Lenovo ThinkPad X220 Review

Lenovo laptops have always had a niche set of buyers and the ThinkPad series, in particular, has more or less had cult following right since its inception by IBM. This has been much before Lenovo purchased the brand. ThinkPads have always had a culture of superior build, reliability and brilliant performance but does the ThinkPad X220 live up to those expectations? Read on to find out.

The X220 comes with a 12.5-inch HD screen

Design and Build Quality
The ThinkPad series have always maintained a uniform design throughout the years as they’re intended for business professionals, so don’t expect any flashy stuff from the X220. The laptop continues the trend of the earlier ThinkPads with the boxy black design and the rubberized matte exterior. The all-black surface doesn’t attract any dust or fingerprints and this notebook has durability written all over it.

Brilliantly sturdy hinges

ThinkPads are known for their ruggedness and this one is no different. The only noticeable metal on the X220 is in the hinges and the weight is a mere 1.4 kg which includes the protruding battery pack as well. Now, that’s pretty light for a laptop that is reinforced with a superior chassis. The hinges are quite sturdy and the magnetic latching ensures there’s no wobble or vibration when you change the viewing angles of the 12.5 inch IPS panel screen. Like the earlier series, the X220 has a 180 degree wide tilt angle.

For connectivity, Lenovo have included a VGA port, DisplayPort and an Express Card slot along with three USB 2.0 slots. There’s the Ethernet port as well as the headphone and mic jack both integrated into a single slot. The heat vents are located on the back and sides of the laptop and a sharing dock is located underneath that allows users to share work areas with other ThinkPad T, L and W laptops. An important thing to notice is that no HDMI port has been included.

The heat sink and power slot is located at the back

Despite it being a 12.5-incher, Lenovo have managed to keep the size of the keyboard standard. Also, the Esc and Delete keys are double the size of the rest of the keys and hence there’s easy access to them. Like the previous models, the blue coloured Enter key stands out from the remaining keys. Also, Ctrl and Function keys have been interchanged. The previous and next slide keys are located above the directional keypad, which has depressions underneath for quicker navigation. The keyboard lacks backlighting but a tiny light on the top is provided for those night typing sessions. It’s easy to get an idea of who Lenovo is trying to target this laptop at by just looking at the placement and size of the keys – easy for PowerPoint slides, quick e-mail access and web surfing. Two LEDs on the outside display of the laptop shows if it is on battery mode or is hibernating. On the inside, there’s the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and memory usage status LEDs. It also has a Wi-Fi toggle switch that might come in handy whilst saving battery during long hours of travelling.

Overall, design as well as build is top notch and the X220 and ThinkPad series continue to set the standard for what a no-nonsense professional looking laptop should be like.

Keyboard is brilliant but trackpad is glitchy

Features
The Lenovo X220 comes with the latest Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 processor running at a clock speed of 1.4 GHz. The model we reviewed had a 128GB SSD, which is a tad less in terms of storage requirements. As for the RAM, this notebook comes with 6GB out of which 5.89GB is available to users. The X220 ships with 64-bit Windows 7 Professional operating system and Intel’s HD Graphics 3000 graphic card. There's no dedicated graphics cards out here, but as mentioned earlier those wanting a ThinkPad will rate improved battery life more than superior graphics and hence the integrated card.