Lenovo x121e netbook

at78 · 18 Aug 2011 at 06:47

Hi guys,

New poster here. There's not many X121e threads around the Internet, so I came here to get some guidance. I ordered a model with 1 2GB stick of RAM, because the price to upgrade to 2 sticks of 2 GB of RAM was a rip off.

I'm thinking of buying some RAM and installing it myself. I know how the process works, and have seen videos of it, and it's very easy. However, I don't know what type of RAM to buy for it.

I want to buy another 2 GB stick of RAM of put in the other slot. One of the sticks of RAM I have found is:

"Kingston DDR3 2GB PC-10600/1333 204-pin CL9"

I don't know how to intepret this, so if someone knows more about RAM, could they tell me if this would be appropriate for the X121e?

Scrutinize · 18 Aug 2011 at 08:36

at78 said:
Hi guys,

New poster here. There's not many X121e threads around the Internet, so I came here to get some guidance. I ordered a model with 1 2GB stick of RAM, because the price to upgrade to 2 sticks of 2 GB of RAM was a rip off.

I'm thinking of buying some RAM and installing it myself. I know how the process works, and have seen videos of it, and it's very easy. However, I don't know what type of RAM to buy for it.

I want to buy another 2 GB stick of RAM of put in the other slot. One of the sticks of RAM I have found is:

"Kingston DDR3 2GB PC-10600/1333 204-pin CL9"

I don't know how to intepret this, so if someone knows more about RAM, could they tell me if this would be appropriate for the X121e?

Hi, welcome to the forums (make sure you read the FAQ), I see this thread is third on google

Yep that kingston stuff will work bang on (I have just put an extra 4gb into my HP ProBook). As it is only £16 (inc vat and del) for 4gb of the Kingston stuff at the moment so you may as well chuck that in unless funds are really limited. (sorry for the highly technical response but it is early)

sandys · 18 Aug 2011 at 13:25

harry66 said:
According to the Passmark website CPU benchmarks:
AMD E-350 728 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+E-350
i3-2357M 1,621 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-2357M+@+1.30GHz

Also read a review somewhere else where they compare the E350 with 2375M - huge difference in non gaming usage (ie the i3 blew the AMD) - cant remember where I read it.

The i3 is a lot more powerful but it depends on what you need to do on your machine, I edit a few large financial databases and things like that and have been coping fine with an Atom N270

an e350 would be an upgrade for me.

The i3 has better life but it seems to kick out a lot more heat, I have cancelled my is x121 i3 order due to heat/fan noise issue brought up in reviews and this forum, I have gone for the cheaper e350 to replace it as I know it will be enough and I can undervolt it.

Part of that decision was influenced by Ubuntu, I've been using Ubuntu as my main OS for years and don't see me switching back, not that I have sat and used Win7 for any length, I might give it a bash.

Can you acccess memory timings etc in the BIOS on these things, is there a benefit to faster ram?

arnold-edward · 18 Aug 2011 at 19:36

Hi,

I really like the look of the this laptop but I just have a few concerns/issues.

Are the fans really that bad?
-Are the very noisy when just typing in word and browsing on the internet?
-Are they very noisy when watching a film?
-Are they too loud to type notes on in a lecture or in a library?

Whats the battery life like with the 6-cell. I am guessing that the supposed 9.3hrs is a massive overestimate but what are people experience?

Also, in general, has anyone had any major issues?

Thanks for any help and sorry for such a demanding first post

Bigsy · 18 Aug 2011 at 19:43

Serav said:
I just received mine yesterday. Couldn't agree more on the touchpad. Tap to click behaves exactly the same way on mine. It verges on being unusable. I'd like to know if this is a universal problem or not.

As for the fan, mine is the same except by default it just stays on constantly. Download TPFanControl (the installer version for Win7) and select the "smart" profile. It's night and day.

Also the screen is terrible. It washes out immediately if you look at it from even a few degrees above perpendicular.

Great tip on the fan noise thanks....I think the track pad is going to be somewhat harder to fix :-/

arnold-edward · 18 Aug 2011 at 20:01

Bigsy said:
Great tip on the fan noise thanks....I think the track pad is going to be somewhat harder to fix :-/

I dont know if this helps but I went around about 8 different computer shops today fiddling with this laptop, none of them have the issue you describe. I thnk that yours might be faulty rather than it being a design flaw

Bigsy · 18 Aug 2011 at 20:30

arnold-edward said:
I dont know if this helps but I went around about 8 different computer shops today fiddling with this laptop, none of them have the issue you describe. I thnk that yours might be faulty rather than it being a design flaw

2 other people who have bought it in this thread have the same issue?!

sandys · 18 Aug 2011 at 20:34

Bugger, the Intel x121e I cancelled has just turned up.....I have the AMD on the way too, ooops

So tempting to just rip it open now and play.

DefiantAsh · 18 Aug 2011 at 22:02

sandys said:
Bugger, the Intel x121e I cancelled has just turned up.....I have the AMD on the way too, ooops

So tempting to just rip it open now and play.

how much is the intel version?

Also what are the spec of the base intel version?

Looking to get one for university/travelling next year i think

sandys · 19 Aug 2011 at 00:13

have a look on Lenovos website its a pretty good deal, think mine was £360 with the 6 cell battery, course if you don't need one 'till next year you will obviously get a lot more for your dough then. No doubt the ultrabooks will be down to that sort of value in 12 months.

arnold-edward · 19 Aug 2011 at 01:46

Bigsy said:
2 other people who have bought it in this thread have the same issue?!

I know, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

harry66 · 19 Aug 2011 at 09:58

arnold-edward said:
Hi,

I really like the look of the this laptop but I just have a few concerns/issues.

Are the fans really that bad?
-Are the very noisy when just typing in word and browsing on the internet?
-Are they very noisy when watching a film?
-Are they too loud to type notes on in a lecture or in a library?

Whats the battery life like with the 6-cell. I am guessing that the supposed 9.3hrs is a massive overestimate but what are people experience?

Also, in general, has anyone had any major issues?

Thanks for any help and sorry for such a demanding first post

I also own a T400 and the fan on my X121e i3 is definitely noisier but in my opinion not annoyingly so. I know that on my previous Z60t I found the fan annoying enough to install the TPFancontrol app - but so far resisted on the X121e. Also, my missus is really fussy about background fan noise but I was using the X121e last night for nearly an hour - sat just a few feet away from her and she did not comment on the fan noise.
With regards watching films - I tried just that last night, I was playing a 12GB H264 1080p High profile MKV and the CPU hovered at around 10% and the fan did not get any more noisier than for standard browsing.
Also my trackpad seems to be fine - mind you I do have small fingers....
But I prefer the trackpoint nipple instead - just spend some trying to get used to it, IMHO it is far more usable than a trackpad. I have looked at other cheap Lenovo's before did not buy because they did not have a trackpoint.

arnold-edward · 19 Aug 2011 at 10:10

harry66 said:
I also own a T400 and the fan on my X121e i3 is definitely noisier but in my opinion not annoyingly so. I know that on my previous Z60t I found the fan annoying enough to install the TPFancontrol app - but so far resisted on the X121e. Also, my missus is really fussy about background fan noise but I was using the X121e last night for nearly an hour - sat just a few feet away from her and she did not comment on the fan noise.
With regards watching films - I tried just that last night, I was playing a 12GB H264 1080p High profile MKV and the CPU hovered at around 10% and the fan did not get any more noisier than for standard browsing.
Also my trackpad seems to be fine - mind you I do have small fingers....
But I prefer the trackpoint nipple instead - just spend some trying to get used to it, IMHO it is far more usable than a trackpad. I have looked at other cheap Lenovo's before did not buy because they did not have a trackpoint.

Great, so presumable TPFancontrol will be able to limit noise even more? is there any downside to that?

Thanks, this has been really encourage. It sounds almost like my perfect small cheap laptop but the fan noise just worried me abit.

Thanks for your help!

-BA- · 19 Aug 2011 at 12:18

Sorry to keep harping on about this but if someone does get a chance to try Eve Online on it I would be really interested to hear about it. Thanks

at78 · 19 Aug 2011 at 15:13

For the fan, does anyone know if Power Manager actually changes its behaviour? Also, does tpfancontrol cause any conflict with Power Manager settings or would it just take precedence over them?

MrSanityCheck · 19 Aug 2011 at 17:32

Snotuk said:
...I did a clean install of Win 7 Ultimate x64
, Installed drivers only and thats it...

Did you upgrade to the Intel 1000 WiFi card? If so, did you have any issues installing the drivers for it on the clean install of Win7 Ultimate x64? I keep getting the device with a Yellow Triangle and Exclamation mark in Device Manager with "This device cannot start. Error Code: 10". Tried many versions of the driver...

Thanks in advance for any help...

Bigsy · 19 Aug 2011 at 17:36

I went for the intel card and the driver off the lenovo site works fine in win7 x64 sp1.

MrSanityCheck · 19 Aug 2011 at 17:46

Bigsy said:
I went for the intel card and the driver off the lenovo site works fine in win7 x64 sp1.

With a fresh install or just on top of pre-install?

If you have it working on a fresh install then I'm confused. I have tried multiple times. What order did you install it compared to other software, e.g. was it after all the thinkvantage stuff and windows update or first?

PS: Thanks for responding so quickly.

Bigsy · 19 Aug 2011 at 18:39

Yeah did a fresh install, works fine. Is the wireless not actually working? Ie its deffo not something else?

silmonli · 19 Aug 2011 at 21:45

arnold-edward said:
Hi,

I really like the look of the this laptop but I just have a few concerns/issues.

Are the fans really that bad?
-Are the very noisy when just typing in word and browsing on the internet?
-Are they very noisy when watching a film?
-Are they too loud to type notes on in a lecture or in a library?

Whats the battery life like with the 6-cell. I am guessing that the supposed 9.3hrs is a massive overestimate but what are people experience?

Also, in general, has anyone had any major issues?

Thanks for any help and sorry for such a demanding first post

I've had the x121e for the last 5 days and my experiences are as follows:

Fan noise: I suppose there is a degree of sensitivity for each person who uses laptops. Personally, I don't notice it while I'm using it but on one occasion when I was using it before going to bed (when it was dead quiet) I noticed a constant but pretty quiet whirring. it was a split second thought and then I went back to doing my work. I not tested it with movies yet.

Typing: keyboard is a good size and keys are all in the right places for me. I would say typing is slightly louder than expected. It's sounds clicky or tappy when you type and could be quite annoying in a library or a classroom. My wife has an old White MacBook (which has a quiet keyboard) and there is a definitely a difference between the two

Battery life: I've not put it under any major strain. Mainly internet browsing and Microsoft office apps. Getting about 5.5 hours.

Trackpad: I'm not a big fan of the trackpad. Too small. I like to have one hand moving the mouse and the other hand clicking but because the bottom buttons are built into the trackpad the multitouch is atrocious and resorted to the nipple which works quite well but I'm not used to this type of input. I'm use to a wireless mouse when I at a table so that's my preference.

Screen: I'm not a graphics designer so not an expert with screens. I'm satisfied with the screen and glad it's Matt instead of glossy.

Weight and size: footprint is just right for me as I'll be travelling for a year and need something small. Thickness is okay but could be thinner obviously. Weight is slightly (only slightly...) heavier than expected.

Performance: this is not for gamers. This is a good value portable laptop where people wants better (but not outstanding) performance and build quality than a netbook.

Other: Build quality is solid. Easy to replace ram and hard drive with 3 screws from the underbelly. Good selection of ports (USB, hdmi and sd card). Personally I think £360 is good value for what you get. Think about a MacBook air 11 inch... Which is 3 x more expensive but don't think you're getting 3 x the performance and other benefits such a dimensions and weight. Plus I wouldn't want to take it travelling and risk a MacBook air getting stolen or broken accidentally...

Hope this helps

Sil