The Lenovo ThinkPad X100e stands apart from other notebooks in the thin and light crowd in a couple of ways. First, it has an AMD Neo MV-40 processor and ATI Radeon 3200 HD graphics, which you don’t find in a lot of 11.6 inch laptops. Second, it has a distinctive keyboard design. Third, it’s got Lenovo’s signature TrackPoint system which lets you use either the touchpad or a pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard to move the cursor.
But there’s another thing that apparently sets the ThinkPad X100e apart from other thin and lights such as the Asus UL20A, Acer Aspire 1810, and even the Lenovo IdeaPad U150. The X100e gets horrible battery life.
A few weeks ago Peter at Netbooked reviewde the laptop an found that even with a six cell battery, he was only getting 3 to 4 hours of run time. Now SlashGear’s Ewdison Then has posted another review, and he says the laptop typically ran for just about 3 hours on a charge.
Lenovo admits that the the X100e isn’t designed to get the 10+ hours of battery life we’ve come to expect of netbooks and ultraportables with Intel Atom or CULV processors. The company says with a 3 cell battery the X100e should run for about 2 hours, and it should be good for up to 5 hours with a 6 cell battery. But it sounds like the laptop is having a hard time coming anywhere close to that 5 hour promise. Perhaps you need to turn off the WiFi, dim the screen, and let the CPU idle…
Of course, some users would probably be willing to put up with crappy battery life if it came with a significant performance boost. But SlashGear says the laptop doesn’t feel any faster than a machine with an Intel Atom CPU. But as Netbooked points out, the ATI Radeon 3200 graphics does at least give the machine a bit of an advantage in some tasks. For instance, it can handle 1080p HD video playback, something that no Atom-powered system can do without help from NVIDIA ION graphics or a Broadcom HD video accelerator.
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26 Comments on "Lenovo ThinkPad X100e reviewed again, battery still stinks"
Using Chrome 5 beta, I am writing this on a T23 using a WPA encyrpted 802.11 wireless link. Something that was not even envisioned on this machine when the T series was designed more than 10 years ago. I have been in love with the T series keyboard and screen ever since I first saw one and have not owned any other brand of laptop since.
For ThinkPad users, the idea of a much smaller unit with decent processing power for the tasks that ThinkPad users are used to doing, the idea of the X100e is great.
This is not a netbook, it is a physically smaller ThinkPad!
I have used laptops for (shall I admit it–decades) including T22’s and T23’s with various versions of windows and ubuntu. I want an X100e!
Regards,
I’d buy this in an instant if it had an Atom N450 instead.
Even better would be an SSD option; a fast 32-40GB one
for an extra $100 or so.
Hot running battery wasting CPUs have no place in a netbook.
And for a business oriented one, integrated graphics are just fine.
What’s the point of very small Thinkpad if it’s not really portable, due to horrible battery time? 🙁
I’m with you guys. I think this thing is great. Although I must admit that that sort of battery life is a little disappointing out of a laptop this size. My amazing T60 which runs Windows 7 currently is 4 years old and still gets 4 hours of battery life. It’s a champ. But I’d love something a bit smaller and also widescreen.
I’d rather not go with the ideapad netbooks because the build quality of Thinkpads is second to none and the NavPoint is amazing. Shucks. Put the N450 in there and I’m sold.
Very disappointing. I was hoping that this would have much better performance vs. Atom netbooks. As a premium netbook it’s not terrible, even with the battery life.
My interest in gadgets sags in the price range of $400-$700. Below $400 is where you seem to get the most practical features for the dollar. And above $700 is where you get exclusive and exciting features. But between those two, you get lots of blah.
I think you should fix your subject lines; it’s not the battery itself that stinks (from what I can gather).
10+ hours with Atom? Really? Where?
I’d recommend to look at the Asus 1005PE, if battery life is your first priority, but of course there are numerous similar offers from other manufacturers.
What a crappy trade-off. You lose half of the battery life and only get marginal performance gains. Just slap an Intel CULV processor and chipset in there and end the compromise.
I like supporting AMD, but they don’t have any low-power solutions worth mentioning in the netbook/ultraportable realm.
The review was upgraded after they updated the bios, which caused better performance, and pushed the average battery life to 3.5 hours.
Things are looking better. Now to wait for the dual-core options.
Man, ever since I purchased my T61, I have LOVED Thinkpad design. I was set on the XPS from Dell, but now, I just want plain, not flashy. I think this netbook is the best looking I have seen yet with the smaller bezel. I just wished they fixed the battery issue – that is much more like a normal machine. Who’s gonna turn off wifi, lol, on a business notebook? I know that is how they run these tests. Fix that one battery issue, and I am sold. Add the Pixel Qi screen, and I’ve bought it yesterday.
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I just got my x100e couple days ago and i love it. I m currently a student at college and this handles everything i wanted. I used to have a dell mini 10 and i can feel a huge difference in performance. I removed a lot of the software that i didnt need. I love the design of the x100e. its sleek and very clean looking. The keyboard is perfect. It does everything i want it to. I can get close to 4.5 hrs surfing web with screen dimmed.