 4296-2YU), if they want the cheapest budget system (aka i3, with 2gb ram, smallest hard drive, no bells and whistles) they would say I want an x220i.

 

One last tidbit that may save some time for the more neurotic x220 users out there:

When I first received the computer, it self-reported as a B2 stepping of the Cougar Point chipset in device manager. B2 is the flawed stepping Intel recalled several months ago.

Apparently this is false--I downloaded the tool at this link ( Re: W520 with B2 stepping QM67 chips - HDD/DVD/mSA... - Page 4 - Lenovo Community) which says I have the B3 stepping. This is the fixed version.

 

Thanks for the impression. I am thinking of a clean install of 7 when I get my x220t, but I don't know if I should since I still want Lenovo's app for battery management. Do you recommend that I do it?

 

The Thinkvantage battery management app is downloadable from the drivers link I provided above.

The best reason not to do a clean install is that it's inconvenient. If I hadn't switched in an SSD, I probably would have stuck with the stock installation.

 

What is the msata called in the manual? I can't find it anywhere on there.

 

Thanks 4 sharing your nice new X220 with us!

 

I believe it's in the WWAN slot. Same instructions without attaching the wires.

 

Yes, there are different support pages for the 220 and 220i for the 4287-CTO:

IBM Personal computing support - Quick path results

One thing I've noticed is that the 220 has 68 drivers while the 220i has 61. Without looking in more detail, I would hazard a guess those 7 extra drivers may be to do with VT-d, Intel Trusted Execution and AES, which are all missing from the 'stripped down' i3 and i5-2410M of the 220i. Could easily be wrong about that though.

 

is uefi enabled by default?

how do you allocate between your 2 storage devices (ssd and hitachi sd)? do you just use your hitachi disk as a storage drive, put your entire windows user profile on the hitachi, use win7 libraries, etc.

i've looked around and i haven't really found any 'standard practices' for allocating space with the new msata drives.

 

SSD: OS + frequently used programs + current documents
HD: infrequently used programs + archived documents + other media

I've had this setup for less than a day now, so take it with several grains of salt.

I'm unclear whether UEFI is activated. I left it on the default compatibility mode in the BIOS, so assume that I'm not using UEFI. If you know of a way of checking, let me know.

 

Basically it's like this: when you install Windows, you choose the drive you want it installed on. Say your SSD is drive C: and your regular HDD is drive D: (it assigns letters automatically), so you tell Windows installer to install Windows on drive C: (your SSD), and it will install (you would need to format both of them for Windows to be able to recognize them later on, which is done through the Windows installer or after Windows is installed but that'll probably be too complicated for you). Once installed, you open My Computer and it will show two drives. Drive C: will host all your Windows stuff, and drive D: you can use for whatever you want. You could put films, pictures, documents, etc on it instead of on the SSD.

There's no rule really what to put on one of the other. People install both mSATA SSD and regular drive because SSDs are still a lot more expensive per GB than regular HDDs and their capacity is pretty limited. So some people with lots of pictures and movies will not be able to fit all of it on the SSD, otherwise they'd probably only keep the SSD. e.g a 80GB SSD can cost anywhere between $100 and $200. While for the same money you can get a 1-2TB (that's 1024-2048GB) HDD

 

check the partition style of the SSD.

right click my computer > manage > click on disk management.
right click on disk 0 > properties > volumes.

i believe that a uefi enabled windows will have a gpt partition style, and the traditional bios will have a mbr partition style.

 

Do you find it kind of thick/bulky for being a 12 inch notebook?

 

Wasn't there a Lenovo driver that would "merge" the mSATA SSD and the HDD and then auto-manage what was put where? Maybe I'm just going crazy.. I think it was something along the lines of their Lenovo Enhanced Experience 2.0 thing.

 

I believe it is called Rapiddrive, not sure how it work but they have be bragging about the technology since 2010 CES. I believe it does merge the SSD and HDD.

 

Ah. Yes it is rapiddrive. Is this installable after the fact? Or are the mSATA options not being shown because Lenovo doesn't have the software ready?

 

To address two points in the original post, FlexView is IBM/Lenovo's tradename for IPS and the touchpad/trackpoint can be switched on and off using Fn-F8 inside Windows.

Thanks for the initial impressions!

-darren

 

Nice details however quick nitpick.

Asking windows (or any OS) what panel technology the LCD uses is kind of like asking it what color the case is.

It really has no clue beyond the driver/EDID functions (reported resolution support which can be different than native, refresh rate, etc) and vendor/device id.

 

lenovo rapiddrive:

Lenovo - Lenovo Enhanced Experience consumer PCs for Windows® 7

after skimming through that page and watching the demonstration video, it looks more of a marketing thing to me than anything else.

1. rapiddrive is only available for the consumer line of lenovo laptops. ie., ideapads.

2. rapiddrive technology is basically a 'certification' (sort of like Intel Centrino) where the laptop will have both a mSATA SSD and a traditional laptop hard drive. Win7 will be installed on the SSD.

3. no where in that site really shows the synergy between the SSD and the traditional HD.

4. besides the extra storage space, i don't see any enhancements rapiddrive can offer vs. a laptop with only a SSD installed, at least performance wise.

5. that page is mostly marketing fluff.

 

What I got from it when I first read it there is that it's nothing more than a SSD. They call it RapidDrive because it's fast. So if you install a SSD with Lenovo's recovery discs ontop, you basically have a RapidDrive

 

re: sp00n
Thanks for the tip. I can confirm that the mSATA was formatted using MBR partitions. I used the default settings, so it does look like you need to choose UEFI-only in BIOS if you want a GPT partitioned disk.

 

thanks. good to know that lenovo ships their laptops out with uefi disabled by default. looks like i'll have to enable it when i get mine.

 

From my understanding of what Rapiddrive is, it is kind of like the Seagate momentus xt but instead having the NAND preinstalled in harddrive, Lenovo's driver trick the OS thinking that the HDD and SSD are just one drive. I am not sure how Lenovo delegate where disk you file will save onto.

 

that's interesting, i'd be curious to see an ideapad owner who has the rapiddrive technology installed.

 

How about some pictures or videos.

 

Yeah, let's see some pictures of the screen! Are the colors oversaturated?

 

The description of RapidDrive, if you read Inside the Box Lenovo RapidDrive Technology, it says:

Your machine will have your standard hard disk drive plus a 32GB or 64GB SSD installed in the internal PCI-E slot. The breakthrough is not combining the two in one system. Anyone can do that. The breakthrough is using a Lenovo patent-pending technology that connects both the SSD and HDD simultaneously as one big, contiguous drive. Unlike my setup above, this storage is dynamically pooled and managed. The end user does not need to do anything. The system manages the SSD depending on usage. Programs, documents, and other files are dynamically moved on and off of the SSD so that you can always get the fastest speed possible. This also means that the system will not return an error if the SSD is already at full capacity. The program/file will automatically be installed on the HDD and moved to the SSD later in the background if the algorithm determines that is optimal.

 

Is it possible to swap Fn and Ctrl in BIOS?

 

That's actually really cool! I wonder how well it works in practice and whether or not it will come to x220 once they start making them with mSATA option avaiable. Maybe you can even use the IdeaPad RapidDrive driver on the x220?

 

yes, i believe the recent thinkpads can be swapped in the BIOS settings.

 

I just checked: Yes.

Personally I like it as it is.

 

Thanks for this zygomatic!

I am currently close to pulling the trigger on an X220 ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...uld-i-get-x220-plus-some-other-questions.html)

Relating to your comment:

I also have a similar concern:

I am hoping that the 1366x768 resolution doesn't end up bugging me a lot.

When I was at the store looking at a Sony SB with similar resolution, I then got drawn to the MCB 13" which had a bit larger resolution (1280x800). At that point I was in MCB-lust-mode, so I was thinking that the 1280x800 resolution actually made a big difference. Now though, I am in X220-lust-mode, so I am hoping that 1366x768 will be fine.

I'll be looking for your ongoing impressions.

Cheers,
Wayne

 

I don't know why 32 pixels make that big of difference. One of my HTPCs has a 1366x768 resolution LCD. I surf on it and it's fine. If you use the stick, it's so easy to scroll, you probably won't notice the small loss in resolution.

Congrats to the OP. I'm green with envy. Mine's still a month away from shipping. :cry:

 

A few questions about doing a fresh install on a msata drive?

does lenovo ship an OS disks with their comps? if not how do you get the media? is it on a drive partition and you can just run it off the HDD?

also what is uefi, and do I want it enabled or disabled?

Perhaps if someone post the basic procedure for installing windows on a msata drive?

Also if I get the gobi 3000, would this take up the spot or the area where the msata would go?

Thanks

 

Lenovo does not give you an OS disc. You can download one in the Windows forum if you like. You can burn off the recovery discs want to restore your machine to the factory state. I think and I may be wrong about this, it's been a while, you can burn them to an image, then transfer them over to another machine with a burner via USB, but you'll need a optical drive to use them. I think you can install Windows 7 via USB, but I don't have any experience with it.

The slot for the mSATA drive is under the palm rest. You'll need to take it off and stick it in. Hit the training and support site. There's a link the sticky. It has videos showing how to take apart and put back your X220.

 

Zygomatic, thenks for sharing your initial impressions. I also ordered an I7 one, however, it has not shipped yet.

Any heating issues or fan noise to be worried about?

I am asking because all the online reviews tested the I5 version.

Thanks

 

The i7 has the same TDP as the i5, MGMS - 35W. It may be 2 degrees warmer as it does use a *little* bit more power in the real world, but it won't be a significant difference from what reviewers with i5s had.

 

You can install W7 via USB. What that entails is downloading the ISO and then downloading an official microsoft tool (forgot what it was called, essentially it unpacked the ISO onto the USB and made the USB bootable). I did that with my current laptop when I reinstalled when I got my SSD. If theres actual interest in this I'll go dig up some links.

 

how did you make your own recovery disc?
i want to install SSD but i also want to keep the Lenovo's custom OS

 

Re: heating and fan noise--my experience has been similar to those of the reviewers. The x220 is quieter and cooler than my old x41. You can set the fan noise and processor speed in the battery app. On battery doing light browsing it's nearly silent. After running memtest86 (a stress test) for 20 minutes, the fan kicked in (loud) but I was impressed that the bottom of the laptop was only moderately hot.

Zaz and others have addressed the mSATA windows install. So far as windows is concerned, the mSATA is no different than any other HD. There are two ways to do it:
1. Doing a clean install is more complicated, but puts less bloat on your new SSD. This post sums up what I did, with the exception that I didn't use the UEFI BIOS.
2: The second, easier option is to burn a copy of the recovery media from the stock hard drive, remove the old drive, install the mSATA, then boot from the recovery media. I haven't actually done this, but I suspect it's less work.

I won't be posting pics or video. There are plenty of those floating around already. See the review on this website (NBR) or laptopmag.com. My impressions have been very similar to that of the laptopmag review.

 

re: recovery disks, if you click on the recovery drive in windows explorer, a dialog will pop up offering to burn a set of discs. You need 1 CD (the first disc) and 3 DVDs.

 

On the Start Menu there should be a link that says "Lenovo ThinkVantage Tools". Click on that and there should be a link to make your Recovery Discs which are easy to follow.

 

Just a warning: With the x120e, at least, you HAVE to update all the Thinkvantage suit utilities first before you are able to make the recovery disk. Before updating I only had the option to make a backup disc (different. You can't re-install the Lenovo image/Windows using that method)

 

I followed your recommendations and things have gone pretty smoothly....thanks!

I'm missing a USB driver and I'm guessing it is the Renesas 3.0 that you were missing (I too have an i7). I googled with no luck...Can you tell me where you found it?

[Never mind....I found it!]

Thanks!

 

Man, if you could dig up the links or even just the name of that tool it would be much appreciated. Having that would make bootable USB sticks soo much easier.

 

This works great:

YUMI - Multiboot USB Creator (Windows) | USB Pen Drive Linux

/Thomas