Lenovo Announces ThinkPad X220 Series: 12" IPS with Sandy Bridge
by Dustin Sklavos on March 10, 2011 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- Intel
- Lenovo
- ThinkPad
- Sandy Bridge
- X220
- Laptops
We try not to bring you too much news about product announcements unless there's something particularly intriguing about them; we get inundated by them and most of the time it's the most generic of refreshes. Happily that's not the case with Lenovo's shiny new ThinkPad X220 notebooks.
Inexplicably Lenovo is opting to label these two very different notebooks under the same X220 header: one is a tablet clocking in at 3.88 pounds with a 4-cell battery; the other is an ultraportable that weighs less than three pounds. Both come with support for either SSDs or mechanical hard disks (with a 4GB SSD option as a special order).
We'll start with the ultraportable X220. Lenovo is shipping it with a 12.5" 1366x768 LED-backlit screen, but you can upgrade to an IPS panel. It maxes out at 8GB of DDR3 and has a strong spread of Sandy Bridge mobile processors to choose from, starting with the Core i3-2310M at 2.1GHz and going all the way up to the i7-2620M at 2.7GHz. Strangely, only the i7-equipped models come with USB 3.0 connectivity. Reviews of the X220 are already popping up on the internet and the IPS screen is proving as impressive as you'd expect, but not nearly as impressive as the battery running time: Lenovo claims up to 15 hours on a 9-cell battery, a hyperbolic figure to be sure but not as crazy as you'd think. NotebookReview's test model came with a 6-cell battery and was pushing nine hours.
You can see and eventually order the ultraportable X220 here, and MSRP is expected to start at a not-unseemly $899.
The other X220 is the tablet model. Again it ships with a 12.5" 1366x768 LED-backlit screen, but in this case the only choice is the finish you want on the IPS panel: Infinity Glass or Corning Gorilla. Yes, the X220 tablet comes with an IPS panel standard, proving that Lenovo understands what ViewSonic couldn't figure out with their tablet: that viewing angles are really important. Unfortunately the X220 tablet is nearly a pound heavier than its ultraportable cousin and doesn't come with an option for USB 3.0 connectivity. Lenovo quotes nine hours of running time with the 8-cell battery.
The X220 Tablet isn't up on Lenovo's site yet, but MSRP is expected to start at $1,199.
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akse - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Yeah those mackbooks looks just alike for the couple of years. Really gotten bored of how macbooks look, they all look the same.LoneWolf15 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
A hipster calling me a douche. That's rich.Pylon757 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
No, you quite clearly demonstrate that you do not know why people consider Thinkpads to be some of the best PC laptops in existence - they are QUITE different from other PC laptops.quillaja - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
They look just fine to me. A laptop is just a big rectangle that opens up. No need for fancy crap. Macs are fine looking too, but only if you want a silver rectangle instead of a black one.MeesterNid - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Right, and you also drive a box with four wheels? Because we all know that cars are just rectangular boxes with wheels, no need for fancy crap, no?mino - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
You drive your notebooks at 60mph?The cars WERE, and buses still are, just bricks before we cared about aerodynamics and energy consumption.
You know, brick just happens to be the shape with the most usable internal volume at a given footprint. :)
Pylon757 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw78gcU713gsynaesthetic - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I wish I had a screaming fast gaming laptop that looked like and had the build quality of a Thinkpad.I would pay five grand for one, seriously.
martajd - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Lenovo has put together a nearly perfect tablet PC... except they insist on not even offering the option of discrete graphics. Why? Consumers clearly can use a dGPU (gaming, video etc). Even businesses will be wanting a dGPU if they plan on keeping this machines for 5+ years, as the trend in computing is clearly lending towards using the GPU more often, so it would make sense to at least HAVE one, even if it won't be used extensively currently.I realize Sandy Bridge integrated graphics can play todays games at low settings. That just means that in 2 years it won't be able to play anything.
8steve8 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
x series is about mobility, and productivity, not about gaming.we don't want to pay for a dGPU with money, heat, volume or weight.