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41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great baby Thinkpad notebook, February 20, 2010
This review is from: Lenovo ThinkPad X100E 11.6-Inch Netbook (Black) (Personal Computers)
I have used this as my main work machine, doing office / productivity work, for about a month now. It is a great small laptop, especially for the price.
Build quality is superb. The X100e does not have a roll cage (i.e. internal metal skeleton) like some higher-priced X and T series Thinkpads, but you'd never know it, probably because the small size makes it largely unnecessary. The case is nice and stiff; the hinges are superb; and in general the build quality seems to be a cut above the T6x series, at least. However, I do miss the slightly rubbery paint from my other Thinkpads; this black matte paint is smoother. Still nice, but not as nice.
The keyboard is the best I've used on a laptop. It is superior to the ones on my T60 and T61, previously my favorites.
The touchpad is also superb.
I've disabled the camera, partly because I'll never use it and partly to save on battery life.
The screen is very nice and bright. In fact I have to turn it down from the brightest setting sometimes indoors, as it can hurt my eyes due to the extreme brightness. The resolution is just fine for doing research, writing, etc. After a quick period of adapting, the screens on my T6x series feel huge and overly tall by comparison. It is enough resolution to dock side-by-side windows and work with dual documents, barely.
I haven't had any problems with heat. I think this may be because I don't stress the video card much if at all. The bottom gets quite mildly warm under prolonged use.
Performance is just fine in my book. With 9 windows of Google Chrome open, two Word documents, one Notepad text file, Windows Media Player playing an HD movie, two Windows Explorer windows, Adobe Reader 9 opened to a large PDF file, TrueCrypt drive encryption running, AVG, and Warcraft III-- RAM usage was around 1.2 gigs, and processor use hovered around 60-70%.
I am not a big gamer. Playing Warcraft III against my 4-year-old, though, at full res with all eye candy turned on runs smoothly.
Going further on the performance angle, the AMD MV-40 is often roughly compared with a Pentium M 1.6 GHz or thereabouts. That is probably pretty accurate, but my machine feels a bit faster than machines of that rough vintage, such as the T4x series. This is probably due to the SSD, faster RAM, faster better everything else etc. in the X100e. So you would essentially get a better-than-X41 performer in the X100e in my opinion, for a budget price. Not bad for doing productivity work at all, though it is no speed demon by today's standards.
I spent roughly $100 to upgrade to an X25-V SSD, which noticeably improved performance. After the upgrade, my Windows boot time is 25 seconds, shutdown time is under 10 seconds, sleep/standby mode time is 4 seconds, and resume from sleep/standby is 2 seconds. The 160 GB drive my machine came with went into an $8 enclosure and now serves backup duty.
Battery life easily goes beyond 5 hours for the type of work I do (before the SSD upgrade it was generally around 4:30). I have the processor set to max out at 60% in battery mode, and the screen is generally set to around 5-6 brightness, which is usually enough.
I still don't have Photoshop loaded on this machine. I think that's where the processor's shortcomings would be most noticeable, processor- and ram-hungry applications like that. But this is not a slow machine IMHO.
I also don't think most people would need more than 2 GB of RAM, unless using something like Photoshop where they wanted better performance. Simple multitasking that most people would do probably wouldn't need more than 2 GB. Even with music running in the background, a slew of browser windows, etc. I just don't see how it could stack up to 4 GB. It seems to be an increasing practice to load a machine with 4 GB or even 8 GB of RAM, but I wonder how many eager buyers realize that the RAM they're buying will never be used.
Of course, I am running Windows in a minimal way. I guess some OS features could consume extra RAM, although I wouldn't know what they are. I tend not to like a lot of junk running in the background, unless it will actually help me run my programs or the machine.
The machine is very attractive and professional-looking. People constantly ogle it, and I've received many questions about it. I personally prefer the size to that of the X200 (the X100e is noticeably smaller).
The lack of an optical drive is definitely a negative for me. It makes it much mroe of a hassle to install things. If you don't already have an external drive, take this into account.
The lack of the Thinklight is also a downer. It is one of my favorite Thinkpad features, and I wonder why Lenovo couldn't have charged an extra 25 cents or whatever it costs for a single LED light and a bit of wire. I suspect it was intentionally left out to differentiate the X100e more from the X200.
Another really disappointing drawback, for me, is the tiny half-size media card reader. An SDHC card will only insert halfway, meaning I cannot have a built-in, always-ready backup device for my most important files. I understand the machine is tiny, but they still could have squeezed in an extra few millimeters for a bigger card reader. The card reader also has no documentation, apparently, meaning I have no idea if any of the formats it supports (which I cannot figure out) would fit completely inside the reader. I plan to follow up with technical support on this.
The ordering process was not so smooth. Lenovo customer service sent me an .xls file, telling me to update it and send it back them to start my service contract. Eventually they caved on this, after I griped. It just didn't seem fair to make people install Microsoft Office or similar program to get what they bought, and in any event I didn't have an office program installed at the time. The machine itself was back-ordered and took weeks to produce, and the status was seldom updated. The machine and accessories came piecemeal: first the extra power supply, followed weeks later by the machine, followed later by the neoprene sleeve.
However, I am really glad to be able to take advantage of Lenovo warranty service. I bought next-business-day support for three years. I have never been anything but impressed with IBM or Lenovo warranty service, and since this is my work machine I needed it.
All in all, this is my favorite notebook, ever. I would buy a Thinkpad netbook if they made one, but this is not a netbook. Netbooks are characterized by super-cheap price, excellent battery life, poor performance, and usually by poor ergonomics and durability. This machine offers perfect ergonomics, great durability, enterprise-class service options, middling battery life, and middling performance. I'm not bothered by the "netbook" name some apply to this machine, but I would not, could not do my everyday work on a netbook. This machine, I can.
The single biggest drawback, for me, is the battery life. But if I wanted longer than 5 hours of battery life, and wanted better performance and even better durability, I would have saved up for an X200 series. For what it is, this machine is perfect for me.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lenovo earns its reputation, May 23, 2010
This review is from: Lenovo ThinkPad X100E 11.6-Inch Netbook (Black) (Personal Computers)
I am no fan of Windows computing, but Apple has chosen to ignore the "netbook" segment of the laptop marketplace, hence I must look elsewhere. Over a year ago I purchased an "Acer Aspire One 8.9" six cell battery little workhorse. It ran XP Home, and was for the most part, a pleasure to own. However, I found that the small screen size was more of an issue than I had anticipated, and I grew to hate using the track pad. All in all, XP wasn't too bad, but it was a far cry from Mac OS 10.5, and when problems developed, resolutions seemed to be painfully time consuming and complicated.
Before the iPad was released, I had hoped that Apple would finally produce a small laptop that would use a real, full featured OS. Obviously, I was disappointed by the iPad, but I suspect that Apple is feeling pretty good about its product line right now.
Happily, I came across a review of the ThinkPad x100e. Lenovo's reputation speaks for itself, and as I read about this unit, I became extremely interested. I ultimately bought one, and have been extremely pleased with my purchase.
My first impression was of the overall high quality feel of the construction, particularly the keyboard, which might be the best I have ever used on any portable computer I have ever owned. I find the amount of pressure required for each keystroke to be exactly what a non typist like me requires, firm but a bit forgiving. My son, who has massive keyboard skills, was very impressed, too. The x100e's weight, with the battery inserted, is very easy pick up and switch from hand to hand even though the machine feels very solid. The 250GB hard drive is a treat. It's not something that I would have expected from a unit of this size and this price range. In fact, I feel that the x100e offers a great deal in terms of quality and capability for the money. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a gamer, but I can report that I have been able to watch YouTube without a glitch, as well as video highlights from Major League Baseball. I experienced some slowdown and freezing while watching a live game, but I was also getting a poor quality wifi signal at he time, so I can't identify the source of the issue. There are also questions about the x100e's ability to play videos in iTunes. This seems to be a known issue, but I use VLC if I have a problem, and that usually works fine.
The screen quality is very respectable. I didn't buy the x100e to process images, that's why I have a MacBook Pro, but on a flight back from Hong Kong, I used it to watch a film and was very pleased with the experience. And speaking of flying, this unit was a pleasure to carry while taking long walks through large airports. Because of it its profile and weight, I was able to use a considerably smaller bag that had the added advantage of being able to fit easily under the seat in front of mine. This also meant that getting to the bag while in flight was a breeze.
Windows 7 Professional is by far the best OS that Microsoft has produced. It's relatively lean, reasonably cooperative and is more Apple like in the way in which it allows the user to make modifications to application settings. Lenovo's "ThinkVantage Tools" are much more than window dressing. They provide the user with easily understood, simple to utilize applications that build on Windows capabilities, and seemed to pop up for me, just as I was getting to a point where I thought I might be heading into some choppy waters. Whether you need help with passwords, diagnostics, controls, drivers, or my favorite, "Airbag Protection", which anticipates possible physical shocks to the hard drive and takes action to prevent damage, Lenovo's added touches are much more than window dressing.
I knew that I had made a very good purchase after a few days of use, when during one night I had been online for at least two solid hours and hadn't noticed that I was using a "small" laptop. My "travel laptop" has become my primary computer for email and any other text intensive purposes. I also use it about 50% of the time for routine web browsing.
Good stuff.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a good laptop, March 4, 2010
This review is from: Lenovo ThinkPad X100E 11.6-Inch Netbook (Black) (Personal Computers)
I have owned the thinkpad x100e for 3 weeks and so far I am satisfied with this laptop. The laptop is small, light, quiet, keyboard and touchpad are really comfortable, the webcam has a high resolution. The two options of trackpoint and touchpad are convenient, especially for a new thinkpad user like me who is not used to the trackpoint. I really like the zoom function of the touchpad, it makes reading more easily on a small screen. This laptop does not have HDMI, and it is probably not suitable for game players since it is more like a netbook.
Pros: portable, comfortable to use,quiet, zoom function of the touchpad, high resolution webcam.
Cons: No HDMI
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