Lenovo x121e netbook

Max M4X WW said:
How will the E350 with 8gb of ram run compared to my HTPC which is an Atom D525 1.8ghz with 2gb of ram? (Acer Aspire Revo)

Thanks
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The e350 is slightly faster than the d525, and depending if the atom has intel or nvidia (ion2) graphics will be anywhere from slightly to a lot faster graphics. 8gb ram will only help if you ever use more than 2gb, otherwise itll make no difference.
 
It says Nvidia ION in device manager but not sure if its v2.

The thing runs fine so a laptop with this spec should be ok, I was going to get 8gb of ram as if I fit it myself its only £10 more than speccing 4gb with lenovo.

Thanks
 
The case didnt last too much. Teared due to streching I presume. Oh well.

Lappy going strong. Got a Thinkpad bluetooth mouse to go with it - small but comfortable; recommended, though a bit pricey.
 
x121e using non stock wifi cards, improving the display, fixing audio jitter and silencing the fan!

A few tips that made the x121e much better for me..

Of course 8gig of ram and an ssd are cool, for those wanting to use a non bios approved wifi card without flashing a custom bios simply put the desired wifi adapter in the other mini pci-e slot (intended for a 3g card). The bottom will hold the card in place (especially if you move over the rubber spacer from above the intended wifi card.

For those annoyed with fan noise use tpfc.62 from the link below and use the smart mode when your laptop fan noise is annoying you. Take a common sense approach to using this app - most of the time leave it in bios mode (the default temp to fan speed settings intended by the designer) but when you require extra silence flip it over to smart mode. Equally when you know you're going to game or encode video or have the laptop on a soft surface switch to manual and crank the fan to 7.

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/tpfc_v062.zip

For those using the x121e with an external dac/amp for music, then you may notice an annoying audio jitter every 3 minutes - this is due to the power manager app. Uninstall and the jitter will stop. Obviously you lose the battery care function and some other battery saving settings but you can claw some back by tweaking the defaults in windows 7.

The screen is a little sucky but it can be vastly improved if you calibrate the display - the defaults look terrible. Use the mp4 calibration files from the link below and follow the guide pdf. My particular x121e gives the best performance with the following settings.

With the windows calibration untouched, in graphics properties (right click on the desktop) and using the colour enhancement option in the display section.. i have red set as
brightness 1
contrast 44
gamma 1
saturation 4

blue is set as
brightness -12
contrast 40
gamma 1
saturation 1

green
brightness -3
contrast 43
gamma 1
saturation 3

obviously not all panels are the same, these values give the best compromised colour reproduction (the black levels on the panel are TERRIBLE).

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496

Hope you find these tips helpful.
 
yes the x121e comes standard with a wifi card (it is wireless n but only 2.4ghz) i'd recommend going for the centrino upgrade.

the installation of alternate wifi card instructions above refer to using non bios locked devices. the x121e (and i believe other lenovo laptops) has a list of approved wifi cards written into the bios.
 
Just wondering what people who are buying the x121e are comparing it to or replacing with it??
Is it folk upgrading from older netbooks/laptops or has anyone bought one of these over a tablet?
 
Max M4X WW - the centrino upgrade i referred to is the wifi card - pretty confusing that intel refer to their new wifi card technology as centrino!

chrismscotland - the x121e i3 i'm using was bought as a replacement for my 2008 vaio z (the 2.53ghz p9500 core 2 duo) and it performs just as well in adobe premiere cs5.5. the hd3000 graphics are a way better than the nvidia 9300m in the old vaio z the only thing really lacking is the lcd.

my thinking was the x121e is the perfect stop gap while the laptop market sorts itself out with pending changes in chipset, screen technology, thunderbolt implementations, win 8 etc etc
 
the a/b/g/n option is the standard no cost card which only operated at 2.4ghz.. the centrino is an additional £6-7 i think and operates at 5ghz also.

handy tip for wifi cards is to set the transmit power and roaming aggressiveness as low as possible while retaining excellent connectivity - this does wonders for the temperature of the actual wifi card and obviously helps the overall battery life.
 
Why has it got a mouse in the middle of the keyboard as well as a touchpad? I've used that type of mouse before and it's ****ing horrible
 
nixboy said:
Max M4X WW - the centrino upgrade i referred to is the wifi card - pretty confusing that intel refer to their new wifi card technology as centrino!

chrismscotland - the x121e i3 i'm using was bought as a replacement for my 2008 vaio z (the 2.53ghz p9500 core 2 duo) and it performs just as well in adobe premiere cs5.5. the hd3000 graphics are a way better than the nvidia 9300m in the old vaio z the only thing really lacking is the lcd.

my thinking was the x121e is the perfect stop gap while the laptop market sorts itself out with pending changes in chipset, screen technology, thunderbolt implementations, win 8 etc etc
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Cheers mate, I'm in a similar mode of thinking with tablets, I think that I'd like to wait for a Windows 8 tablet but it looks like it will easily be Q3 next year before we see any of those for public consumption but I could do with something to use right now, thats why I've been looking at this Lenovo, works out to be cheaper than some of the tablets I've looked at (Playbook, 3G Xoom, Asus Transfomer) and obviously would give me the ability to use it for everything (gaming, movies, music, photography, browsing, etc) and use my current software rather than having to buy a load of new Android or BB Playbook apps, but I feel that any tablet bought now is likely to be well surpassed by the middle of next year.

So I think I'm going to plump for this Lenovo and get a Kindle for reading!
 
chrismscotland - precisely my thinking... i think the underlying driver is everyone is moving from 45nm to 32nm technology in the tablet space and in the laptop space everyone will be moving from 32nm to 22nm.. we are definitley in a terrible part of the cycle to invest heavily in a laptop or tablet or smartphone for that matter.

jay794 - the nipple (tee hee) does take some getting used to but the blue scroll button in the middle is such a good feature its worth re-learning to get the benefit of it. the touch pad isn't terrible its just small and needs to have the scroll functions turned off to reclaim some track pad real estate.
 
max m4x ww hmmm my bad the centrino is a 1x2 card anyway and only operates at 2.4ghz..

the thinkpad a/b/g/n is a 2x2 card (meaning it has multiple i/o antenna support) but can't find if it supports 5ghz band anywhere - maybe worth firing lenovo support an email - or if anyone here has the optional wifi card installed could they check if they have both access to the 2.4 and 5 ghz bands.

i'd probably get a cheap intel 5100 from ebay and install it in the second slot just to make sure you are covered.
 
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