Lenovo ThinkPad X100e Review Discussion

Well, the Engadget that talked about the dm1 just mentioned the Turion II Neo dual core and Athlon Neo processors being used http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/05/hp-mini-210-updated-with-trippy-lids-pavilion-dm1-with-new-amd/, so while an Intel chip cannot be ruled out, it looks like HP's focus is currently on the AMD offerings. The Turion Neo X2 L625 has a 18W TDP, so perhaps HP can still make the N45L fit into the dm1, but the N40L is probably a much more likely choice in the end, which has the same TDP as the slower single-core Neo MV-40.

 

it took 2 days for Lenovo to send me an email, but its estimated that my x100e will ship on the 18th, and my bag the 20th

that seems like a rather long time...

 

Hey guys wanted to let you know mine shipped today! It was estimated for the 14th, so a full week early. I'll post back when I recieve it, hoepfully I'll be home to sign when it is delivered.

 

Glad to hear that! Now it's probably take a week to work it's way up to Anchorage and Louisville before it'll clear customs, and then work its way to you. It's always sweet to get a new laptop!

 

Yeah, got to take that weird route to get to Ohio, lol.

 

we should figure out some benchmarks to run to compare the L335 to the L625 when I get mine, that way you can make me feel stupid for wasting 50 bucks,lol

EDIT- actually,I just checked,and mine shipped today,lol. Guess ill wait for tracking info tomorrow

 

Just ordered a X100e for myself today(5/7/10). The Reason why i bought X100e is because i just spent $1260 on a X201 for my Dad and i am so broke and only can afford the X100e. My spec: AMD Turion Neo X2 L625, Window 7 Home, 1 GB ram, 250 GB Hdd, and bluetooth. i pay $500.25(inc. tax). IMO, Thinkpad X100e is the best deal for ultraportable. No other brand can achieve the same long livability than a thinkpad. And its the easiest laptop to fix. I have also consider the sony vaio p series. the sony p is a unique laptop. it is super small and yet has a full size keyboard, super light and great screen (1600X768, 8" superwide). The problem is the price and performance. For $1000 and cant even play a HD 720 movie properly and that makes the superwide screen good for only web surfing. And this is also why i pick the X100e. IMO, the AMD's cpu/gpu set up are better than Intel's set up in ultraportable laptop.
For $500 dollars, you get a real thinkpad. I believe its a steal.

 

Mine left Shanghai yesterday!

 

You were right Macroecon, mine is in Anchorage right now.

Also, does anyone know if you can use the 72W or 90W ThinkPad AC adapter with the x100e. It seems that picking up a spare in one of these wattages would be much less expensive.

 

Yes, the AC adapter that came with the X100e is 65W, and the nice thing about ThinkPads is that they use the same plug, so as long as the power rating of the adapter exceed the original X100e adapater, it should work fine.

 

Cool, may have to pick one up from the outlet to leave at work

 

I believe the 72W AC adapter is for the T4x, X4x, and R4x and older Thinkpads, and have a different voltage. The plug design is slightly different as well. The 90W adapter should be compatible, though.

 

Thanks, I'll avoid the 72W model and probably go with the 90

 

Thanks, I double-checked the voltage for the 72W adapter, and like MidnightSun said, it is indeed different (16V vs 20V), so it wouldn't have worked. The 90W AC adapter (40Y7659) is the same voltage, so like Matt I might go pick one up for my office. The 90W Slim AC adapter looks good too, plus I can use it to charge my iPhone, so that's a good option too.

 

I saw the slim adapter and it looks good but it is around $30 more than the regular 90W in the outlet and I believe the iPhone tip is an additional charge. Please correct me if I am wrong. I have one of those Belkin surge protector / USB charger's that I use for my iPhone. Works great.

 

Macroecon, did your x100e go through Louisville? If so how long did it sit there? Mine arrived there yesterday morning and I have not got a tracking update since.

 

Hi Matt, mine sat in Louisville for at least 3-4 days. In fact it actually got so long without a status update that I called UPS, who told me that it's quite routine for packages to sit there for a few days until it clears customs, so maybe give it a couple of more days. After that thing will move quickly again.

Also, you were right about the iPhone tip not being included with the slim adapter. Maybe I'll check out the Belkin surge protector that you mentioned - I could always use more iPhone charger.

 

Now of course I get an update on my delivery date and it is for tomorrow. The one day that there is no way I can be home around the time UPS normally comes. Guess I'll be waiting till Thursday.

 

I noticed today on Lenovo's website that they've lowered the price of the X100e with the Neo X2 L625 processor down to $499, the same as the L335's price (even though the L625's model also has a larger hard drive). Looks like they are being really aggressive on the L625 model, and I guess now there's really no reason to get the L335 model.

 

Good deal for anyone looking to get one now. I gave the 15% off coupon a try on this model and it did not seem to apply though. Just a heads up...

 

I ordered RAM and an SD card off of newegg (both with seperate tracking numbers),along with my X100e and Sling Case,and all 4 tracking numbers are sitting in Louisville right now. I'm supposed to get everything thursday or friday,I do believe.

 

How much RAM are you upgrading to? I'm thinking about just going to 3 GB to stick with the 32 bit OS. What's your opinion?

 

2x2GB, im not going to use the 1GB stick its coming with. Even with the 32-bit OS, you still get a little more than 3GB

dosent this thing max out at 2x4GB sticks tho?

 

I think officially it max out at 2x2GB (4GB total), although maybe it is possible to push it to 8GB (not that it would make any sense to). With a 32-bit OS, you might get around 3.25GB usable, depending on how much RAM the IGP takes up. Going 2x2GB has the small added benefit of being able to run the memory on dual-channel.

Personally I upgraded the OS to 64-bit on day one, but I doubt there will be much difference between 3GB and 4GB on this machine.

 

I would upgrade to a 64-bit, but can you use the same key from the included OS? I was under the impression that you could not. Also, I'm out of Windows 7 keys anyway, I need to request another one or two from my college before graduating next month. I'll probably just go with 3GB, every laptop I've got ends up with that for some reason, lol.

I'm now wishing I would have picked up some spare DDR2 when it was cheap last year.

 

Yes, you can use the same key on the bottom of the machine, in fact that's what I did when I switched to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, you just need the 64-bit media; of course it has to be the same edition.

Yeah it's crazy how much memory price has gone up within the past year, if I didn't have the memory from my old machine I probably wouldn't have gone to 4GB in the first place. I imagine for what this machine is designed to do, anything 2GB or above is more than sufficient.

 

Nice to know, though I don't think I can get a 64-bit Home Premium disc, only have access to Professional. It's too bad it was not like the Vista disc that allowed you to install any version.

I may just take the 2GB stick from my Macbook since I don't use it as much anymore. I can probably deal with 1.5 GB in that...

 

I never knew that the key worked for both 32 and 64 bit versions. Thats good to know now tho,lol

 

Got mine today! Hopefully I have time this evening to play with it...

 

I'm really liking it so far, seems to be running pretty fast after I got rid of the software I did not want and upgraded to 3GB of RAM, one was definitely not enough, it was a chore to get through the windows 7 initial setup. The keyboard and trackpoint are great!

 

Nice, I am glad that you are liking your new X100e...it definitely helps to remove some of the extra software that was installed by Lenovo, but at least it's not as bad as the level of crapware that's loaded on a Vaio. Hope you'll get many years out of your machine!

Now, if only Lenovo can provide us with a Flash 10.1-compatible ATI driver, then everything will be golden.

 

Looking forward to that driver, and it definitely did not have as much crap as previous machines I have bought.

 

If I get an SSD as some point soon, would you clone the drive or would you try to do a clean install? If so, can you download the cool Lenovo utils that display WiFi and Battery in the taskbar?

 

I would recommend a clean install, because it will allow you to rebuild the registry, plus offers you a chance to switch over to the 64-bit version if you like, although it really depends on how many 3rd party software you are going to put on your machine, and whether you are willing to spend the time and the energy on re-installing them (and re-entering their settings).

You can download everything off the Lenovo website, just google "X100e drivers" and all the utilities are on that page. Personally what I did after installing Windows 7 was to just download the "ThinkVantage System Update" off that page, and then when you run that utilities it will actually let you download all of the other drivers and utilities that's appropriate for your version of Windows (so you don't have to manually select and download the files yourselves). One recommendation here: I would skip the ThinkVantage Access Connections when you re-install - Windows 7 can manage your Wifi connection just as well, and you can eliminate one software that you'll have to run every time at bootup. The Power Manager is useful though.

 

Good tips! I will take that into consideration when I get the SSD. Will probably go ahead and install Windows 7 Professional. Haven't decided yet on 32 vs. 64 bit.

 

I got my 90W AC adapter on Friday and it works great with the x100e. Still enjoying the unit immensely and getting it configured the way on want it. Holding off on the SSD for now, though I'm having a hard time just now going out and buying one. Loving the TrackPoint!!! I've never owned a ThinkPad before, but have used them throughout the years at school and such, but I'm thinking my next full size will have to be a ThinkPad as well. I haven't used the touchpad at all since I got the machine.

My only issue with Lenovo is that they ship everything "Signature Required." The refurbished AC adapter was $18 and they still shipped it in this manner, same thing with the HTPC keyboard I got from them last year. Any idea why they do this?

 

Thanks for the update, and I'll probably go ahead and order the 90W adapter myself as well. Glad to hear that you are continuing to enjoy your X100e, and I think that you probably enjoy as much as I do how you can bring this machine everywhere with you and still enjoy a good computing experience. In the future if you want to consider a more full-size Thinkpad, I recommend that you look at the X- or the T- series, as they have the best construction and weight-to-performance ratio, and some of the lower-end machines are pretty attractively priced as well. BTW what's the battery life and the heat like on the dual-core X100e machine?

Yeah, the $15 X100e sleeve that I ordered from Lenovo also required a signature at delivery. I guess they just do it this way to ensure uniformity.

 

Yeah, I've looked at the T series a lot in the past. It will be quite a while before I look into anything else full-size because my Dell is only around 9 months old and is still working well, though I think I will be using it less and less because the x100e does at least 90% of everything I need to do.

As for heat, it is very hot at times, though it stays quiet, so I guess that is a trade off. Not fully positive on the battery life yet as I have not done any real tests, but under some mixed usage, I'm sure I got at least 3.5 hours.

How does Lenovo do with shipping to an address other than your billing address? In the future, it would be much easier to ship to the office because at least someone would always be there to sign.

 

To answer your last question, I actually had the X100e shipped to my parent's house in Oregon (mainly because I was there at the time, and also because there's no sales tax in Oregon). All I had to do is to call my credit card company to add the shipping address to the list of authorized addresses before placing my order, and Lenovo shipped my laptop after checking with the credit card issuer, so it is pretty easy to have them ship things to places other than your billing address.

 

I got mine on Friday, but only had time today to really use it much

I know with a few firefox tabs open, Steam installing MW2 (testing purposes), CoD4 installing over my network,while talking on Xfire, theres like no slowdown at all, so im pretty impressed with the speed of the system.

I can confirm that Halo runs pretty decent on this,hehe.

Now,quick question tho. I used the multiboot setup from pendrivelinux.com to boot a Ubuntu 10.04 iso from a 16 GB SD card (in case anyone is wondering, you can boot a SD card from the slot) with a 4GB casper-rw file.All of those specifics aside, does Ubuntu not like the WLAN card in the X100e much? I cant seem to connect to my secured connection, but my neighbor has an unsecured one I can connect to just fine.

 

Hi Guys,

I think I have run into one little issue and I'm curious to see if you have had the same problem or have any solution to it.

When working in Excel, I can't really see the grid lines. Also in my Lightning Calendar in Thunderbird, I cannot see the lines that block out the hour increments.

Any idea how you can adjust the contrast or something like this, that would correct this issue?

 

I think I've answered my own question. I disabled Vari-Bright in the Catalyst Control Center and rebooted. This fixed the issues as I am easily able to see grid lines in all applications now.

 

Went ahead and bought 4GB of RAM for the x100e (Micro Center matched Newegg's price). The x100e was running fine with 3GB, but the MacBook was running a little slow and since I still use it for syncing my iPhone among other things, I wanted to bump it back up to 3GB.

The nice thing about this is that when I decide to buy the SSD, my choice is pretty much made to install Windows 7 64-bit so that I can utilize all the memory. As of right now, the 32-bit version shows that 4GB is installed, but only 2.75GB is usable. Still running great for now though...

 

I know I just keep posting, but do you guys think they will come out with a 9 cell for the x100e at any point? The battery life is not bad as is, but I'd be happy with a 9 cell, the added weight would not bother me.

 

Well, it's possible, but I wouldn't count on it. The 6-cell battery took the X100e from 2.93lbs to 3.3lbs (vs the 3 cell battery), so a theoretical 9-cell battery would make the X100e weigh close to 3.7 lbs, which is pushing the ultraportable limit. Having said that the X201 does have 3 battery options (4-, 6- and 9-cells), so I guess never say never, although the X201 is also more power-hungry than the X100e. I guess you can buy another 3- or 6-cell battery if you need more battery life on the road.

 

I agree with you, 3.7 lbs would not bother me, I would be more concerned with how much it extends from the back. Not a necessity for me, would just be nice to have the option. I'm very happy to have this machine, have not used my Dell since I got other than to copy over some files.

 

Hey guys,

Instead of waiting for Catalyst drivers to be made available from IBM, can you guys try to use Mobility Modder to install Catalyst drivers straight from ATI? I've heard this works to get generic ATI drivers installed for laptops, perhaps this will work for you?

I think this is the weakest part about this netbook - it has the radeon 3200 which can hardware accelerate flash 10.1 but no current driver to enable.

Please test this out

 

After a few weeks with mine (I got it fully loaded), I have to say, I'm not impressed. The biggest shortcomings:

1) Battery life sucks.
2) The finish is very easily scratched and scuffed.
3) Heat is an issue.
4) The fan noise (as far as it having an annoying pitch) isn't bad- just a 'whoosh' noise- but it doesn't take much for it to kick up to full speed. I would have preferred a more silent system.
5) No HDMI.
6) I hate the placement of the FN key.

Of course, I knew everything (except the non-durable finish) before I made my purchase. I just regret that I didn't take them into consideration a little more than I did.

I paid just under $500 for mine, so at least the fact that it wasn't super expensive makes me regret it a little less. I'm looking forward to the next generation x100e. They just need to switch to an Intel CULV dual core, work on their paint issues, add a magnesium lid, and include HDMI.

 

I agree with you on the finish issues, seems like mine has developed a scratch / line where the screen bezel comes into contact with the wrist rest, but on all other accounts, I'm pretty impressed.

I haven't even been too upset with the battery life...it's no CULV, but not too bad for my usage.

 

Solution for hd flash acceleration and ati catalyst driver install.

Go here and read Peter Wong's comment post for instructions on 'manually' forcing catalyst drivers to install. You'll need catalyst 9.11 and above to get hd flash accelerated by the gpu:

Lenovo ThinkPad X100e Review

It should work excellently and reduce cpu usage, heat, and extend battery life. Please report before/after cpu specs, observations, frame rates. Try other 10.x catalyst drivers if it initially fails to install.

Cheers