Customer Reviews

Thinkpad X201 12.1" 320GB

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Long story short: this is an amazing computer with very few, forgivable, flaws

I spent a lot of time looking into the X201T because I'm someone who likes to buy computers rarely. The last computer I bought was a Thinkpad R61 in 2004, it did me well for six years and my wife uses it to this day. I have little doubt that the X201T will do the same.

The X201T is less a computer and more a collection of functions, which are made possible by the many ways to provide the computer with input. You have two mice (a red dot and a touchpad), two keyboards (a fantastic real one and one on the touch screen), a stylus (which is both a mouse and a keyboard), and your finger (the most intuitive way to operate Windows or use the internet, even if you're using the built-in keyboard). If you get a set of Bluetooth headphones/microphone you can even do a lot of things with your voice (the pre-installed speech recognition software works better than I expected), and you can control music from your ear. With such a wide range of options, interacting with the computer is smooth and natural.

Good thing too, because it can do so much. My work requires me to read and write, all the time, and the X201T is perfect for that. It is a great word processor - all the more so because editing Word documents with the stylus is quicker and easier than the mouse/keyboard combination. Instead of keeping a pad of scratch paper around for ideas, I just run OneNote in tablet mode. If you work with pdf's, the X201T will become your library and your filing cabinet. Having used the tablet to surf the internet, I am now convinced that the web was not meant to be accessed with a mouse. The X201T has all the same functions as an iPad, which makes it an extraordinary media player - I hook up my Bluetooth headphones and play the thing from my bag. If you want a television, the widescreen is actually pretty big and very bright (even without the extra brightness upgrade), and you can always hook it up to an external monitor. Of course, this thing destroys email, spreadsheets, and other normal computing tasks.

The computer isn't cheap and without a few accessories and upgrades it's not worth having. The docking station is a must, and Lenovo's tablet bag is critical if you want to work on the go. The multitouch option is a necessity; the 8-cell battery provides a little less power than I'd like (~ 5 hours of full functionality and about two more without internet or Bluetooth) but it's a heck of a lot better than the 4-cell battery; you'll want 4 GB of RAM (expandable to 8); and the 2.13 GHz processor is worth the investment. The upgraded warranty (the one that covers accidents) makes sense for me. That said, I was able to get all of this for about 2K in August 2010 - sellers on eBay buy these packages in bulk and undercut the manufacturer.

A couple of relatively minor downsides: forget about gaming (though Halo 2 works well on an external monitor), Windows Media player sometimes skips when I have the computer in the tablet bag and I go up or down stairs, it sometimes gets hot on the bottom when it runs for a long time in tablet mode, and multitouch capability is not built seamlessly into Windows. (You can zoom in Word, but only in 10% increments, and many Windows options are too small to touch with your finger. That said, Windows 7 is very well suited for a touchscreen on the whole.)


Overall, I'm looking forward to the next six years with my new computer. I have no idea what we'll have by then, but I do know that the transition from notebook to tablet has reaffirmed my admiration of technological progress. The experience was similar to the one I had in 2004 when I moved from a desktop to a laptop. If you want to invest in a serious (and seriously fun) piece of technology, dump the iPad and pick up an X201T.

Lenovo is selling this laptop without proper driver support. And they don't seem to care whatsoever to fix the issue. Search the internet yourself and see; search for "x201 pressure" and see for yourself that many people have had issues with the pen functionality (for over a year now!) and how Lenovo has failed to provide an answer, much less a working software driver. I called their customer support under warranty, and their response was "Your best bet is to search on google to see if anyone was able to resolve this issue"!!!! Great customer service Lenovo!
There are many issues I've experienced depending on what software driver I've installed: pen stops working after the computer comes out of standby; pen is recognized as a mouse device and handwriting recognition etc won't work; pressure sensitivity and touch don't work together (if your screen has the multitouch option), older drivers are terrible at calibration (where you touch on the screen and where you see the pointer are 5mm off depending on which corner of the screen you press, and this is NOT fixable by recalibrating the device); pen loses its smoothness on older drivers and everything you write/draw looks rather blocky.

I'm giving it a 1/5 star because of pen functionality and customer service; everything else is great about it, but most people who spend extra money to buy a tablet expect the pen to actually work; this doesn't. If you sketch/draw, you're better off buying a Wacom USB digitizer (this tablet's screen is made by Wacom too but after contacting Wacom, they told me that Lenovo is responsible for putting together a proper driver package). If you expect to use the pen in programs such as Photoshop, corel Painter, SketchPad etc, don't bother buying this.

I bought this computer for "inking", using a stylus to write as one would write on paper.
After doing some research, I narrowed my options down to this "high-end" machine, and "lower-end" machines which were literally less than half the price.
Eventually, due to my good experience with Thinkpad (back when it was IBM Thinkpad) and due to what I read about the Wacom digitizer technology integrated into in this product, I favored this more expensive option.

Some of my experience with this product:

The digitizer feature (used for "inking") is inaccurate, and is almost useless in some parts of the screen. According to Lenovo, there is some driver from Wacom to fix this. But had Lenovo's technicians tried this fix themselves, they would know that it is incompatible with the X201t. This problem is not limited to my machine: it has been observe in at least two machines of this model, but so far Lenovo does not seem to share my concern about this issue.

Lenovo's preloaded software seems to take a lot of memory and slow down my computer. For example, the password manager slows down access to password protected websites. Furthermore, Lenovo's software apparently disables some useful networking functionality of windows 7. One might find "Start-> Control Panel -> Uninstall a Program" useful.

Finally, let's just say that the Lenovo's support for the Thinkpad is not what I expected on any parameter. Fortunately, windows 7 reinstalls relatively fast, so I could undo the damage that bad advice did to my machine. Unfortunately, The tales of Lenovo support's telephone switch are beyond the scope of this review.



Update: some more details for people who asked:

The pressure sensitivity problems:
When you try to write using the pen (for example in Office OneNote), the "ink" turns up in the wrong place, shifted from the actual position of the pen. This shift is different in different parts of the screen. It does not appear in the other side of the screen, but it makes the inking difficult.
In addition, in some parts of the screen, the inking resolution is lower, things just don't look sharp.

The Driver:
Having installed the Wacom driver several times, I can say that it causes a worse problem: when the computer is in tablet mode, you put the pen in one part of the screen and the cursor shows up in another. It seems like the Wacom driver wasn't designed for this machine. Lenovo support tells you to install it, they must have never tried it. I ended up reinstalling my machine (more than once).

Truth?
Indeed this seems like a crazy story about what is supposed to be a high end tablet computer. Those who wondered must be right, those of us who got what is supposed to be a productivity beast really have nothing better to do with our time than spend hours trying to get through Lenovo's telephone switch without it hanging up on us, just to explain the problem yet another time, just to be told to install the Wacom incompatible driver again and call back if it does not work.


Update: Memory:
The 2GB that come with this computer are really not enough (probably because of the Lenovo software that come with it). Extra memory speeds up the computer considerably.
Sleep mode:
For some reason the X201t takes a lot of time to wake up from sleep mode (compared to a 3 years old laptop with Win7). This turns up to be a nuisance when you try to use this computer as a notebook.


Jan 2011 Update:
To my understanding, Lenovo knows that there is an accuracy problem in some areas of the screen in this model. Since some areas of the screen are ok, they don't plan to fix the problem.
Sounds crazy, I know.
Beware of Lenovo quality.


May 2011: Tip
You know how your Lenovo shuts down unexpectedly? It turns out that Lenovo forgot that CPUs need cooling. Assuming that you don't live in liquid nitrogen environment: set your processor speed to low.
Thought you paid for a fast processor? More like you bought a fancy intel sticker for your computer (That sticker wears off too).

Consider the new Asus tablets (eee Slate) before you decide to buy computer. If I were buying a tablet PC now, that's what I would get.


June 2011: update
The integrated camera goes offline very often. After a year of using this machine, the camera now goes offline very often. I had to get an external camera to replace the built in one.

Got this as a computer for medical school for about 2k. Many medical students have had their hard drives crash. Our IT department says the computers should not be moved at all when not in sleep/off/hibernate mode because, despite advertisements about HD crash/drop protection, these HD heads are liable to smash into the disk and permanently damage the HD (i.e. probably delete all your data too). One of the first defects I noticed was that the switch on the side for networking on/off would randomly go on and off (e.g. I sneeze, network goes off). After doing some research, it turns out the manufacturer did not solder the switch component properly to the motherboard thus yielding this dysfunction (a common problem in our class with these swithces). To fix the switch and network going off/on randomly, you have to replace the whole motherboard. My stylus just started malfunctioning, where the eraser gets permanently stuck in erase or no-erase mode, and apparently my warranty does not cover a replacement stylus. While having a stylus for class notes is pretty useful and swell, it is very inaccurate (particularly at the edges of the screen) and the optimization software that is supposed to increase the stylus accuracy just makes the stylus accuracy far far worse when I run it. Furthermore, a lot of Lenovo-specific bloatware seems to accompany these computers. While I understand interface software is needed for the tablet/stylus functionality, Lenovo applications randomly pop-up in my application bar and trip me up when I'm trying to study and switch applications.

I have used a number of laptops from various manufacturers running various OSes (linux distros, windows, OSX), have built a number of computers, and have a background in software engineering. In summary, tablets are swell but this rather expensive computer is put together with cheap/crappy components, the malfunction of many of which are not covered by the common warranty programs. Unless you like spending a significant percentage of your work/study/game-computer-time cursing and debugging and repairing your computer, buy something else! (and you can get a lot of nice computers for the amount of money charged for this computer! maybe a couple of nice computers for the price of one of these!) I also suspect that they have NOT corrected many of these defects in the subsequent tablet models, and many of the defects for the later models may not be reported yet! Caveat emptor!

I bought this in October 2010 & it has worked really well. Iris the third tablet PC I have owned (Fujitsu and Asus were before) and this one feels more solidly built. It's great for mobile professionals like myself. I love taking notes with onenote on it!

I bought this computer for college my senior year with the idea that I'd keep using it once I became an architect, as my old poor hp laptop (which served me well) was woefully past its prime. What attracted me to this computer was of course the tablet, but I also wanted one that was portable, and strong. My professor had a lenovo, so I looked into the brand. And after a lot of research (and agonizing over my decision) I decided to buy it.

It has worked beautifully.

The tablet works just as one would expect, the pressure sensitivity working well for photoshop and illustrator drawings. And with a few memory/ram upgrades I have used and abused this computer every day, in an environment where other students may be working on sanding a wooden model, or having pencil dust from drawings flying everywhere, and this computer keeps on going despite all that dust.

I've had the internet (3+ tabs), photoshop (easily multiple drawings at once), and word (for that 10 page paper) going on it at the same time. It starts to whine and heat up a bit, but does the job just as well. Oh, and google chat on it as well as of late, with additional screen capture software. that's 5 programs guys, and it does it just fine. In fact, I opened all of that up just now to make sure it still works... yup, going strong!

The graphics card SUCKS, NOT A GAMING COMPUTER which means I can't play most of the new games unless I put up with a lot of lag at lowest settings (starcraft 2 at lowest settings works ok, but that's already pushing it), but if I wanted a gaming computer I would have gotten one. for a computer used to sketch/draw/finalize drawings this is perfect. The speakes are also underneath the laptop and not of great quality, but still louder than my roommate's macs and with headphones it's not a problem.

Overall, 5 out of 5, does everything I want it to and more. I'm not sure why so many people here complain about the pen, but this thing is a breeze to draw with, and it has yet to disappoint. I bought this computer hoping it would last me 4 years (otherwise the investment wouldn't be worth it for me) but it looks like it will easily last me 6.

I've had my tablet for about a year now and at first I must say I absolutely loved it. Mine has an SSD with the i7 processor and the works but then the problems started to roll out. It boots up slower than my desktop that just has a HDD, there are problems with a lot of the programs including Microsoft Word to be the most annoying and the pen no longer works even though I've re-installed all the drivers. At first I was worried but I remembered I bought a lenovo so surely the customer support would help me out. WRONG! They just passed off the blame on every problem I had and did nothing, now my warranty has run out and they won't even talk to you without charging you even though it is problems they were supposed to address while it was still under warranty. Over all it's a hassle and it's just not worth spending that much money for nothing really.

Paid over $2000 for this laptop and the webcam doesnt work!!!!!! Check the internet on it, tons of people have problems with it.

I really love this laptop. I feel that Windows 7 integrates with this beautifully. I am a teacher and a graduate student and this has seriously increased my productivity. This is the first time I have used OneNote and it is simply a game changer. I am able to complete and organize projects with way more ease. I chose to invest in this machine because of the tablet feature. As a math teacher it is helpful to integrate drawings into worksheets and presentations and I knew that this would save the time scanning and cutting.


This machine has turned out to do more than I initially bought it for because of features like the sticky notes, and the overall ease of windows 7. I did not get the touchscreen. I chose to keep that $300 in my pocket. I can see how it could take the machine to then next level but I am seriously satisfied with my purchase. The stylus works well as a mouse and pen already.

Any of the errors people were complaining about are easily resolved by doing an internet search. Technical support can be a bit of a hassle but this computer is meant to work well. You have to figure out how some things work first.

If you want to invest in a laptop you can grow into, this is the one

I upgraded from an X61 (non tablet). The X201 is a lot faster. I got the model with the fastest chip, harddrive (7200) and extra memory. I'm happy with how fast it runs on Win7. Booting is fine.

Unless you're plugged in (unlikely for a tablet) you need the large battery (about 4 hrs life). Then, you have a full 5 lb tablet, which is too heavy to be a good tablet. The pen accuracy is very bad - see other reviews. I thought I'd love a tablet convertible but it's too short a battery life, too heavy for a tablet, and poor accuracy. I haven't had any failure-type problems though (like the pen not working at all.) I got the extra bright screen which is great (as long as you're on a cord.)

Basically, I use this (first) as a replacement PC with a docking station and two 20" monitors, and (second) yes it's manageable to use as a regular laptop at 4 to 5 lbs. However, if I was doing it again, I'd have invested differently: Instead of getting a costly X201-tablet and docking station and extra battery, I'd probably get just a small tower PC for home office, and match it with the lightest type of professional laptop (like 3 lb) for travel. With new software like Dropbox, it can be pretty seamless to be on 2 pc's rather than one; or using Synctoy and a thumbdrive between the two before and after a trip. The money I'd have saved on the tablet function that I now barely use, would have bought a workable basic home office tower PC; I would also have not needed the docking station investment.