Ideapad u330 - New owners :-)

Mine shipped on the 3rd and is due to arrive tomorrow

I'll post some feedback after I fire it up...

 

take off parts and look up, you will find that it was made in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippine, Thailand, and so... China too.

Don't like it? return it.

 

after spending a few days with my u330, i can honestly say i love it

i did not have any of the build problems others are mentioning (uneven feet, bent chassis). In fact, I had the complete opposite experience. It is SOLID. No squeaking, nothing. The screen is gorgeous and not that glossy at all. This laptop is definitely a headturner - very non-IBM like! The touch buttons are very responsive and very cool. Burned and watched some DVDs so all is well with the CD/DVD drive. It is very sleek, with just the perfect amount of gloss.

This laptop refuses to make noise or get hot! I used ConvertXtoDVD to convert some movies (which by the way was lightning fast - I'm coming off a 700m so its quite an upgrade - and it did not slow down other applications at all). The fan was very quiet the whole time and the laptop only got warm, which is amazing as that is a very CPU intensive program. My 700m used to heat up to the point that I had to put a barrier between it and my lap.

Software - not too much bloatware included. There is actually some good included software, such as ReadyComm for quick wireless connecting and internet sharing, Veriface (scans your face to login - VERY accurate and surprisingly quick), Power2Go to burn CDs/DVDs, Energy Management, OneKey Recovery, Active HDD protection (locks your hard drive if it senses fast movement - sensitivity can be adjusted)

My battery life is pretty good too. I was able to get 3.5 hours while watching some videos online and browsing with the balanced setting on intel graphics - display at 3 bars and bluetooth off. If I turned it to power saver and just did normal web browsing instead of watching videos I'm sure I couldve gotten 4+ hours.

I'm sure I'm missing some details. That was a very rough review - I'll try to write a detailed one in a few days.

Feel free to ask any questions and I will be glad to answer!

 

Thanks for the write-up. Mine is being delivered today and this makes me hopeful that Lenovo have worked out some of the kinks after the initial shipment of U330s started arriving.

 

I placed my order 9/15 and had an initial ship estimate of 9/29. On 9/28 the estimate slipped to 10/13. I called Friday and the gentleman told me it would ship the "week of October 14th." The 14th is a Tuesday so I'm not sure why he didn't say the week of October 12th, but whatever. Later that same day I got a shipment confirmation (lol).

Checked tracking info and it's listed as Out For Delivery this morning, and it looks like Lenovo shipped it 3 Day Select. Very nice since I ordered it Ground. Perhaps their apology for the slight delay.

I'll try to get some initial impressions up tomorrow!

 

Ordered 9/1
Shipped = 10/3
Arriving....TODAY! - I'll let you guys know how it is!

 

Ordered 9/25 and received it this morning, the 10/6.

 

Could you please tell us if the latest batch of u330's has the defects that were mentioned before. (unevenness, battery life, laptop getting too hot , clicking, squeaking of the chassis etc.) Thanks in advance

 

I ordered 09/27
Est ship day on the web 10/06
Current est ship day 10/14

=( I hope get it soon.

 

fyi: mine was in the first batch of u330s

 

First thoughts are holy **** Vista is horrible.

 

How so? Compared to what?

 

I just feel like I have no control over anything. It keeps updating and rebooting and the HDD light hasn't stopped flashing since I turned it on and I can't figure out *** is running.

 

People like to repeat the interwebs hype. Vista isn't great, but it's by no means unusable. I'm a Linux junky, myself, but I don't feel remarkably out of place in Vista. It works well enough, if you have a good enough computer.

 

I'm kind of a control freak about this stuff. I like to see my CPU usage at 0% and the HDD light not flashing when I'm not doing anything. I've already disabled search indexing fwiw.

 

I'm getting an estimated between 3hr 30min to 4hr 20min on power saver. I saw a maximum of 5hr 15min on "super power saver" but it looks like that disables everything, including wifi.

 

I know...I was more curious what, in regards to the U330, was going wrong. I've never used Vista and am switching (ha) from a PowerBook with OSX 10.4.

If I don't like it I'll just load up XP or Ubuntu or some dual boot configuration.

 

It's probably doing all of the updates for windows?

 

Ok I just picked mine up from the mail and I thought I'd give my initial (5 min) impressions.

I'll start with the good:
-Overall the laptop feels really sturdy. No loose pieces, floppy hinges, or gaps in casing
-Exterior is very fashionable and at the same time professional.
-Weight is as expected very light and portable
-LCD is really bright. Far better than I expected

Things that I do not like:
-Keyboard is okay. I have been using an x60 for about 2 years and that keyboard is I'd say twice as good as this one. Keys feels like they are a little "mushy" when pressed. Hopefully I can get used to this.
-Battery life. 60% and windows is reporting 1:45 minutes left on balanced power. Nothing like the reported 5 hours. Hopefully Lenovo can improve this with a software update.
-Uneven case. Yes, unfortunately the case does not sit flat on all 4 legs. The thing is though that the unevenness is really small. I think the upper right corner is off of the ground about 0.1 cm. which is almost nothing. Yes I can slide a paper under the laptop in that corner but to be honest I don't notice it at all. Laptop sits fine on 3 legs without any tilt at all. I don't think I would have noticed the problem unless I had read about it on this forum. End point is that I will not be returning the laptop for this problem.
-Power adapter- is frickin huge. I have no idea why the power adapter is so large considering my x60's is literally half this size.

All in all I have mixed feelings about this laptop. Overall I think that this computer is a step up from the x60 in terms of hardware but the keyboard is significantly worse. Still wondering if I should have gotten the x200 but since it didn't have discrete graphics I guess the u330 was the only choice.

 

Not sure if this has already been handled...but does anybody know how to get rid of the battery beep sound and to turn off bluetooth?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3991456&postcount=256

 

For the battery beep, go to Control Panel, Sound, Click on Speakers, then Properties, then Levels and Mute the PC Beep or just turn it down.

 

There's a feature called Super Fetch in Vista. I is the main reason why your HDD is flashing continuously 10 min after bootup. Follow the link to disable or modify the settings to your desire:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/change-superfetch-to-only-cache-system-boot-files-in-vista/

For me setting 2 works. Perhaps for you it will be something else. Hope this helps a bit.

 

Anyone have luck w/ audio via HDMI? I went into the sounds controls and set it as default and adjusted the levels, but no dice thus far.

Haven't messed around w/ it too much, want to read up first to make sure I don't potentially damage my HDTV but at default settings it doesn't fill the whole screen. Looks great though.

 

Must be something with your TV. I plugged mine in and the sound was perfect. Only problem is I dont know how to change the output resolution.

Just bought another stick of DDR3 RAM, and my U330 recognizes all 4gb! I do not run x64, although I will be soon.

 

i'm thinking of getting the case logic 13" sleeve. What do you guys think?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EPFG6Y/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

 

I received my U330 2GB today. The laptop sits evenly (no bent frame) and out of the box the battery is reporting 3:30 minutes at 10% brightness.

The keyboard feels nice (comparable to the Dell XPS M1330) and the touchpad button travel is pretty large but doesn't feel cheap and is quieter then pressing a button on the keyboard. Performing a backup then a clean install tonight (Windows Server 2008 probably). This 5400RPM hard drive is **** slow! ;-)

 

Did you have the 2GB model? Did it come with just the one stick of 2GB and the slot beneath the ram door on the bottom was empty?

Which RAM did you buy and from where? Price?

 

Hrm, I plugged the HDMI in again and this time it filled the whole screen (didn't change anything). Still no sound. A very faint static coming through the speaker if I put my ear up to it. I can't even get the level indicator to move up and down (green bars); the laptop speaker stay active even when I set HDMI as primary.. weird. I know there's nothing wrong w/ the TV/cable; my 360 works fine on the same port w/ the same cable.

Think he has the 3GB.. I saw on the U330 product page that neither model comes out of the factory w/ a slot open.. so the 2GB model most likely has 2x1GB.

 

The only place I could find Lenovo branded RAM was on ebay. I just pulled out my 1gb stick and plugged in the 2gb; works like a charm.

^^^Shoehopper, go to Control Panel, Sound, HDMI and make sure it is functioning and not muted.

 

Battery update: Used it tonight at class from about 5:30 to almost 8:30, when it hibernated itself with 5% left (still quoted over 20 minutes, so in the future I'll adjust it down to 3%). This included lots of note-taking plus the White Sox game in the background (flash video streaming) for about two hours of it. I'm pretty happy.

Also, mine doesn't seem to have any manufacturing defects, though I hear the same "clicking" sound others are hearing. It's coming from where the hard drive is located, but if it's the safety mechanism I'm not sure why it's going off when the laptop is sitting perfectly still.

It is easy to bend and flex the screen if one is into that sort of thing.

 

In a strange turn of events they shipped it out on the 3rd (scheduled for the 6th) surprisingly at the end of the Chinese week off Lenovo had . But this thing is **** nice compared to my old monstrous 15 inch Fujitsu N series. This U330 is beyond that and any other competitive computer company model. Lenovo will dominate the market by the time they come out with next gen Ideapads. I can't wait to get some Max Payne going on this thing and some Crysis. I don't expect much from Crysis but I've never played it and hope this computer can handle it at some form of setting. I love this machine!

 

OMG I love the notebook evangelist and the notebook enthusiast ranks on this forum...Hahah!

 

i still haven't opened mine after receiving it 9/25 ><

 

Posting this on my new U330.

I backed up my system and created restore discs then installed Windows Server 2008 Standard, 15 minutes of installing drivers and tweaking settings and it's fully functional with windows Aero and Wireless. Memory usage is about 667MB with all the drivers running in the background, which is about 250MB more memory usage then my desktop.

Browsed the internet, tweaked the registry and restarted a few times and battery life is lasting approximately 4 hours. 35% battery remaining and the meter indicates I have 1.5 more hours.

And yes the clicking sound is the Active Protection System. If I even wiggled the machine APS would pause the hard drive. I double-clicked the APS tray icon and decreased the sensitivity to low... now no problem. I have to wiggle the laptop more then a few inches to get the hard drive to pause.

This thing is the warmest laptop I've ever used... but I've also never used a laptop this small. So far I am loving the keyboard.

 

What did you "tweak" in the registry?

 

Unevenness is there: lower right side doesn't sit on onluy 2 out of 3 rubber feets.
No clicking and no heat, and no squeaking either.

Laptop built date 9/15

 

Delivered yesterday, mine does NOT have the uneven footing. The left mouse key squeaks a little, the HDD clicking is there but goes away if you disable active protection. Heat isn't noticeably bad.

Build date: 9/17

 

http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/

 

Wow... great laptop, just picked it up today!

So far:

Very quiet and I really like the Active Hard drive protection. Also, the computer is quite quick for a slower processor. The screen is very bright and also very thin. Overall, lenovo made an excellent laptop.


I will report back more info later (battery times, flex, etc.)

 

I Just formatted my entire HDD and installed Vista Fresh, overall not a big increase in Processes, but its a bit better and has about 5 less precess running then before... I didnt care about the OneTouch system, so thats non functional, but where can I download the software for the Wireless connection? I liked the program Lenovo had...it was something 4.0? any help?????

 

OK. I am experiencing a big problem

When I go to switch the graphics from the Intel to the Ati, the screen goes black, but never comes back on.

Does anybody know anything that can help me? Thanks.

 

http://consumersupport.lenovo.com/lenovo/Drivers/list.aspx?CategoryID=849

That's the website for U330 drivers. Should be on there somewhere.

Does anyone know what the likelihood of a bios update fixing fan management is? One of my only complaints with this computer is how hot it runs. Overall, though, nice system, and it's hard to complain with the price I got.

Also, is anyone using XP? How much does it affect battery life?

 

I second that question, has anybody wiped off the installed version of vista and installed XP in its place?

 

I have received mine yesterday evening, but have yet to open it because I am still debating if I want to keep the U330 or keep the HP Elitebook 6930p that is in shipping to me. If I keep the U330, I was thinking that I would install XP Pro, but I am hesitant because of how I would setup the graphics. Technically, the system has both, so does that mean I just install the driver for the graphics I prefer, or is there a way to install both drivers for XP and some how disable/switch them. I know that if it is possible, I may have to restart the computer like previous Lenovo models did.

BBGus

 

Where are you guys disabling HDD active protection?

 

Still cant find ReadyComm 4.0 - not listed on the lenovo site? IDEAS???

 

its called Active Protection System

its in the start menu

i actually turned it down to low instead of disabling it completely as it is a useful feature

 

It's in the control panel. It is the first icon and it's red.

 

In the Lenovo Support forum, Mark, a Lenovo Tech admin said that you can install the XP software/driver version from another ideapad such as the Y series and it will work.

BBGus