Lenovo ThinkPad X100e Review Discussion

Business owners rejoice! The first affordable ThinkPad ultraportable laptop has arrived. The ThinkPad X100e is an 11-inch notebook packed with a low-voltage AMD processor, powerful ATI integrated graphics, and one of the best keyboards we've tested on an ultraportable laptop. Is this the ideal companion for road warriors? Take a look at our review to find out.

Read the full content of this Article: Lenovo ThinkPad X100e Review

Related Articles:

• Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 Review
• Lenovo ThinkPad T410 Review
• Lenovo IdeaPad U150 Review
• Lenovo ThinkPad X201 Review

 

I really wish they would give this thing at least HDMI. E-SATA would've been nice but for a budget CULV I don't expect all the bells and whistles.

 

I still consider the Acer AS1410 the pinnacle of current affordable ultra-portables and it outshines this machine in every way but the keyboard. HDMI, SU2300, 8 hours battery with a 5800 mAh battery, at $100+ less. Yes, it's not a business class Lenovo notebook and warranty support isn't the same, but Lenovo can really do better than this.

 

The weak battery life is really a killer, the competition has 6+ hours for 11" notebooks and you're stuck at under 4 hours here. That's definitely going to swing you away from the X100e if you're purchasing as an individual. Acer and Asus have more enticing offerings with better battery life and performance, and new and better models are coming soon from those companies.

I'm so surprised that Lenovo's business customers were clamoring for a "cheap ultraportable", I hope enterprises are not going to equip their workforce with a $450 laptop to save a buck. Cut out the free office coffee to save money if you need to, a computer is the most essential tool of any information worker today so performance and form factor matters a lot.

Really glad to see the trackpoint stayed with the X100e though, that alone is a big sell for me, though not enough to overcome the sub-par processor/battery life issues.

 

The battery life is pretty bad, but I could deal with it if the processor were decent. Alas if it had better specs it would be almost perfect.

 

Dual-core Neo options went on sale for the X100e last week-ish.

And in other Neo-related news there's rumors of a MSI U250 sporting a 45nm K325 floating around the internets.

 

This would be an awesome machine if it used a culv processor to help the poor battery life. Maybe the will never release it because that would hurt the more expensive X series machine sales. The thinkpad design, matte screen, trackpoint and acceptable keyboard are the big selling points. I do believe the red one is a very atractive thinkpad. (never thought a red thinkpad would be)

 

They should've went with a Intel SU7300 instead the underpowered and inefficient AMD.

 

Well if they put the 2010 refresh of the Congo series in this, then I might consider.

 

Agreed...it's called upsell =P. You want cheap ultraportable with Thinkpad quality/keyboard? You don't get power or battery life. If you want power and battery life, pay the premium.

If you want just good battery life with a processor that satisfies what most people need from their ultraportable (Intel CULV)...well can't sell that because then no one would pay for the X series.

Good news is the with the X series refresh, the x200(s) in the outlet drop into the $700 range, making the x100e w/ L625 @ $720 look like a joke.

 

This with the M11x internals would be amazing!

 

There's an X100e in the outlet now for $335. That sounds a little more compelling...

 

No doubt this is a dog but what was Lenovo thinking sending the single core version when the dual core versions are available?
This laptop is also available brand new from newegg for $439.00. It would be foolish to purchase it from lenovo's website.

 

I'm thinking they have had the review model for a while, when they mention using it for weeks in the review. It seems they've been using it since before dual-core was announced, but I'm really looking forward to an updated review with dual-core models.

 

A little late on reviewing the x100e? Other reviews and comments I've read said it runs super hot. I'd avoid this model.

 

$300 is a significant price difference.

 

Good thinking! The only thing I envy about the x200 (I use a 2530p as my ultraportable) is the option to put a decent screen. They should offer the option even if the upgrade is expensive. HP charges a lot for the Dreamcolor displays and I think there's a market for good screens, maybe a little insignificant one but for reputation sake Lenovo should offer the tablet screen in the x201.

 

Where are you seeing that the laptop is unusable. The review even ended up giving it a 4/5. I've gotten the impression that it provides the best user experience for a laptop at this price and category (considering processor, keyboard and trackpoint/pad).

Its processor is faster than an Atom and plenty of people think that's fine. It's just that it's battery life is too short. I also don't think heat is that large an issue, at load it gets hotter than other laptops, but most people don't push their computer when they have it sitting on their lap...you're usually browsing the web or typing out an email or a word document.

 

I regularly use laptops/desktops that are slower than Atoms =P. I don't have any issues with doing basic stuff on them. My dad's Pentium M laptop runs great, he also has a Celeron D desktop (not so good for anything that has to do with flash).

People have seem to of forgotten the days of when 3.5ghz Pentium 4's were incredible. Now you can get that power for less than $400 and in portable packages; IMO that's always a good deal. Of course plenty of people do need more power than that, but doesn't mean this laptop should be condemned to being useless.

I think the x100e from the outlet at netbook price is a good deal, but the dual core prices are ridiculous. The regular single core price (after a coupon maybe...) is ok if you reaaaaally want quality build and keyboard.

 

An X201i can be had on Amazon for $850, so how much would an X100e with a Core i7-620UM cost, because I want that.

 

I mean no disrespect to all of the people who have posted before me, but having recently purchased a X100e, I think that I may be in a better position to give a few opinions regarding this machine than some of the other posters who obviously did not have any direct experience with this machine. Now, this machine is definitely not a speed demon; in fact having transitioned from a T60 with a C2D processor, I would be lying if I said that I didn't have to readjust my expectation (mainly about boot-up time) in the first couple of days of use, but I have to say that after a week I really like this little machine. It's super easy to carry around, is fast enough to run all of the programs that I needed to be productive, and I've always gotten the feeling that I got more than what I paid for it (I paid $427 after discount). The single-core AMD Neo processor does slow down when I try to run multiple programs, but is actually surprising fast at most tasks, and the Radeon HD 3200 is great at video decoding. The 16:9 screen is just large enough for extended use, and the keyboard has a great feel with no flex. All in all it is my humble opinion that the specifications of this machine is just right given its target audience.

As an aside, I've made a few upgrades to my X100e that definitely made it even faster. I changed Windows 7 from 32-bit to 64-bit, put in 2 sticks of 2GB DDR2 memory (for a total of 4GB), and swapped in an Intel 80GB SSD (all of these parts I transferred from my old laptop). These upgrades has definitely made a big difference in boot-up and program launch time, and also has increased battery life to about 5 hours. The laptop also seemed to be cooler as a result (and quieter). So I definitely recommend at least some of these upgrades if you are considering this machine.

 

Ive seen this notebook selling on some sites as having listed a TPM chip under its specs, does this have a TPM chip or not?
I want to run it with bitlocker.

 

Hi LakerFan,

I do not believe that my machine has a TPM chip installed, nor have I seen this chip mentioned in Lenovo's spec PDF of the X100e. However if this feature is important to you, then you may want to call customer service and double check to see if it's possible to configure the X100e with one. Having said that if you really want to run bitlocker, then you may want to consider a laptop with a Core i5 processor, as these will support AES-NI instructions, which will really speed up bitlocker.

 

Where is the best place to get the 80GB Intel SSD? I just got my x100e and would like to perform this upgrade as well.

DD

 

Recently I bought the retail 80G2R5 from Newegg for $215 (it was a special at the time). I think that OEM is a little bit cheaper (as of 04/22 it's $209), but you don't get the 3.5" adapter, which you won't need if you just want to put the SSD into your X100e. This may be the lowest price right now, but you should always Google for the latest price. The actual installation is really straight forward, just took me about 5 minutes (along with the RAM upgrade). I think the retail version has the latest firmware, so all I had to do is to download the Intel Toolbox, which allows me to run TRIM manually and check drive integrity. Of course the drive also does TRIM automatically under Windows 7.

 

I just got back from Micro Center where I was playing with the base model x100e and I have to say that I was pretty impressed. I opened every program on there with no noticeable delay, it was a significantly better experience than the netbooks that I have owned. And like everyone else has said, the keyboard is amazing, the screen is nice (good res) and I love the TrackPoint. I may have to watch the outlet to see if I can score one. That price point is worth it to me to get the single core. As others have said, when you move up to the dual core range, you may as well just get an x200.

 

Yeah, I definitely think that the single-core X100e is one of those machines that on the surface is easy to get overlooked, but when you actually use it you feel that it has all of the right things to allow you to be productive on the road (solid keyboard, screen, fast enough performance, ~4 hours of battery life). For someone like me who already has a bigger laptop (a 15" Macbook Pro) for performance-oriented applications, this is a great laptop to have. In fact after 2 weeks of owing this ultraportable I found myself using it a lot more than the MBP, just because I can carry it everywhere with me without a second thought, and because of the great keyboard.

 

I just saw another review of this machine, and it largely agrees with Macroecon's "more than the sum of its parts" assessment.

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Revie...s-superior-to-any-netbook-and-many-culvs.aspx

 

Nice supplementary review you posted there Chris. I'm still constantly watching the outlet to see if one pops up. I really want to get one of these...

 

Lenovo is having some good deals now and they've got a coupon for $50 off any x100e.

Edit:

I decided not to wait on the outlet, I'd rather have the dual core anyway.

Just ordered the Neo X2 version for $480 shipped with tax. Can't wait...

Now I've just got to get a nice 2GB stick of RAM and hopefully an SSD in the future

 

Congrats! I am sure that you'll enjoy your new laptop very much. Am interested to hear what the battery life is like for the dual-core version. Did you happen to get bluetooth when you optioned your x100e? I found this is a pretty nice feature to have, especially when paired up with a bluetooth mouse. Another stick of memory is also nice as well, since the base model only comes with one stick, so 2 sticks will allow you to run in dual-channel mode. Hope your X100e will work its way from China very shortly!

 

I have a question about the processor choices for the ThinkPad X100e. So I hope that others on this thread who own or who have researched this model can help me.

When looking on the Lenovo site, I see choices of

AMD Athlon Neo X2 Dual-Core L335 (1.6GHz, 800MHz, 512KB L2)
and
AMD Turion Neo X2 Dual-Core L625 (1.6GHz, 800MHz, 1MB L2)

What are the benefits and tradeoffs between these 2 processors ?

 

I think that the only real difference between the two processors is that the L335 has 512KB of L2 cache, while the L625 has 1MB of L2 cache but is $50 more. Just in case you are not familiar with what a L2 cache does, it basically serves as a small but very fast memory for the CPU so that it does not have to access the main memory (which is much slower) for instructions and data. While in general more L2 cache is always better, if you are just going to run mostly Office or web browser on the machine, then the extra L2 cache may not make that big of a difference. Frankly, my own opinion is that with the L625 processor, the price of the X100e is starting to get awfully close to other CULV notebooks that have better performance, such as the ASUS UL20 or the Toshiba T135. However, with the $50 Lenovo coupon, it might make some sense to go with the L625 while the coupon is good.

 

you also go from a 160 to 250 HDD for that 50 bucks as well, so that extra 512 cache dosent exactly cost 50 bucks...

I'm thinking about the Turion X2 as well...maybe...

 

Yes, that is true, I didn't notice the hard drive difference, because the previous poster was only asking about the processors, but that would make the L625 a bit better deal taken as a whole. Like I mention before, if you are interested in the L625 (or any other X100e for that matter), the $50 coupon make the cost/benefit ratio a lot better as compared to other CULV ultraportables.

 

My ship date is not till 5/14, but I'm looking forward to it anyway. I did not order bluetooth, I actually didn't spec anything out. Just picked the low end dual core. I have read that they are not too significantly different, just like you mentioned Macroecon, just L2 cache. I heard something mentioned about energy efficiency, but have yet to see anything to prove this. I'll have to see, but I've also heard from some reports that the dual-cores are not making much of a difference in battery life.

I'll be sure to report back.

 

I've also heard some conflicting reviews on how power draining the dual core Neo versus the single-core Neo is, mainly on the Toshiba T100 laptops, but I guess it really depends on what your usage pattern is. Ultimately, because of the lack of power gating, the 2nd core will always have some leak current, even when it's not in use, so my guess is that it might knock a minimum of about 20-30 minutes off the battery life. The 2nd core's effect on heat is not known at this point, but I have faith in Thinkpad engineers on designing an effective heat dissipating mechanism for the X100e.

I have a feeling that you'll get your X100e at least a couple of days earlier than the May 14 quoted ship date - if everything is in stock (especially since you didn't add in any options), your X100e should ship in about 5-7 business days. One investment that may serve you well is the X100e sleeve (~$15). I find that it really helps to protect the notebook from scratches, especially all those times that I just carry it in my backpack. My laptop bag is staying home a lot more these days.

 

Yeah, I'm actually not too concerned with the battery life. It is not often I am away from a power outlet for more than a couple hours when I would have the chance to use a notebook anyway.

As for the sleeve, I have one for a 12" notebook from the past and am hoping to use that, I think it should fit.

Also, I hope you are right and I get it a little earlier.

Macroecon, I know you said you had the 80GB Intel X25-M SSD, you like it alot? I'm going to get an SSD at some point and am wondering if it is worth it over the 40GB X25-V? I'm not concerned about the difference in capacity, just the speed. I know it is better, but I'm wondering if it is more than $100 better. Seems like people are very happy with both. I'm definitely set on an Intel SSD though.

 

Yeah, I actually have the 80GB X25-M installed in both of my X100e and MBP, and they have definitely provided a very noticeable increase in both responsiveness and battery life. The X25-V might be an economical alternative, but since it has half as many channels, the sequential read/write speed will be a lot lower than the X25-M, but the random read/write speed seems to be pretty close to the X25-M (Anandtech has a good review article about the X25-V: Intel's X25-V & Kingston's 30GB SSDNow V Series: Battle of the $125 SSDs - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News.) However, my main rational for going for the X25-M is simply because of its greater size. With Windows 7 and some common productivity program loaded, I am already over half full of the 74.4 GB capacity. That said, for most normal tasks, the similar random read/write performance of the two drives means that you won't notice too much of a difference in the speed of the SSD.

 

I'm beginning to think maybe the extra capacity may be worth it especially when the x25-m can be had for around $200. I'll have to see what the prices are like and what new ones may come out in the next month or so.

Thanks again, you've been extremely helpful.

 

I just ordered a X100e (X2 L625, 1GB, Bluetooth, Windows 7 Pro), but I'm worried there might be a better alternative out there. Any suggestions before it gets too late in the order process for me to cancel?

 

Acer 1810
Asus UL20

 

Also don't forget Lenovo's own U150! Jayayess1190 makes a couple of good recommendations, but all of these ultraportables (including the X100e) have different tradeoffs. All of these other notebooks uses Intel's CULV processors, which will be a little bit faster than the AMD Neo processors, but more importantly will have much better battery life and lower heat production. Some will also have HDMI ouputs, which the X100e does not have.

However, they are also more expensive, have glossy screen/chassis, and does not have the great keyboard and the trackpoint/trackpad combo. So ultimately it is a personal judgement call to decide which of these laptops are the best fit for you. Personally I am happy with my X100e, but the UL20 would have been a close 2nd.

 

I just went ahead and ordered one

Turion Neo X2, planning on upgrading RAM/HDD later so it was 1G/250G, Bluetooth, and the Sling Case ($29.95),with 50 dollar coupon and tax went to

$581.89

I was kinda surprised to pay tax, but oh well

 

Congrats! What's your ship date? I was also surprised when I was hit with $30 in tax, but whatever, I can't really get it anywhere else.

 

If you guys look at the new HP DM3T review, you will notice that the AMD L625 is about the same speed as the Intel SU 7300. In some cases slightly faster.

So no, your L625 will not be slower than the CULV equipped notebooks. Warmer: yes (heat is a AMD by product ;D), shorter battery life: yes. but slower? no.

 

well,as far as Intel vs AMD is concerned, I ordered the X100e because AMD has a more powerful IGP. If it wasnt for that, there is really no reason to want AMD. For the little extra premium, you get better battery life and a cooler machine.

But I wanted to play around with the Radeon 3200 a bit...

 

Agreed, the Radeon 3200 is what made me go for the X100e. Otherwise Intel's CULV offering is definitely more superior, especially since I've found that the AMD Neo can hit 86 degrees celsius when playing flash video, which definitely makes the laptop pretty warm. One of the reason why is because the latest ATI driver that Lenovo provides under System Update is an older driver that does not support Flash 10.1, and the newer Catalyst driver from ATI would not install on the X100e (which is pretty standard for most mobile GPU), so as of right now, playing flash video is still a bit problematic on the X100e. Hopefully Lenovo will provide an updated driver soon!

Yeah, the sales tax really sucks, but at least we are not buying a $2000+ MBP. Hope you guys will get your X100e soon!

 

Also I just found out that AMD just recently released the Turion II Neo N54L, which is a dual-core 2.2 GHz processor that supports DDR3. Since it's a 45nm chip, it should run cooler and consume less power than the Turion Neo. Plus it's based on the K10 microarchitecture, instead of the older K8, so it should be faster as well. The new HP dm1 will use this chip (or maybe its slower brother the N40L), so hopefully Lenovo will also adopt this chip for the X100e as well. In addition, the processor also uses the Radeon 4200 as its IGP, which is pretty similar to the 3200.

 

The N45L has a 25W TDP. I know AMD measures TDP differently than Intel, but a 25W chip will go into the new DM1's? The N40L has a 15W TDP. And no Intel Core i ulv update to the DM1 either?