I wish Lenovo would sell me what I want between the X200s and X200.

I've been using a 14" ThinkPad at 1440x900 with a regular-speed processor for a little over a year. I love it, but I'd love it even more if it were a 12-inch notebook with an LED-backlit screen and without an optical drive. I'm basically a perfect candidate to be a ThinkPad X Series customer.

Why is Lenovo breaking my heart between the X200 and the X200s? I had never even thought that a 1440x900 screen or full-speed processors were possible in a 12-inch chassis before X200 and X200s came along. I'm one member of a (probably very large) segment of customers who's been using a larger notebook only because I had to: I crave the fastest processor possible, I refuse to use a reduced-size keyboard, and I've tried all the popular 16:10 resolutions extensively and found 1440x900 to be the lowest res possible where I'm still comfortable.

I know that pixel density is a sticking point for some folks here -- I'm not one of those people. I'm in my early 20s, my eyesight is great, and I think 1440x900 looks awesome at 12.1". Hell, I think they could do a pretty stunning 1680x1050 on 14.1" laptops if they wanted to. Pixel density arguments aside, forcing a CCFL screen on the X200 is beyond silly. The pessimist in me is convinced it's to limit battery life from the X200 so that the X200s's longer life looks better in comparison, but that's ridiculous.

The huge array of accolades including rampant "best laptop of 2008" claims being thrown at the X200 suggest to me that the market has similar tastes to my own. We're not interested in a $1,500-1,800 pricetag and crappy low voltage processors. The X200 should come standard with an LED-backlit 1280x800 panel, and the 1440x900 LED panel from the X200s should be a +$whatever marginal upgrade for resolution whores like me.

CES was a bust, and I am itching to drop down to a 12" ThinkPad. It sucks that these two machines are so close to being perfect for me, but I'm denied one of my top two priority features (#1 being a 1440x900 screen, and #2 being an Intel P8600) no matter which way I go.

If you were a bunch of guessing fools, would you guess that it would be easier to install a 1440x900 LED screen in an X200 at some point down the road, or to install a faster processor in the the X200s? I'm guessing "f-ing neither," with a heaping helping of "Lenovo releases a ThinkPad with both features exactly one week after kalibar makes a purchase, no matter when he makes that purchase" piled on top for good measure.

 

oh and this is the part where a low-voltage apologist will tell me that the SL9400 is actually "pretty fast" and I should just buy the X200s and shut up

it's 50% more money for 22% less performance, and I hate paying more for less. The X200 with 9-cell gets great battery life and basically proves once and for all that the P8600 is a fabulous jumping-off point

 

Not entirely, you're paying more for more battery life.

The SL9400 also has 6 MB of L2 cache instead of 3 MB on the P8600, that's where the money goes.

It really depends on what applications you're using, for regular office tasks, I doubt you will see a big difference. For heavy tasks, such as video editing and encoding, this is where you may see some differences, but I'm not even sure which one is actually faster since I couldn't find any benchmark results for the SL9400.

 

yes, the displays can be swapped but you'll need to swap the entire assembly from the bottom up.   as it sits right now, the most cost-effective way to do this is to buy an X200 and an X200s and trade parts like legos.

unless you've used both the X200 and X200s and directly compared performance, i don't see how you can be so quick to judge the X200s' processor.   NBR tested each and the X200s with an SL9400 and X200 with a P8600 score almost identically in PCMark05 ( source) -- and the X200s was actually 11 points better.

 

Good find, erik.

kalibar, here is another good article that you should read.

Does Cache Size Really Boost Performance? What Is The Impact Of Cache Size?

Just because the P8600 has a faster clock speed, it doesn't necessarily mean it's faster.

 

Oh hey, thanks for the response.

Seriously? Is there a source or tutorial on how to do this? I googled high and low and couldn't find anything indicating that it would be possible, but I attribute that to a relatively small number of X200s customers out there. This would be absolutely amazing if there aren't any horrible side effects.

Seems like it might be possible to find a new X200s owner (or potential X200s customer) who wants the lower dpi of 1280x800 and wants the X200's webcam.

This is really intriguing, thanks for your help.

I'm not being quick to judge the SL9400's performance -- I've actually been super thorough while researching over the past couple of days. The NBR review of X200s does a pretty bad job giving us an accurate picture of its processor performance since the PCMark score gives it credit for having an SSD where the reviewed X200 didn't.

More relevant is NBR's EliteBook 2530p review, which does a wPrime (CPU-only) benchmark. The EliteBook is packing an SL9400, just like the X200s is. Here, we see that the X200's P8600 defeats the SL9400 by almost 9 seconds (a 22.2% advantage), and even the less-efficient 2007 Intel T7500 that I'm using in my ThinkPad right now defeats the SL9400 by 3.5 seconds (an 8% advantage).

Yeah, I'm not going to notice it in Microsoft Word. But I will notice it when running VMs, compiling programs, performing mass ID3 tag operations on my music library, compressing files, and many other activities. Much more importantly, I'll notice the extra $500 missing from my bank account to "upgrade" to a processor I don't want.

I realize that the battery life is still better on the SL9400, but the X200 can pull 9 hours with the 9-cell battery. That's enough to get me through my day.

 

I mean, I get that, but it's a $500 "upgrade" that I don't want. And I'm glad they bumped the cache size, but depending on the degree of each, I'd almost always take a clockspeed boost before a cache size increase.

 

I don't think you should compare it to a completely different notebook, the HDD speed and other components will have an impact on the results.

I know the $500 bump may seem to be unjustified, but you have to understand that the CPU's cache size is actually more important than the clock speed when you're comparing CPUs from the same category. For example, 2.8 GHz w/ 6 MB will be faster than 3.0 GHz w/ 4 MB. This is why a CPU with bigger cache is always more expensive even if the clock speed is slower.

 

ThinkPad Hardware Maintenance Manual index

 

During the last months I've been waiting for a perfect compromise between X200 and X200s. In fact I've just been waiting for a LED-screen with a frickin webcam. Since Lenovo can't provide what I'm looking for, I'm seriously considering jumping the whole PC ship and getting a fashionable MacBook.

 

jane, that's exactly what i was going to say.

kalibar, if you compare the LCD assemblies in the X200/X200s, you'll see that everything needs to be swapped from the hinges up.   this includes the hinges, LVDS cable, wireless antennas, LCD panels, front bezels, LCD covers, etc.

like i said above, given the costs involved in procuring all of these parts seperately, the only cost-effective way to build what you want is to buy both systems and swap the LCD assemblies.   just keep in mind that you could void your warranty in the process or be denied warranty service in the future.

the X200s reviewed had a "7200RPM 160GB Hitachi Travelstar (HTS722016K9SA00 ) SATA", not an SSD.   the X200 and X200s reviews are probably closer than you realize.

i still haven't seen any definitive evidence convincing me that the X200 is markedly better or faster for what you describe.   personally, i'd rather have the extra cache and lower TDP of the SL9400.

 

I had an x200 and now have an x200 Tablet (I didn't like the screen on the x200). I will say that raw processing power is slightly reduced on the x200 Tablet (it is the same as the x200s), but for the vast majority of applications it not an issue at all.

One other advantage of the x200s that you aren't factoring in is that it's a shade thinner and 0.5lbs lighter than the x200. I think this helps compensate for the mildly reduced performance. Hand in hand with this is a reduced cooling system on the x200s (this is why trying to put a P8600 in it would be a bad idea [I doubt it's even possible as it's soldered in]).

What applications are you running? And where are you running them (e.g. on battery)? If it's games, you will be bottlenecked by the GPU far before the CPU becomes an issue. If it's audio/video transcoding and/or compiling the x200s will only be marginally slower as the extra cache will help offset the reduced clock speed. Further, if you are running these tasks on battery, both the SL9400 and P8600 will undervolt to ≈800MHz.

If you'd like me to run wPrime or some other benchmark on my Tablet I will (full specs in sig). I did think I might miss the extra raw performance (and if you go back to my posts in September you will see me making your case that the x200 is better than the x200s due to the P8600), but I haven't missed it once.

 

OP, I totally feel your pain. I wanted an X200 with an LED screen and would have paid a lot for one with WXGA+ resolution. I recently caved when I got a good deal on a barely used X200 on this forum's buy/sell board. Got an X200 with the 8600 for $825 shipped...figured what the hell? The price was sweet and it was just a couple of months old. That said, the second Lenovo brings the LED and/or WXGA+ option to the X200, I'm selling it and upgrading!

 

I understand where OP is coming from and wonder myself why wouldn't Lenovo offer X200 with WXGA+ screen.

On the other hand I don't think that LV CPU is that much of an issue. Most if not all day to day applications would run great on SL9400 and problems could start only if you're heavily into multitasking (like myself). But than again how much slower X200s would be from X200 when running, let's say

- a Firefox with 15-20 open tabs,
- e-mail client software (main window plus few messages opened in separate windows),
- one or two IM programs,
- several documents open (spreadsheets, word/pdf documents);
- few file manager windows,
- audio player,
- some p2p software,
- one (or even two, if you have enough RAM) virtual machines

I'd imagine that they'd both do just fine, at least I hope so as this is roughly my usage pattern. My Asus (see sig) is capable of handling that just fine (with exception of last, I can only run one VM at the time as I only have 2gb of ram) and it is probably a little bit slower than X200s.

Having that in mind I would prefer to have higher resolution screen than faster CPU if I cannot have both

 

It's wrong to automatically assume that the SL9400 is an inferior CPU to the P8600 based on the clock speed, because it is not. In fact, according to the benchmarks from the review erik posted, the SL9400 outperformed the P8600 in PCMark05. You guys need to realize that the SL9400 has twice the L2 cache of the P8600, and this makes a big difference regardless of the slower clock speed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the clock speed doesn't mean anything, for sure it does, but when you're comparing 2 same/similar category/generation/grade/etc. CPUs, the clock speed is not the only thing you need to look at.

 

erik, thanks for the correction on the hard drive -- you're right.

Also, I was looking through your ridiculously-elaborate X61s display swap that was featured on Lenovo Blogs, and I just want you to know that you're my hero. I think it's pretty funny that the post was introduced with a sentiment to the effect of "oh I'm so amazed at the resourcefulness of our customers" instead of thorough embarassment that the only way a power user customer can get what he actually wants out of Lenovo is to purchase two very expensive machines, void two warranties, fabricate a cable, and otherwise employ modification skills unheard of for an end-user while dangerously risking a pile of bricked parts mixed with the teardrops of so many broken dreams.

Your modded machine is one-of-a-kind and totally awesome for you, but the comments on that blog entry alone show that there's plenty of demand for it from other folks. For all of the ridiculous (and potentially unnecessary) configuration options that Lenovo puts out and the tiresome ThinkPad brand segmentation that they frequently partake in, you'd think they could make it a priority to let their premium ultraportable customers have any display panel they sell stuffed in any machine it will fit in so long as they're willing to pay for the machine and the panel.

An X200/X200s display assembly swap admittedly looks a lot easier than what you undertook (though I'm not sure if I'd be able to return the plastic bezels with the X200/X200s labels to their proper machines, which would be irritating), but I think I'd have a tough time selling an X200s with a voided warranty and a crappy 1280x800 CCFL on it. Ideally, Lenovo would just sell me the display assembly from the X200s separately and let me eBay the 1280 CCFL assembly after it's removed, but I'm sure that's asking too much as well.

And when you get right down to it, I'm more frustrated with the cash premium the X200s commands than the slower processor. If the machines were the same price (or even within $150-200 of each other), I'd just suck it up and purchase the X200s for the display. It's probably what I'll end up doing anyway, but it would have been nice to use that extra money for accessories, or, you know, extra groceries. Dicks.

I don't quite understand the SL9400 love-in, but you're oversimplifying this. PCMark measures overall system performance, and the NBR PCMark scores didn't use equivalent setups between the X200 and the X200s. The X200s reviewer even acknowledged that different hard drives and different numbers of background processes were helping the X200s and that the numbers shouldn't be taken at face value. For a PCMark number to be worthwhile, you pretty much need to use two identical hard disks, and have them both freshly-formatted with exactly the same operating system and all the latest drivers (but nothing extraneous) installed on both machines.

To be the yin to your yang, the turkeys over at Laptop Mag have the X200 coming out on top in PCMark Vantage:

Why the X200s defeated the X200T when they're both packing SL9400s, well nobody knows! The point I'm trying to illustrate is that you can't easily filter an accurate measure of processor goodness from a test that looks at a bunch of components that aren't consistent across sytems. No matter which laptop I purchase, I'm going to be plopping the same 320GB 7200rpm hard drive in it and flattening it with the same copy of Vista Ultimate SP1. I'm not particularly interested in how a random hard drive that I'll eBay or how a bloatware-packed Vista Home Basic factory installation influences performance.

Also, there are a few other "tells" that seem to pretty conclusively indicate that the P8600 is an overall-superior performer to the SL9400, in spite of the latter's cache size advantage. For starters, Apple's selling SL9400s in the MacBook Air right now. The fastest processors are never sold in the MacBook Air, since that machine's whole gimmick is that it's super-thin and uses crazy-engineered, overpriced, low-voltage CPUs to achieve this. Next on the list, Lenovo.com's product description of the X200 states:

"Offers strongest CPU performance and largest storage options in a supremely light and compact ultraportable.

Nothing about "strongest CPU performance" or even "well it's actually better if you value cache size over clockspeed" is mentioned for the X200s.

And last on our list, if the SL9400 offered any real advantages other than "costs more because it fits in a smaller chassis," why don't we see it as a configurable option in 14.1" laptops for customers who prefer the increased cache size and lowered power consumption but need a 14.1" chassis? It's because there's no reason to hinder performance from a P-series C2D (which already offers quite modest power consumption) in a machine that size. And speaking of power consumption, what favors is the SL9400 really doing us there? NBR's reviews had the X200 w/ 9-cell finishing at 9:53 battery life (in a non-comparable non-standardized battery test that had the system idling for a large portion of time) while the NBR X200s w/ 9-cell finished at 7:30 battery life (also in a non-standardized battery test with different options used). I'm not implying that the X200 offers superior or even equivalent battery life to the X200s, because that would be ridiculous, but the difference doesn't seem colossal or anything. On the flip-side, Laptop Mag's X200s outlasted their X200.

I'm willing to concede that the SL9400 serves up better performance than the downclocked disappointments we've seen in the ultraportables of yesteryear, I'll further admit that the cache size boost certainly beats a kick in the face, and I'll finally even admit that if pricing were equal and there was still no way to get a 1449x900 LED on the X200 then I would be fine to settle for the reduced performance offered by the X200s.

My main take-aways and my entire reason for creating this thread in the first place are:

1. The X200 serves up (at least marginally) better overall raw performance than the X200s, no matter how you slice it.
2. The X200s's $500 premium clearly funds the SL9400's more-expensive engineering, an overall laptop weight reduction, and the carbon fiber around the display -- three things I could not possibly be less interested in paying for.
3. An X200 with a +$99 or even +$149 upgrade option to use a 1440x900 LED display instead of a 1280x800 CCFL display is my perfect laptop. Period.

 

Geez, whassup with Lenovo? No X200s with webcam at the CES?

I'm officially disappointed. What a bag of hurt.

 

In the US, an x200s isn't that expensive if you are willing to get one of the pre-configured models - i.e. the price premium over an x200 isn't much of an issue.

If there isn't any x200/x200s model that meets your needs you could look at a Sony VAIO Z since you'd get a faster processor than an x200, higher resolution than an x200s on a 13" screen, a dedicated GPU, good battery life with the standard battery, etc. It is a bit larger since it has an optical drive and it doesn't have a trackpoint - but if you were willing to carry an x200 with a 9-cell around then a Z would probably not bother you.

 

I was shopping VAIO Z originally, but it has caveats I'm ultimately just not interested in. Specifically:

• No keyboard light. Though I prefer backlit keys to Lenovo's ThinkLight, the ThinkLight is superior to nothing. If VAIO Z had backlit keys, all bets would be off and I would have sold a kidney to be typing on one right now.
• No dedicated Home/End keys (I use these frequently), and a keyboard that I consider generally inferior to the ThinkPad keyboards. I typed on a Z's keyboard for a half-hour or so at Best Buy and determined that I could certainly get used to it, but I would really miss the lack of those dedicated keys. Not a dealbreaker, just a detractor.
• It has an optical drive which I consider a waste of space and a waste of money. I know there are folks who have weird optical drive hangups, but I'm not one of them and I don't wish to debate the merits of one. I have a slimline USB DVD burner that I keep on my desk for the rare use cases when I need to install and OS or burn an ISO to DVD or whatever.
• Only an ExpressCard34 slot vs. X Series ThinkPads' ExpressCard54 slot. I have a specific full-size ExpressCard accessory that I want to use.
• VAIO Z is spectacularly overpriced. It costs $1949.99 after you add the 1600x900 display, the P8600 processor, and the 9-cell battery -- though if the student discount still works, it should cost $1754.99. Extra power bricks are absurdly overpriced, and the 3-year depot warranty is an extra $199.99 vs. Lenovo EPP's $95 option.

By contrast:

-- An X200 (with a P8600, Bluetooth, 5100 WiFi, and the 9-cell battery) costs $986.40 via Lenovo EPP with a 3-year depot warranty available for $95.20 more and the optional Ultrabase dock on sale for $85.
-- An X200s (with the same upgrades and an SL9400 instead of P8600) runs $1,533.40 via Lenovo EPP.

I'm not sure what your financial situation looks like, but a $547 price premium is a pretty substantial "much of an issue" for me, especially when I don't really feel like it's paying for anything worthwhile other than the WXGA+ LED display.

 

Erik, Kalibar, Jon,

Adding to the discussion/wish list.
What do you think of this?

1. x200 with x200 bottom case, motherboard, P8400 CPU, WLAN & WWAN antenna assemblies, ATT/Verizon, and 5350 WiMAX card, keep the x200 "large" heatsink/fan for the 25w TDP CPU
2. Swap LCD assembly with x200s LCD 1440x900 assembly, and add the WWAN antennas as well
3. Reflow the P8400 with a P9500 (Lenovo has this as a build option on the W500), or a P9600 ES (from eBay/shipped from Asia)
4. 8gb RAM, Intel SSD, and hi-capacity battery. ~3.25bs?

I wonder how much Lenovo will revise the CPU and LCD and WWAN build options on the x200 and x200s Montevina refresh in April? Knowing qualification and agency certification (FCC/CE/UL/etc) issues, I don't have high hopes. If we wait until April, then we might as well wait until October for Calpella. Then we will also get a 16:9 screen, too. 1400x788? Here's to a real multi-touch x201t!

OT: x100? Did anybody else see the Yamato Thinking blog, besides Jon, about the "Thinkpad Essence"?

http://lenovoblogs.com/yamato/?p=126&language=en#comments

 

P9500 would be a nice option, and that is something we may see in the not too distant future (there have been some builds with a T9400 already, usually only to an education or custom channel).

I would think a Gobi WWAN card would be the way to go in the future (both AT&T and Verizon on a single card), but at the moment I don't think any of these will work as they aren't on Lenovo's whitelist.

I don't know if there is room in the x200s top cover for a WWAN antenna. I believe the x200s to have a slightly thinner LCD cover than the x200, and much slimmer than the x200T.

8GB of RAM and the Intel SSD is already possible. I would image 3.25-3.4 lbs. is about right for an x200 bottom and x200s top fused together with a 9 cell battery.

I wouldn't expect 16x9 screens anytime soon. IBM/Lenovo was the last holdout on switching to 16x10, and it won't be possible to get 16x9 until the chasis is redesigned (e.g. x210 in 2011??). Even then, I still think 16x10 may survive (although I would be open to a ≈20x10 screen on a keyboard sized notebook [e.g. the Vaio P] as long as the resolution is adequate).

 

corporate blogging tends to be a different animal than writing personal blogs.   my original version was much more creative and dramatic but it had to be toned down a lot to pass inspection.

either way, you make a good point about demand.   while it may not seem like it, lenovo IS listening to all the complaints about display quality.   blogs like mine certainly help the cause.   both mark and i knew that things could go one of two ways: either people would love the project or they'd crucify lenovo for discontinuing IPS.   thankfully things stayed positive and the article stands as a case study for the extent to which some people will go to get what they want.

if you had two systems to swap the displays, i'd say it's like playing with legos.   purchasing the X200s' upper LCD assembly would likely cost around $1100 if done seperately, hence my recommendation to swap from another system -- even if you have to take a hit in the price of the resulting system you sell.

at some point you have to ask yourself what this is truly worth.   if buying a new system, i would personally get an X200s, equip it with an SSD, and call it a day.   i understand the P8600 is faster on paper but who cares?   what are you honestly doing with a subnotebook that you absolutely need that extra 10% of power?   my X61s is "slower" than an X200s yet runs every one of my design apps just fine, including solidworks 2008 if i keep things in wireframe (which is a graphics limitation, not CPU).   my honest reaction is that you're over-thinking this issue and shouldn't let the SL moniker throw you.

i wish i could send you an X200s to borrow for a week to test out your apps.   i have a feeling you'd change your outlook quite rapidly.