Lenovo X121e Review

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Few months back, Lenovo rolled out ThinkPad X121e, successor of X110e (which was successor of X100e). For those who do not know, X1xx series range of notebooks cater to those people who need portability of netbook and power of a business class notebook in a single package. The X121e comes in two configurations  – Core i3 2357M Sandy Bridge processor and AMD C50 / AMD E350 processor.

We have earlier tested an AMD C50 powered Asus 1215B, so might want to check out its review if you want to see how C50 performs. We have also reviewed Sony Vaio YB, a notebook powered by AMD E350. Both of these reviews will give you enough idea about the performance of the aforementioned AMD APUs. The ThinkPad mentioned below comes with Intel processor.

This processor comes with two cores and four threads. It runs at 1.3GHz clock speed and has 3MB L3 cache. There is no turbo boost on it. X121e comes with 4GB of DDR3 RAM which can be expanded to maximum of 8GB by using 2x 4GB DDR3 RAM modules. Coming to the ports, it comes with 2x USB 2.0 ports, multi card reader, and a combo headphone microphone jack. It also has a fingerprint reader.

The lid of this mini notebook has matte finish – perfect for taking into business meetings. The display has an anti glare finish and measures 11.6 inches diagonally. It packs 1366 x 768 pixels, which is the standard resolution of notebooks of this size. Keyboard as usual is excellent since it is a ‘ThinkPad’. There were no complaints with the touchpad (Lenovo calls it “UltraNav pad”) or its Trackpoint either.

You can easily upgrade the hard disk and RAM by unscrewing few screws present on its back panel.

Heat output is pretty low thanks to processor’s low 17 watts TDP. The processor performs amazingly well, better than the AMD E350, which was surprising. Here are its windows experience ratings:

* Processor 4.7
* Memory 5.5
* Graphics 5.3
* Gaming graphics 6.1
* Primary hard disk 5.6

Here are its crystalmark results:

..and here is how it compares with other processors (core i5 2410m vs i3 2310M vs Intel P6100)

In the BBbench battery life test, it yielded 5.4 hours of continuous runtime on a single charge. This was in power saving mode, Wi-fi on and Bluetooth off. Expect this to drop to 5 hours or 4.75 hours in balanced mode. Clearly, X121e has better battery life than its predecessors but we believe it could be a lot better. Nevertheless, it is a fine machine for its price. [via] (Japanese)

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