Info only X220 and X61 weighs the same

For those that just wanted to know the X220 with a 4cell Battery and the X61 with a 4cell battery both weigh exactly the same at 2.99 lbs. So after YEARS of development, switching to 16/9 screen, switching to the 7mm HD which we can all agree is totally pointless and was nothing more to try and force us to buy our drives from Lenvo much like 200 dollar 8 gigs of ram upgrade. Anyway after all those years no weigh loss.

I wish I had my X200 and X201 to offer you guys as well but those are sold and long gone.

Surprisingly even though the X300 being the ultra portable and bigger was marketed at the ULT ultra portable out there "which I still think it is" it weighs in with standard battery at 3.22 lbs with the included CDrom.

ym

 

1. The X220 is a much better built machine than the X61 at the same weight. I have both at the moment.

2. Higher build quality at the same weight for nearly the same surface area, at a very competitive price is even more remarkable.

try again

www.newegg.com
www.buy.com
www.amazon.com
www.provantage.com
www.costcentral.com

 

I wasn't questioning the build quality between either. But since you went there the x61 is built better if you go by all the threads here. Even if not if I compared just my two I would say the x61 is better built, it feels more solid in the hand and has a lid latch. Still doesn't mean I don't love my x220. I could go on but it isn't the point of this thread. So sry I hurt your x220 feelings!!

The only thing I was saying before you rattled off your spew was that even after 3 or 4 years and all of the advanced tech since then I would have thought or hoped that the x220 would have been 1/2 pound or even 1/4 pound lighter.
But its not. Makes one wonder if this was planned or if some of the x220 budget was cut to put to the x1 mid game.

ym

 

x220 specs wise spanks the X61, oh and the best part? They weigh the same.

 

Yeah it's pretty hard to compare something like this.

My original ipod nano and my new one weigh the same, yet my new iPod holds 10 times as many songs, and does so many more things.

The X220 is a significantly more sophisticated machine, with specs that a X61 couldn't dream about.

If you make it any lighter, you will be compromising the build quality, and the reason we buy thinkpads are for their durability.

 

yea i really dont think the weight can change significantly unless you use really exotic materials which will cost a bomb.

at the end of the day a motherboard in a laptop from 10 years ago dosent weigh significantly more than one from today. neither does a hard drive, etc etc.

the battery is probably the biggest weight. and that tech hasnt advanced very much over the past 10 years.

 

There aren't any feelings to get hurt here, I've got both. Your original post is just absurd from beginning to end; I think my first post addressed that, but here it is again:

Of course build quality is relevant to weight, just as much as price. You can have any two of the following, not all three:

1. (Even) Low(er) weight
2. High build quality
3. Low price.

The X220 is better built than any Thinkpad of the past, it's not even a remotely close contest. So far I've owned T41, T60, T400, X200, X201, X61, X220.

All my use so far indicates the latchless design works just as well if not better. I just sent the X61 to the depot yesterday for guess what...it isn't latching properly.

Complaining that it isn't .25-.5lb lighter after everything they've delivered..really? Maybe time to ask your doctor for a Prozac prescription.

 

The OP does bring up and valid point though, the 12-inch X series seems to have been given the short end of the stick over at Lenovo. Out of all of the lines, it has seen the least improvements. It used to be touted as the 'thinnest and lightest' but even now the T420s for example beats the X220 on thinness by 1/4"! Why can't Lenovo make a "X1/X300" X220?

X series buyers always paid a premium for low weight and thin systems, but now it doesn't make much sense anymore. Now, Lenovo should charge a lot less of a X series than a comparably equipped T or W series, but they don't?

 

How much did the X300/X301 cost, and how much does the X1 cost? (and those were/are with those pathetic screens where we're getting IPS)

And the flipside to this thinness complaining, is the complaining about 7mm hdd's.

EDIT: I see you ninja-edited that last line in.

Yea, instead of paying a massive premium we now get the X220 for the slightly more than the T420, cheaper than the T420s, and way cheaper than the W models.

Btw, you might want to compare X220 and T420/s thickness'.

X220: spec'd, 19-34.6. The measured thickness of the body from front to back is 25mm (34.6 is from the 6-cell)

T420: spec'd, 31-35.6.

T420s: 21-25.9mm.

Keep in mind the X220 uses the same processors as the the T420/s, but does so in a package with a much smaller footprint yet around the same thickness as the more expensive T420s. So really the flipside to the thinness complaining, is complaining about 7mm hdd's and complaining about heat.

 

Well, the X30xs were so darn expensive due to the inclusion of SSDs (they were just coming out into the laptop market by then) and over-engineering (putting an optical drive into a chassis that is 0.8" thin. The X2xx don't need to have those options. The X1, well that is another beast. Too thin really. A better comparison is with the T420s. Thinner and includes an optical drive and has discrete graphics.

IPS is another story because it is apparently only made on smaller (12.5") screens and thus should not be expected on 13" or 14" laptops.

EDIT: All I'm trying to say is that it's kinda odd that Lenovo's 'ultraportable' is actually one of the thicker laptops out there. If I had a 1.25" laptop that is restricted to 7mm, heck yeah, I'd complain. But me, personally, I'd like to think that a thin (<1") 12" system with 7mm drives is more than reasonable. What happened to the 's' lineup anyways? I'd take that over that standard X220 while others could opt for the standard one if they want full-processing power.

 

I posted the post below just before you posted. Mainly look at the part about the X220's actual thickness. To add to that, you can only have two of the following:

1. Slim profile.
2. Small footprint.
3. Low heat

And as usual cost plays in.

IPS isn't only made at smaller sizes. IBM spec'd them on a 15". There's no reason technically why it can't be done on any notebook screen size and that includes 13-14" screens. Lenovo certainly could use an IPS screen if they wanted to from a purchasing pov. T-series is the bread and butter of the Thinkpad line sales wise, but they still choose not to.

X300/X301 was retailing in the upper $2k to $3k range for most of it's life. Iirc, ssd's didn't become standard till the X301.

 

X300/X301 were like 2k and easily hit 3k. On ebay they still go for 2500...ridiculous.

x series didn't get the run around completely, at least they added IPS and now they pack a powerful punch, but they got shafted for the screen resolution, I'll admit that.

 

Yeah, but X3xx had ultrabays built in. It's probably the thinnest laptop with a multi-functional bay. Of course it is doing to be expensive. Laptops less than 1" at the time were a rarity. Now, that's not the case.

Going back to heat/space issues: Keep in mind that the T420/420s also have ultrabays. That option alone takes up a lot of space/volume. The X220 doesn't have that. Yes, the X220 is smaller, but it is thicker (BTW, thickness is traditionally listed at the thickest point as most laptops taper very quickly to their thickest dimension).

If you want a measure of heating issues, just calculate volume. Calculations are as follows:

X220: 305mm x 206.5mm x 19.0-34.6mm
Volume: 305 x 206.5 x 34.6 = 2197cm^3

T420s: 343 x 230.1mm x 21.2–26.0mm
Volume: 343 x 230.1 x 26.0 = 2052cm^3

As you can see, The T420s actually has a smaller volume to fit the internals in. And that's WITHOUT even listing the massive space it takes to put an ultrabay option and even discrete graphics. If the T420s can pull all of that off without frying a lap, the X220 should be able to be thinned down.... Easily.

 

You're still using the 34.6mm height when I already posted that the height of the X220 body is 24-25mm. Any extra height from the battery obviously doesn't matter for what we're talking about here. Find out the T420s' body height and then it can be a meaningful comparison.

Really what should probably compared is the the SA of the motherboard by the height.

X300/X301's were crippled with 1.4ghz ULV processors because of heat.

 

Oops, my mistake. I relied on the tabook 4/6cell dimensions which was half right...

Anyways:
X220 Volume: 305 x 206.5 x 25 = 1574cm^3
4 cell battery Volume: 13 x 208 x 50 = 135cm^3
Internal Volume: 1439cm^3

T420s Volume: 343 x 230.1 x 26.0 = 2052cm^3
Ultrabay Volume: 10 x 139 x 128mm = 178cm^3
6 cell Battery Volume: 13 x 220 x 76mm = 217cm^3
Internal Volume: 1657cm^3

So you're right, the T420s has basically a 6x6x6cm volume advantage. Mainly for heat distribution. Of course MB surface area/height would be a better comparison, but I don't have that kind of info.

EDIT: BTW, I thought that the X300 came with SSDs. It wasn't till the X301 that HDDs became an option. Find me a review of a X300 with a standard HDD and I'll believe you.

 

technically it was 1.2GHz on the X300 and 1.4/1.6GHz on the X301.   ULV was chosen primarily due to battery life.   the SSD made up for any shortcomings in performance that would affect the target market of buyers (ie: business execs looking for a large display, high-end ultraportable).

regarding the processors being "crippled", i'd be willing to bet that 99.9% of X300/X301 owners never pushed their systems enough for the processor to matter one bit, especially on systems with SSDs.

correct.   the X300 was only offered with 64GB SLC and 128GB MLC SSD options both CTO and pre-configured.   if there are any X300 models floating around with HDDs then they didn't come from the factory that way.

 

If it helps, my T420s has a thickness of about 24mm at the front and 27mm at the back, plus rubber pads of about 3mm thick at the front and 5mm thick at the back. tabook.pdf says "21.2–26.0mm".

John

 

And these so called "new products" still don't do my laundry or cook my dinner. How dare those people at Lenovo to even think about selling X220. Shhhh.

/snark

 

I wonder if Lenovo plans to introduce a "X220s." I'd gladly sacrifice processor power for a slightly slimmer laptop. On the flipside, if they offered a X220 with a 'crippled' processor and better graphics, I'd be over that too.

 

It'd be pretty pathetic if ULV was chosen for battery life and not heat considering their power consumption and battery life was pretty abysmal. I breifly had an X301 and regardless of what anyone says, for even the most mundane tasks those processors were so slow that there was a noticeable improvement using a standard processor. A few users here who moved from X301's to T410's reported the same thing (using the same SSD's in both systems).

 

I must add the I don't think it's Lenovo's goal to decrease the weight. I believe they've concluded that 3lbs is the "ultra portable" and they are fine with that.

The fact that they keep putting better specs into the same body is just progression, nothing revolutionary or remarkable there. In that regard everyone else is doing the work for them.

What I do think is impressive is the cost ratio. I never would've thought you could get a brand new Thinkpad "Ultra-Portable" for less than 1,000. That's remarkable.

 

Really? I went from SU9400 to i5-430UM to i52520M where I am now. I noticed a performance increase with each change in processor, but in no way where the ULV's slow for everyday tasks. The 2520M is better than both in all ways, but the SU9400 could still record HD tv with my tv tuner and browse the web at the same time with no trouble (also had an ssd).

 

everyone's mileage will of course vary on their opinions of ULV processors.   i ran server 2008 R2 on my X301 and spent two weeks on-location mainly working with photoshop, illustrator, word, excel, and a bit of tweaking files in solidworks and inventor using only that system with an SU9600, 8GB, and 160GB intel X18m G2.   while it certainly wasn't the fastest processor, i never once wished i had a different system except when working in 3D--but that was due to the GPU, not the CPU.   the one thing i did wish for was an IPS display.

 

My SU7300 in my Latitude 13 suffices for my uses as a multimedia laptop. It can even play Source games at native resolution, plays 1080p video fine. Flash is a bit slower but Flash isn't exactly greatly coded anyway.

 

Just wanted to add that there doesn't seem to be a X220s planned (I found erik's post on the matter on a different thread). Too bad considering that a low wattage, higher res, slimmer X220 would have been my (almost) dream laptop. He did hint at a low power CPU in the works though, but higher res and slimmer profile are apparently out of the window.

And yes, IPS on the X30x would have been killer. The bad screen (and to a much smaller degree; lack of docking) was what ultimately made me sell both my X300 and X301 systems.