X201 v X220

[Thinkpad4by3]

Besides Keyboard, Trackpad and LCD does anyone know of which is better or which you recommend.

[ctoph0]

X220, its more modern

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[Thinkpad4by3]

X220, its more modern

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Well that was quick

[jdrou]

Well, the only advantages the X201 really has are screen resolution being 16:10 rather than 16:9 (and slightly more vertical pixels) and that it can take a 9.5mm drive rather than only 7mm. X220 has better CPU/GPU and optional USB 3.0, optional IPS screen, faster & higher-capacity memory, mSATA slot, and DisplayPort. And the 7mm drive isn't nearly the handicap that it was when X220 was released (most SSDs are 7mm).

[ZaZ]

I'd vote for X220. While the X201 does offer a few more vertical pixels and you can get it without the trackpad, which is more aesthetically pleasing, the quality of the X201 screen is inferior to the IPS X220. Add in mSATA SSD and hard drive, which go up to 2TB now, and you've got a winner. One other thing to note would be the Sandy Bridge CPU offered in the X220, was a big step up over the previous generation CPUs in terms of performance and battery life.

[MisterB]

I've got the tablet version of both. The X220 is newer and faster. The IPS display is a bit sharper than the X201's but the 16:9 aspect ration is really bad in vertical tablet mode. The other disadvantage is the lack of discrete buttons on the trackpad. I'm always hitting the wrong spot and right clicking when I intend to left click. The X201 is more comfortable to me and mine has ended up being a real workhorse that is used daily while the X220 is used occasionally on a road trip.

[ryan1212]

I just went from an X201 to an X220.

For the x220:
Pros:
A bit slimmer
Much faster in general with the second gen i5/i7 CPUs.
Display port \ digital video out without a needing a dock.
Physical button for microphone mute.

Cons:
The base TN display (mine is a samsung panel) in the x220 is inferior to the base display that my x201 had.
Speakers\audio quality is lower.

Other:
7mm SATA drives instead of 9mm.
16:9 screen instead of 16:10. Easier to have windows side-by-side, but more scrolling when reading text or code.

[shawross]

Previously I was going to buy a X220 2520 to replace my X201 540M.

I decided to keep my X201 because the 16:10 display was more important than the 13.8% performance upgrade.

Also I didn't need the msata drive option or the display port. YMMV

[RealBlackStuff]

I have an X201 with the lid from an X200s (1440x900 LED).
I use that for traveling as well as in the evenings for quick email and TPF checking, after my desktop has been shut down for the night.
I was going to replace the X201 with an X220 with IPS display, so I got one.
Didn't use it much though, stayed mostly with the X201.
When nitrocaster's FHD mod came out, I bought an X230 and modded that with IPS FHD and an X220 keyboard.
X220 and X230 are very comparable size and weight wise.
My X230 got an mSATA SSD (256GB) with OS and programs, and a 500GB 7200rpm hard disk for storage.
FHD on such a small screen turned out problematic for me, so I set it to HD+ (1600x900), still IPS.
Compare the X230 (1600x900) screen with the X201 (1440x900) screen, and there is little difference apart from the IPS.
Both X201 and X230 have a touchpad, which has been disconnected in both.
I'm not interested in watching movies or doing any serious work on the laptop (got a desktop for that).
The X230 (same weight as the X220) with 9-cell Sanyo battery gives me about 5 hours.
The X201 with 9-cell Panasonic battery gives me a little over 7 hours
The X201 has no webcam, but a lid-lock which easily opens with one hand.
The X230 has a webcam, but no lid-lock, I don't like the fumbling with 2 hands to open X220/X230.

Overall, I still prefer the X201, which is much lighter than the X220/X230.
But once I start some serious traveling and want to use Skype, I'll have to start using the x230.

[dr_st]

The X230 has a webcam, but no lid-lock, I don't like the fumbling with 2 hands to open X220/X230.

Why do you need to fumble with two hands to open something that does not even have a lid lock?

Overall, I still prefer the X201, which is much lighter than the X220/X230

According to the PSREFs, with the same sized-battery the X201 is only 50-70 grams lighter than the X220/230. This difference is smaller than the difference between an SSD and an HDD, typically. So X201 with HDD vs X220 with SSD would be about the same. However, in your case you have both an HDD and an mSATA SSD in your X230, so it would be even heaveir.

Now, X201s is much lighter than an X220 - by almost 300 grams.

[RealBlackStuff]

Why do you need to fumble with two hands to open something that does not even have a lid lock?

Because my X230 hinges are so tight that the lid won't open unless I hold the bottom in place.
My X201 weighs Lbs. 3.3.4 (~1.45 KG)
My X230 weighs Lbs. 3.10.8 (~1.68 KG) but feels MUCH heavier than X201.
~230 grams difference.

[dr_st]

Because my X230 hinges are so tight that the lid won't open unless I hold the bottom in place.

Well, that does not have anything to do with the lock mechanism. New hinges on the X201 will be just as tight.

My X201 weighs Lbs. 3.3.4 (~1.45 KG)

Yes, with an X200s lid, it should be lighter than the stock X201 (about 1.6kg with the 9-cell) although not as light as the stock X201s (about 1.45kg with the 9-cell.

My X230 weighs Lbs. 3.10.8 (~1.68 KG) but feels MUCH heavier than X201.

That's about what one should expect. So really your X201 is lighter because it's a hybrid, while no such hybrid is available for the X220/X230. Definitely a point to consider.

[MisterB]

I bought another X201 tablet on impulse last week, a high end one with an LM640 i7 processor and 8gb of factory ram. It has a multitouch IPS display that isn't that much different in quality to the one on the X220. My other X201 has the ultrabright display that is designed for outdoor use and it has a much less reflective surface which makes it look a bit duller but I can't see much difference in the two multitouch displays. If anything I like the X201's better and this is not because it is 16:10. Its color is a bit better than the X220's which has a slight blueish tint.

I had assumed that the maximum memory of the X201 was 8gb but I had just installed 16gb in my W701 which is of the same vintage and I decided to try an 8gb stick of DDR3 that worked in the W701 in the X201 and it was recognized so it looks like a 16gb X201 is possible and there is no advantage to the X220 in memory capacity.

My X220 tablet is a mid spec unit with a 2.53ghz i5 and I don't see much of a subjective speed advantage between it and the 2.13ghz i7 in the X201. So the X201 ends up being preferable due to the 16:10 display and easier to navigate track pad. The X220 will probably beat it in some objective benchmark tests but not by enough to make me want to use it over the more comfortable X201.

[dr_st]

I had assumed that the maximum memory of the X201 was 8gb but I had just installed 16gb in my W701 which is of the same vintage and I decided to try an 8gb stick of DDR3 that worked in the W701 in the X201 and it was recognized so it looks like a 16gb X201 is possible and there is no advantage to the X220 in memory capacity.

You know, I am still not certain it would actually work with 16GB of RAM.

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X ... d-p/699341
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X ... d-p/852063

[TPFanatic]

Supposedly, doesn't it show 16GB in the Bios but once you try booting anything it starts to break?

[MisterB]

Ok, I tried it with 12gb installed. The results were kind of surprising.

It showed up in the BIOS but froze booting Windows 7. It did boot Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 and the memory was there. Ubuntu was stable and usable until I tried launching a Windows 10 Virtualbox VM. It had a hard crash of both host and VM. It seems to be a low level Windows thing and a Windows PE rescue environment froze as well.

16gb looks possible but only with Linux. Weird and I don't have any clue as to why. I'll have to trying running it in Linux over several hours to see if it is really stable. One thing I've found out with the X201T is that it is extremely fussy about memory modules and I swapped quite a few before I found two 4gb modules that worked with my old X201T.

[jdrou]

I believe Intel only supports 2x4GB on the 1st generation Core however quad-core workstations like W701 or Precision M6500 can use 4x8GB (and this was a shipped config from Dell at least). Note the dual-core versions can apparently only use 2x4GB @533MHz like the X201. I've tested a number of modules with X201 and dual- and quad-core M6500. Haven't tried with Linux but I've seen the behavior on the dual-cores where 16GB is visible in the BIOS but doesn't boot Windows. (The quad-cores also can run memory at higher speed than the dual-cores.)

[dr_st]

16gb looks possible but only with Linux. Weird and I don't have any clue as to why.

The existing reports indicate that you may run into issues with Linux as well.

As to why - my guess is that there is some small missing feature in the first generation dual-core CPUs (recall that only the quad-core workstations advertise 16GB support), that makes memory addressing over 8GB broken, but somehow someone forgot to flat out lock out these configurations so that the BIOS refuses to continue.