Thinkpad X220 12.5" 320GB 4G Review

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List Price: $1,099.00
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I've owned a Lenovo T43, T60p, X61T, X200T and now the X220. Lenovo makes excellent machines.

Pros: Thinkpad Build Quality, Keyboard, HD IPS display, Battery life, Docking station, All day battery slice

Cons: Price for a tricked out model

I purchased the i7 model and then added an after market Intel OEM 300 GB SSD. This thing flys. Windows Experience Index is a 6 due to graphics but processor, memory and hard disk (SSD) all score in the mid-7's. I had heard great things about the IPS display and without a doubt, this is the best computer screen I have ever had. The resolution could be higher but with my vision it is certainly acceptable. The viewing angles are fantastic and the screen is bright.

As the previous reviewer mentioned, the X220 has a 7 mm drive rather than the standard 9.5 mm. Intel's 320 series SSD's with models ending in 301 are 7 mm high and come in sizes up to 600 GB. I used Acronis to clone the hard disk to the SSD, swapped the drives and was up and running in about 2 hours, 1.95 hours of that for the cloning process.

I was torn between buying this, a MacBook Air or the Lenovo X1. The other two may look better but in terms of pure performance, tremendous battery life and the IPS Display the X220 wins out IMO. Build quality is fantastic. It may look like the X200 or X201 that came before it but it is a proven succesful design with plenty of power under the hood. I have absolutely no regrets with this purchase, the X220 is a great machine.

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I purchased my X220 from an individual locally.

I think it is necessary to post this as a warning.

I really like this laptop. The performace is amazing.

BIG ISSUE:

The hard drive slot height is 7mm. The standard is 9.5mm.

Do not expect to buy a standard 2.5" laptop drive (spindle or SSD) and expect it to fit. I usually research before purchasing anything. My bad, didn't even think it would have this height issue.

I think Toshiba makes an HG3 series SSD (7mm height) that might just work. Does anyone know of where this can be purchased?

Please be aware of this.

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I like this notebook. It is really well built and a great business notebook with docking and performance. The power to weight ratio is really there and it is a breeze to travel with especially since it has great battery life. However I really do not like the touch pad. No matter how much I try I am not friends with it and it really baffles me that Lenovo put it on there. To me it takes so much value out of the laptop as I make erroneous clicks, scroll by mistake etc.

Honest reviews on Thinkpad X220 12.5" 320GB 4G

I had a Samsung Netbook with the Atom processor that was driving me nuts how slow it was. A good computer for $350, but too slow for my needs doing mostly internet browsing, the processor was always maxed out. This Thinkpad is so fast, much faster then my other 3 computers including a Dell, another older Thinkpad 400 and a HP desktop.

For example, to load CNN.com on my old Samsung, it took about 7 seconds, this takes about 1 second. I have Comcast wireless with 50Mbps speed and I get 45Mbps download on this. The dual core processor is very fast for all tasks. The Thinkpad came loaded with Windows 7 Professional, since Im a new to Windows 7 (use Xp on other 3 computers) it has been a learning curve, but I am starting to like it. I found many ways to make it look and feel more like my XP so I am getting more comfortable.

Back to the Thinkpad, there are some that criticize the trackpad. I found I had to customize it to stretch out the edge that it uses for detecting movement, that helped a lot as otherwise, I was finding errant selections to happen. It took me an hour or so to play around with the choices, but now it works great and is as good as any laptops pad. The keyboard is amazing also. I really like the light that you can turn on that illuminates the keyboard for working at night in low lights.

As for battery, it probably does get about 7-9 hours, but I have the backlit contrast turned all the way up which reduces mine to about 6 hours, anything better then 4 I consider good anyways. As for the screen, it is amazing, so much better then my old netbook. The sound could be better, but I like the volume and on-off buttons on the keyboard that are dedicated to the sound. My old Netbook was a bit lighter, but this is still a notebook weight, but with a full laptop speed (minus a DVD drive), and more, believe me this is a screaming fast machine, amazaing is all I can say.

I had some issues with my Symantec Internet Security not fully working, found out that I had to run Internet Explorer 9 in 32 bit mode, not 64, not an issue at all and a call to Symantec took me 2 minutes to change that. The PG UP and PG DN are at the top right, I like them on the lower right of the keyboard so I remapped two keys that are at the lower bottom to move forward and back on web pages, to now be the Pg UP and PG DN keys, it was a freeware program and I love now. The delete key is also in the upper right, but it is a double sized key so I like it now that I am used to it. When I am working and want to put it in sleep mode, I just press the on-off button and it goes right into sleep mode, pressing it again later, it comes back on within 5 seconds, then about 10 seconds more to reconnect to my wireless, very nice.

If you want a Netbook sized and weight computer that is more powerful then most laptops and desktops, this is the computer. I did a ton of research and even though this is much more expensive, consider you are getting a full computer with a dual core processor. I ended up getting the 4Gb model and bought another 4Gb (8 total) from Crucial that took me less then 3 minutes to install. If you can afford the higher price, buy this, you won't be sorry as I am extatic about this little lightening fast computer.

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I did my research and decided this was the machine for me -really attracted to the 8 hour battery life, light weight, keyboard and mid button cursor. Out of the box it did not work -sent back to Lenovo -it took me exactly 3 months to the day and escalated it to one level below VP of Customer service for customer service to actually get a new one -totally outrageous!!! Here's a really joke -the Executive that I dealt with said that he would send me an internal optical drive for my problems -they sent it -guess what -it doesn't fit an internal drive!!!

If you buy the machine get it locally where you can return it and if you notice ANY problems send it back!