Lenovo W520 Owner's Thread

[ecost]

If you do heavy multi-tasking with several memory intensive applications, going from 1066 to 1866 Mhz can give you a 8% improvement, per this benchmark:

Memory Scaling on Core i7 - Is DDR3-1066 Really the Best Choice? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

Thanks, huberth. This article got me stay with 1333mhz and go out for dinner one more time.

[vinuneuro]

I'm posting this here since owners who've received their machines probably don't check the shipping thread anymore. How long after getting shipment notification from Lenovo did your orders actually ship?

[Tokend]

Just got my new W520. Thanks to help from hrana and BDKC1, I managed to copy an image of C: to an external USB HD. It wasn't quite a virgin copy of the boot partition, as I had failed to enter BIOS setup to boot from a CD (I pressed the blue Thinkvantage button instead of F1). So, it booted under Windows and was partially set up for first use before I could make an image.

The bigger problem, though, is now I am trying to make some recovery disks. The recovery partition is out there, 16 GB worth. It shows zero files in Windows Explorer, but Properties shows 10.2 GB used. When I click OK to build the recovery media, a dialog box pops up that says "The files required for this program cannot be found."

Here's where the self-inflicted wound may have come in. When I booted for the first time after copying an image, I reassigned the drive letter of the Recovery Partition from D: to G:. Stupid, I know. After I tried to build recovery discs and encountered the "files not found" error, I changed the drive letter of the Recovery partition back to D:, but the error persists.

Have I hosed my Recovery partition? Is there still a way to successfully build recovery discs?

[plympton]

Does anyone have the HD+ screen & can comment on its quality? My T60 with the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) screen was just terrible from a brightness & contrast perspective. I know the FHD display is supposed to be great, but is the HD+ display **BAD**?

[edit1754]

I've seen many people around my university with T500's with terrible WSXGA+ screens (presumably the same as the T60), and many people with T510/W510's with decent HD+ displays. I've also checked out the HD+ display on the floor models in the University Bookstore, and they seem to be pretty good. They're much better when compared to the 1366x768 Thinkpad Edge 15 in the same store.

And they blow away the horrible 1366x768 screen on the E6510. I don't know what it is with that screen that makes it just so bad, and it's not just resolution. (Fortunately I've confirmed they won't make this same configuration mistake on the E6520 next year. They'll be giving it HD+)

There were actually two 1680x1050 screens available on the T500. One was made by LG and one by Samsung. The LG screen was supposedly noticeably better. I don't know if this was the case for the T60 though.

[Thors.Hammer]

There were actually two 1680x1050 screens available on the T500. One was made by LG and one by Samsung. The LG screen was supposedly noticeably better. I don't know if this was the case for the T60 though.

All of the T61p's I've used had the 1680x1050 screen and were what I would call normal. They do seem to lose brightness after a 2-3 years and I actually had one replaced under warranty for that reason.

I'm posting this here since owners who've received their machines probably don't check the shipping thread anymore. How long after getting shipment notification from Lenovo did your orders actually ship?

Please ask at http://forum.notebookreview.com/leno...ping-info.html

[ukieandrew]

Guys, those who need great SSD go to Amazon. It has in stock (at least now) MAX IOPS OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive 6.0 Gb-s VTX3MI-25SAT3-120G. Fastest drive with good 4k random read/write speed. This is newer model VTX3MI not just VTX3. Price is $296. These drives just went on the market Yesturday, and NewEgg had them in stock for $319 and they were gone in couple hours. Just heads up for those who look for decent SSD.
Amazon.com: OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive MAX IOPS 6.0 Gb-s VTX3MI-25SAT3-120G: Electronics

[wesmain]

Does anyone have the HD+ screen & can comment on its quality? My T60 with the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) screen was just terrible from a brightness & contrast perspective. I know the FHD display is supposed to be great, but is the HD+ display **BAD**?

I've got the HD+ screen on a t510 (which I'm dying to replace for a new w520), and I intend to get the HD+ again. It's quite good. Like the 1400x900 LED display on my t400, it's plenty bright and viewing angles are good. The only real difference between the two is that the dimmest setting on the t400's display is significantly dimmer (which I prefer for watching a movie in a pitch black room at night).

I would also add that, while I'm sure the 95% color gamut on the FHD display is nice, I feel pretty strongly that a resolution any higher than HD+ on a 15" screen would just be too much. I should also note that I use my laptop primarily for text-based work (I'm a lawyer), so people who are doing graphics-intensive work might disagree.

HTH

[bherila]

I've got the HD+ screen on a t510 (which I'm dying to replace for a new w520), and I intend to get the HD+ again. It's quite good. Like the 1400x900 LED display on my t400, it's plenty bright and viewing angles are good. The only real difference between the two is that the dimmest setting on the t400's display is significantly dimmer (which I prefer for watching a movie in a pitch black room at night).

I would also add that, while I'm sure the 95% color gamut on the FHD display is nice, I feel pretty strongly that a resolution any higher than HD+ on a 15" screen would just bee too much. I should also note that I use my laptop primarily for text-based work (I'm a lawyer), so people who are doing graphics-intensive work might disagree.

HTH

IMHO, if the text is too small just increase the DPI. You'll at least get greater clarity from the FHD screen.

[TheWren]

I've just ordered a W520, but it looks like I could have done better Purchased online, and even spoke with a rep, but she offered me nothing above what I had already set up.
Would someone PM me with Hrana's rep info so I can call Lenovo and try to renegotiate?
Thanks,
-- The Wren