Lenovo ThinkPad X250
by Jarred Walton on January 4, 2015 10:33 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Lenovo
- ThinkPad
- Trade Shows
- Ultrabook
- CES 2015
- Broadwell-U
There’s a theme with the Lenovo updates being announced today: in most cases, the new models are similar to the previous generation, only now with Intel’s Broadwell-U processors in place of Haswell-U. The ThinkPad X250 continues that trend, supporting up to Core i7 Broadwell-U processors.
Of course the big draw of the X250 is that it boasts more battery life than any other laptop I know of with the same battery capacity. Equipped with the 72Wh 6-cell battery (in addition to the built-in 3-cell 23.2Wh battery), the X250 is rated at up to 20 hours of battery life. As with the X1 Carbon, that’s a nice increase compared to the previous model that was rated at 17.4 hours. The touchpad has also returned to the previous design, with dedicated left/right buttons at the top (for use with the TrackPoint), which is sure to please many that disliked the changes made with the X240.
Screen options are the same as before: 1366x768, 1366x768 Premium IPS, or FullHD IPS. Memory still comes courtesy of a single SO-DIMM slot (8GB max), storage options consist of up to 512GB SSD or 1TB HDD, and the weight and dimensions appear to be unchanged as well. Pricing and availability have not been announced but the X250 should occupy the same MSRP bracket as the X240 (which is now on sale).
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Wally Simmonds - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
8gb, eh? Not much point in upgrading my X220 apart from battery life really..Samus - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
Yeah they should do what HP does with their Elitebooks and build 4GB or 8GB on-board, with an empty SODIMM slot for the end-user.My 810 G1 has 4GB on-board and I dropped 8GB in the SODIMM slot to give me 12GB. I also installed a 512GB double-sided M2 NGFF SSD when HP officially states only single-sided can be used (and only equips it up to 180GB with an Intel Pro 1500, ie SSD530)
HP won me over from Lenovo a few years ago after it was obvious the IBM quality was going away. My Thinkpad X41 was still by far the most solid mobile machine I've ever owned. Even in 2001, it had a 60GB PATA SSD, a $1400 option and well worth it.
KompuKare - Monday, January 5, 2015 - link
The real irony is that from Haswell onwards (X240,T440), Lenovo have mostly gone with a single SODIMM and hence single channel. Since Haswell also introduced a max of 15W CPUs, this has meant that not only did the CPU performance go down vs the Ivy Bridge generation (X230 / T430), but with single channel the one advantage that Haswell *should* bring (better GPU performance) is absent.HP went for dual SODIMM slots in all except for the 11.6" 1.33KG 810 which makes a lot more sense. Pity about the Elitebooks cursor key arrangement as I really do not like the layout.
But really Lenovo, single-channel Broadwell sounds even stupider than single-channel Haswell did.
kspirit - Monday, January 5, 2015 - link
This so much. The ultrathin craze is out of hand. Everything is coming soldered at the bare minimums.I have a Folio 1040 and I was happy that I would be able to upgrade the RAM if I needed it, but apparently HP has, for this laptop, some strange single-sided RAM chips that I've never even seen used before anywhere, and two-sided ones don't fit. They're unavailable except for the HP store where they are quite expensive.
Business-grade laptops, at the very least, should be a bit more accessible with their hardware, even if they are ultrabooks.
Kornfeld - Tuesday, January 6, 2015 - link
This has been a concern for me as well. The T450 is supposed to once again have to memory slots and support up to 16GB of RAM. I imagine details on it will be coming out soon at CES. If you want documentation on this, I'm not aware of any yet. The best documentation is the Product Support Reference sheets (PSREF) and that document hasn't been updated since the December release.plsgtfo - Tuesday, January 20, 2015 - link
Is this true for the Yoga series as well ? I am referring to the new 2015 wave based on the 5th gen core processors. The CPUs all Support dual channel why would lenovo do that to those notebooks ?mjrpes3 - Tuesday, January 6, 2015 - link
The X41 was released in 2005. The biggest SSD in 2001 apparently was 14GB and cost $42,000.YouGotRioted - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
Finally brought back the trackpoint buttons instead of the clickable touchpad. I'd actually consider upgrading from my X220 now if it wasn't such a good machine. Wouldn't touch the X240 though.Samus - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link
The X220 was the last good X-series. I don't expect the X250 to be much better, if at all, except for battery life. Build quality has been tanking for years with Lenovo, just research overheating problems, cracking USB ports, BIOS bugs, and so on.tuxRoller - Monday, January 5, 2015 - link
Eh, the x230t is fine as well. Keys have nice feedback.