Lenovo's ThinkPad X200 Reviews series has a long history of combining lightweight portability, epic battery life, and uncompromising performance. The 12.5-inch, $1,299 ThinkPad X220 offers a couple of new riffs on this familiar theme, including a 16:9 screen, an Intel 2nd Generation Core processor, and a large textured clickpad, but can the new model live up to the storied legacy of its predecessors?
Design
At 12 x 9.1 x 1.25 inches and 3.6 pounds (with a nine-cell battery), the ThinkPad X220 is extremely light and thin, comparing favorably to last year's ThinkPad X201 (11.6 x 9.2 x 1.4 inches, 3.8 pounds with a nine-cell battery) and the HP EliteBook 2740p. However, the 13-inch MacBook Air is much lighter and thinner (12.8 x 8.9 x .68 inches, 2.9 pounds). The standard six-cell battery takes 1 inch off the depth of the notebook and 0.2 pounds off its weight. The optional battery slice, which attaches to the bottom of the system, adds 0.6 inches of thickness and 1.5 pounds of weight.
The X220 sports the tried-and-true ThinkPad aesthetic, complete with a rubberized lid and a metallic Lenovo logo, and raven-black sides, bottom, and deck. As usual, the only dashes of color are the bright red TrackPoint and a light blue Enter key on the keyboard. Perhaps the most noteworthy departure from other high-end ThinkPads is the absence of a latch on the lid.
Heat
There are few things more uncomfortable than a hot notebook, so we must give kudos to the X220 for keeping it cool. After streaming a video at full screen for 15 minutes, we measured the touchpad at just 82 degrees Fahrenheit, the keyboard at a cool 86 degrees, and the bottom at a reasonable 91 degrees. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees to be comfortable.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The ThinkPad X220's keyboard offers the kind of amazing tactile feedback and concave shaped keys that allow touch typists to input quickly and accurately. Due to these advantages, we were able to score a strong 86 words per minute on the Ten Thunbs Typing Test, better than our typical 80 wpm average.
Like those on Lenovo's ThinkPad T Series, the X220's keyboard also features an enlarged Esc and Delete to make those frequently used keys easier to target. The keyboard also has a full array of extended keys such as Scroll Lock and Pause for users who need them. Unfortunately, while the keyboard itself feels great, the short 2.5-inch palmrest will leave many users' wrists hanging over its edge, which can be uncomfortable and can place added strain on the shoulders and wrists. The ThinkPad X220 has two different pointing devices: a TrackPoint pointing stick and a touchpad. As with other ThinkPads, the TrackPoint provides a highly precise way to navigate around the desktop without even lifting your hands off the home row.
Those who prefer touchpads will appreciate the X220's 3 x 1.75-inch textured clickpad. Though we've been critical of previous buttonless touchpads because they were jumpy, the X220's Synaptics-powered pad was accurate and comfortable to use. It also supports a wide variety of multitouch gestures and edge scrolling.
However, we did notice frequent problems with the pad's ability to reject accidental touches from our palms. When we were using the TrackPoint to navigate and our wrist brushed against the pad, we sometimes ended up clicking on the desktop by accident or, worse still, the touchpad and the TrackPoint were both trying to drag the pointer in opposite directions, leading the pointer to temporarily get stuck in place.
Display and Audio
The 12.5-inch 1366 x 768 matte display on the ThinkPad X220 offers bright, sharp images and amazingly wide viewing angles. Even standing at 90 degrees to the left or right, we were able to watch videos without noticing a significant loss of color fidelity. Our only complaint is that Lenovo chose to go with a 16:9, 1366 x 768 aspect ratio after offering 16:10, 1280 x 800 displays on the ThinkPad X201. While 1366 x 768 has become a standard, it offers less vertical real estate for viewing documents and web pages.
Though we wouldn't recommend using the X220 has a home stereo, when we played both the bass-heavy "Forget Me Nots" and the orchestral theme from the Empire Strikes Back, sound was true and loud enough to fill a room.
Ports and Webcam
For such a small notebook, the X220 has plenty of ports. On the right side are an SD card reader, an Ethernet port, an audio jack, and a powered USB connection that can charge your devices even when the notebook is off. On the left are a VGA port, DisplayPort, two more USB ports (for a total of three), and an ExpressCard/54 slot, something you don't see on many notebooks these days. The 720p webcam, which supports Skype HD calls, provided crisp but washed out images. Making a Skype call from our dimly lit living room, our facial features were clearly visible, but colors were muted. Under bright overhead lighting, details were sharper, but had way too high of a white balance at both auto modes; tinkering with the settings didn't help. At one point during our testing, the webcam even stopped working and displayed a black block instead of an image. This problem persisted until we finally powered off the system completely for a few seconds before booting again.
Lenovo's ThinkPad X200 series has a long history of combining lightweight portability, epic battery life, and uncompromising performance. The 12.5-inch, $1,299 ThinkPad X220 offers a couple of new riffs on this familiar theme, including a 16:9 screen, an Intel 2nd Generation Core processor, and a large textured clickpad, but can the new model live up to the storied legacy of its predecessors?
Design
At 12 x 9.1 x 1.25 inches and 3.6 pounds (with a nine-cell battery), the ThinkPad X220 is extremely light and thin, comparing favorably to last year's ThinkPad X201 (11.6 x 9.2 x 1.4 inches, 3.8 pounds with a nine-cell battery) and the HP EliteBook 2740p. However, the 13-inch MacBook Air is much lighter and thinner (12.8 x 8.9 x .68 inches, 2.9 pounds). The standard six-cell battery takes 1 inch off the depth of the notebook and 0.2 pounds off its weight. The optional battery slice, which attaches to the bottom of the system, adds 0.6 inches of thickness and 1.5 pounds of weight.
The X220 sports the tried-and-true ThinkPad aesthetic, complete with a rubberized lid and a metallic Lenovo logo, and raven-black sides, bottom, and deck. As usual, the only dashes of color are the bright red TrackPoint and a light blue Enter key on the keyboard. Perhaps the most noteworthy departure from other high-end ThinkPads is the absence of a latch on the lid.
Heat
There are few things more uncomfortable than a hot notebook, so we must give kudos to the X220 for keeping it cool. After streaming a video at full screen for 15 minutes, we measured the touchpad at just 82 degrees Fahrenheit, the keyboard at a cool 86 degrees, and the bottom at a reasonable 91 degrees. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees to be comfortable.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The ThinkPad X220's keyboard offers the kind of amazing tactile feedback and concave shaped keys that allow touch typists to input quickly and accurately. Due to these advantages, we were able to score a strong 86 words per minute on the Ten Thunbs Typing Test, better than our typical 80 wpm average.
Like those on Lenovo's ThinkPad T Series, the X220's keyboard also features an enlarged Esc and Delete to make those frequently used keys easier to target. The keyboard also has a full array of extended keys such as Scroll Lock and Pause for users who need them. Unfortunately, while the keyboard itself feels great, the short 2.5-inch palmrest will leave many users' wrists hanging over its edge, which can be uncomfortable and can place added strain on the shoulders and wrists.
Lenovo ThinkPad X220
Lenovo ThinkPad X220The ThinkPad X220 has two different pointing devices: a TrackPoint pointing stick and a touchpad. As with other ThinkPads, the TrackPoint provides a highly precise way to navigate around the desktop without even lifting your hands off the home row.
Those who prefer touchpads will appreciate the X220's 3 x 1.75-inch textured clickpad. Though we've been critical of previous buttonless touchpads because they were jumpy, the X220's Synaptics-powered pad was accurate and comfortable to use. It also supports a wide variety of multitouch gestures and edge scrolling.
However, we did notice frequent problems with the pad's ability to reject accidental touches from our palms. When we were using the TrackPoint to navigate and our wrist brushed against the pad, we sometimes ended up clicking on the desktop by accident or, worse still, the touchpad and the TrackPoint were both trying to drag the pointer in opposite directions, leading the pointer to temporarily get stuck in place.
Lenovo ThinkPad X220
Display and Audio
Lenovo ThinkPad X220The 12.5-inch 1366 x 768 matte display on the ThinkPad X220 offers bright, sharp images and amazingly wide viewing angles. Even standing at 90 degrees to the left or right, we were able to watch videos without noticing a significant loss of color fidelity. Our only complaint is that Lenovo chose to go with a 16:9, 1366 x 768 aspect ratio after offering 16:10, 1280 x 800 displays on the ThinkPad X201. While 1366 x 768 has become a standard, it offers less vertical real estate for viewing documents and web pages.
Though we wouldn't recommend using the X220 has a home stereo, when we played both the bass-heavy "Forget Me Nots" and the orchestral theme from the Empire Strikes Back, sound was true and loud enough to fill a room.
Ports and Webcam
For such a small notebook, the X220 has plenty of ports. On the right side are an SD card reader, an Ethernet port, an audio jack, and a powered USB connection that can charge your devices even when the notebook is off. On the left are a VGA port, DisplayPort, two more USB ports (for a total of three), and an ExpressCard/54 slot, something you don't see on many notebooks these days.
Lenovo ThinkPad X220The 720p webcam, which supports Skype HD calls, provided crisp but washed out images. Making a Skype call from our dimly lit living room, our facial features were clearly visible, but colors were muted. Under bright overhead lighting, details were sharper, but had way too high of a white balance at both auto modes; tinkering with the settings didn't help. At one point during our testing, the webcam even stopped working and displayed a black block instead of an image. This problem persisted until we finally powered off the system completely for a few seconds before booting again.
Conferencing Features
The ThinkPad X220 has a couple of features designed to enhance the video conferencing experience, the most obvious of which is a row of buttons on the upper left side of the deck that quickly allow you to raise and lower the volume or mute/unmute the microphone. In the Lenovo Communications utility, you can optimize the microphone for single voice or multiple voice calls, both of which worked as advertised when we conducted a conference call over ooVoo. The keystroke noise suppression setting, which is supposed to filter out the noise of your typing, didn't work as well. Our conference partner clearly heard our strokes with the suppression enabled, though they were even louder and more annoying with it disabled.
Price of ThinkPad X220 is $1,299.00
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