Lenovo ThinkPad X230 Review: Road Warrior Perfection Discussion

I think ALL mainstream manufacturers that produce business notebooks are making design decisions based on the "consumerization" trend in large enterprise businesses. IT departments are still very important, but average employees at large companies are increasingly getting comfortable with technology to the point that they feel they shouldn't be forced to use a traditional thick, heavy, and "ugly" business laptop. IT managers don't want the entire workforce switching to MacBooks or bringing any random piece of technology to work and connecting it to the secure network because of the support nightmare involved. So IT managers are turning to partners like Lenovo, Dell, HP and others and saying, "Help us give employees what they want so they stop bringing their own PCs and tablets into the office, but make sure your products have the IT features and serviceability the IT team needs."

I think we saw that very clearly with the ThinkPad X1 last year (essentially a ThinkPad ultrabook before Intel started calling these things "ultrabooks").

The X1 has VERY LITTLE in common with the traditional ThinkPads we know and love but it was very attractive to corporate execs and high-level or upper-middle employees at large companies who were lucky enough to get one.

When I saw the Chiclet keyboard on the X1 last year I knew the X220 replacement would probably get a Chiclet-style keyboard as well. That said, it really is the nicest Chiclet-style keyboard I've used.

I just wish the touchpad was less frustrating.

 

How about the gaming performance? Like Diablo 3.

 

When are these supposed to ship?

 

around June 5

 

^This, plus toss an extra 4Gb memory stick in there so it runs in dual channel for gaming benchmarks. With Sandybridge we saw a decent boost to performance with faster dual channel memory. Would be nice to know if the same is true with IVB.

 

Can the X230 take a mSATA SSD drive instead the 3G modem?
The X220 could do that, but is it still possible with the X230 ?

 

Yep, it's the same in that regard: "We also found no problems when installing our own mSATA SSD into the X230. In this case, we installed a 60GB Renice X5 SSD with no issues as Windows was able to recognize the secondary drive. In theory, users should be able to install and boot Windows 7 on the mSATA drive for even faster speeds than with a standard HDD. Note, however, that there is only one PCI-e slot for either an mSATA drive or a WWAN card - both cannot be installed simultaneously in the X230."

source: Lenovo ThinkPad X230 2306-2AU Laptop Review - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

With most phones being able to act as a hotspot or wireless tether, I have to wonder how many people really use WWAN?

 

Good news then. Now I hope the prices are not too high on launch and Lenovo might get my money.

 

Keep checking the Lenovo website for a few weeks even if the price is high when it first appears on the Lenovo website.

If the X230 is like other recent Lenovo notebooks then the price will be adjusted a short time after the initial release. For example, the new IdeaPad Y480 was recently listed with an INSANE price of $1,499.00 but it was quickly available on the Lenovo.com website for just $869.00 (a more reasonable price for the specs) with coupon code.

 

Actually, the X220 was quite inexpensive in the beginning. I ordered mine the first day. It cost $750 shipped with the IPS screen and 320GB hard drive upgrade. That first month there were some very good deals, but after that the price went up. There were a few times it got that low again, but it has mostly remained above the introductory price.