About to purchase the X220, my only question is i5 vs. i7?

[bluefrisbee]

I currently have the X201, with the i5. I have to say that it's a tad slow these days running 64bit Windows 7 Professional, but I wonder if that's because I only have 2GB of RAM and the slower 5400RPM drive?

In any case, I think that's why I'm leaning towards the i7 on the X220. Is it a noticeable improvement? I am a software engineer and pretty serious power user. I am willing to sacrifice an hour of battery life or turn down the screen brightness to gain some horsepower. Thoughts?

[wolfman]

I'd upgrade the RAM to 8gb and add an SSD and save the difference frankly. I'm also a software engineer and my T410 with Core i-5 560m, 8gb RAM and Intel SSD is plenty fast (Ubuntu linux, not Windows 7 as the OS however). You're running a 64 bit OS with 2 gb of RAM - you really need some more RAM in that machine. And the hard disk is 5400 RPM - it's the slowest part of the system. Breath new life into that machine - for $225-240 or so you can get a 120 gb Intel SSD and 8gb of RAM. Much better investment than the X220 in my opinion given what you already have.

[bluefrisbee]

I'd upgrade the RAM to 8gb and add an SSD and save the difference frankly. I'm also a software engineer and my T410 with Core i-5 560m, 8gb RAM and Intel SSD is plenty fast (Ubuntu linux, not Windows 7 as the OS however). You're running a 64 bit OS with 2 gb of RAM - you really need some more RAM in that machine. And the hard disk is 5400 RPM - it's the slowest part of the system. Breath new life into that machine - for $225-240 or so you can get a 120 gb Intel SSD and 8gb of RAM. Much better investment than the X220 in my opinion given what you already have.

Great idea but I left out one thing. I was going to do exactly this until my screen developed a flaw in it that really annoys me. I think either a pet or a child sat on the X201, and there is a dark spot that covers around 9 or 10 pixels in a squarish area. It's not at the pixel grid array level, it's on the plasticy screen surface and right beneath it. What do you think that would cost to replace? I am totally off warranty as well

[bluefrisbee]

Any other thoughts on this?

[Q-Ball]

You might try the AFFS mod on that X201... but be advised that that screen's only 1280 x 800 so if you have the 1440 x 900 model it's a noticeable decline.
But you do get to lay the laptop flat and read what's on the screen. Plus you need to get parts to convert the system to CCFL.

Might be worth the effort, though, and you still have more vertical resolution than an X220 would give you- considering one of those new with the i7 processor is pushing 1200 bucks.



You could also go with a PCI-E SSD such as the SuperTalent CoreStore MV (pure mSATA drives don't work, but pure mPCI-E drives do). It seems to work on the T410s (one user's already reported this with no apparent BIOS blacklisting, so there's no real reason why the X201 would reject it. You do give up the WWAN slot, though.

But you DO need to do some tweaking- that SSD's not directly bootable so you'll have to find a way to get the primary drive to point to the secondary (though you shouldn't have any real problems with that and if you're using Linux, GRUB should be able to do that).



That's all I can think of.

[Davemci]

I currently have the X201, with the i5. I have to say that it's a tad slow these days running 64bit Windows 7 Professional, but I wonder if that's because I only have 2GB of RAM and the slower 5400RPM drive?

In any case, I think that's why I'm leaning towards the i7 on the X220. Is it a noticeable improvement? I am a software engineer and pretty serious power user. I am willing to sacrifice an hour of battery life or turn down the screen brightness to gain some horsepower. Thoughts?

This thread seems to have drifted from your original question. For me, since I wasn't really budget conscience, I went with the I7. I do regular backups to an external USB drive and USB3.0 is so much faster (10 times faster on paper) then USB2.0. You can only get USB3.0 with the i7 X220. There isn't much speed difference between the i5 and i7 X220. I doubt it would even be noticeably faster to get the i7. If processor speed is your deciding factor, I wouldn't recommend the i7 it's $145-$250 more then the i5 for only 200 to 400Mhz faster speed.

[ZaZ]

An ExpressCard card USB 3.0 card is probably like $20 or less on eBay, which is much less than the i7 upgrade. Plus, you'd retain the powered USB port.

[alexp50]

Hi, diffrent question, but same situation. I'm about to buy an X220, but the owner can't tell me for sure if it's got the IPS display. Using the tag - 4291-37G - I got this from lenovo:


i5-2520M(2.5GHz) 4GB RAM 320GB 7200rpm HD 12.5in 1366x768 LCD Intel HD Graphics Intel 802.11agn wireless WWAN Bluetooth 1Gb Ethernet UltraNav Secure Chip Fingerprint reader Camera 6c Li-Ion Win7 Pro 64


Does that mean it's IPS?

I'd appreciate a quick response, I wouldn't wanna miss another X220

Thank you

[ZaZ]

It should be, but the easiest way to tell is if you push the screen back and the colors don't shift, it's the IPS. If they do invert it's not.

[alexp50]

Thanks, I was trying to avoid the 100 miles between the seller and I.

I've asked him to check the screen the way you told me and now I'm waiting for a response from him.

[alexp50]

Well, I went, bought it, will probably install a LP125WH2 (SL)(B1) myself...
Thanks for all the help.

[T60]

I'm about to buy an X220, but the owner can't tell me for sure if it's got the IPS display. Using the tag - 4291-37G - I got this from lenovo:


i5-2520M(2.5GHz) 4GB RAM 320GB 7200rpm HD 12.5in 1366x768 LCD Intel HD Graphics Intel 802.11agn wireless WWAN Bluetooth 1Gb Ethernet UltraNav Secure Chip Fingerprint reader Camera 6c Li-Ion Win7 Pro 64


Does that mean it's IPS?

Hi,

I don't think it's an IPS, because that kind of screen is commercialized by Lenovo as "Premium HD" and not simply as "HD".

Did you test it?

[bgalakazam]

Keep in mind that i5 Sandy Bridge is faster than i7 Arrandale (despite 1M less cache, both dual-core, both identical frequency). I don't think there is a point to shell out $190 extra for an i7. The only reason I see to get i7 is if you are currently using Arrandale i7 and want to see an improvement.

As usual, a SSD will improve speed like crazy over small differences like .10GHz CPU power.