Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Grzegorz — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:57:18 GMT

Hi,

Thanks for the review.

I just have one more question: does W500 get hot on the surface when heavily used? - I have had such problems with faster R61 and T61 before.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Brandon — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:21:09 GMT

That laptop sure does look nice. I can never buy a dell again.

I find the two video cards, one for battery, one for high performance interesting. Does it automatically switch, does the desktop flicker? Does it even make a difference in battery life?

I need a high paying campus job to get another laptop anytime soon. I hope with time, higher end laptops can be had for about 1500. I need that CPU and GPU power for Matlab and AutoCAD.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:34:52 GMT

It does get warm, but I wouldn't call it hot. My MacBook Pro with a lesser proc and video chipset runs hotter. I'm going to be handing this off to one of the guys in a sister team in my org and will ask Charles to put some load on it for an hour or two. I know he has a brand new Canon (professional) HD video camera so I'm sure he can do some encoding and other work to drive the CPU and GPU. I'll let you know if he has an cooling concerns later Don't expect a report until about 10/15 when he has to return the machine to me.

Regarding the switching video, doing that is sufficiently buried. You must have the Lenovo power management driver and software installed. This puts a battery guage on the Vista taskbar. Left click it and select the power conservation profile. This kicks everything down and switches to the Intel video chipset. No reboot required. Repeat and select performance to switch back to the ATI chipset.

I have not had time to test battery performance and won't until after 10/15. I may end up returning the eval unit beforehand because I have a T400 and a W700 coming. I'll try to run some tests, but no promises.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Michael — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:35:30 GMT

You mention forcing the Ethernet driver, what you mean by that?

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:40:10 GMT

Regarding the ethernet driver install on Windows Server 2008, I had to grapple with downloading the drivers from intel.com and exploring the .inf files for the family the chipset is in to find one that mostly closely resembled it and install it. It wasn't easy.

Windows Server 2008 would not install the Windows Vista ethernet driver from the lenovo download area. Lenovo has been informed so I would imagine we'll see this fixed.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Wilco Burghout — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:00:14 GMT

I'm a developer and trying to decide between w500 or t500 or some other rugged laptop. Two things that are important to me are the keyboard quality and the battery life. I heard the new Lenovo's shaved off some of the metal plating on the back of the keyboard, and they're now noticably worse than before. And what kind of battery life does the W500 have? I heard the T500 is around 6 hrs in power save mode, which is plenty for me.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:42:32 GMT

The W500 keyboard on the eval unit I have seems identical to the T61p's I have. Solid.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Rajesh — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:02:14 GMT

Do you know the max screen refresh rate W500 offers? Someone I know recenly ordered X300 Thinkpad tablet PC but after arrival its screen refresh rate turned out to be 50Hz which is extremelly bad for eyes.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:32:04 GMT

The Maximum resolution is mentioned in the tabook.pdf reference ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pcinstitute/psref/tabook.pdf but I don't see refresh rates listed. If you have a concern you should probably contact Lenovo sales for your region.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Chris — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:15:14 GMT

Apple sells a displayport to dual-link dvi adapter for the new MacBook Pros. Do you have a way to test your W500 to see if it will output to a dual-link 2560x1600 monitor?

Cheers,

Chris

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:24:56 GMT

No sorry Chris. I do not.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

leigh — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:58:19 GMT

is the lenovo500 has a built-in recorder on what were the activities done the few days back?

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:10:56 GMT

I have no idea on the recorder question. Not that I am aware of.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Joseph S. Caudill — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:03:59 GMT

October 23, 2008 @ 12:05 PM MST

Question ( not a comment ):

I am on the verge of purchasing a new lap top and I am seriously considering the W 500( fully configured ) and if not that, then the T 500

( fully configured ).

Apart from cost, is there a reason or reasons to purchase one over the other ?

Thanks.

____

Joseph S. Caudill

jscaudill@qwest.net

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Chris Curpen — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:46:39 GMT

Thanks You have probably the best written reviews that I have seen with more of the potential uses covered than other sites.

Cheers,

Chris

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:16:35 GMT

Thanks Chris. I try hard so hopefully it shows. If you want some more depth on this generation of the ThinkPad laptops, take a look at the T400 review I did. I spent more time on a few areas like power management. Love the T400. It's a hard choice because I like 15.4 screens, too.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

frisla — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:51:12 GMT

Hi - and thanks for the review

Unfortunately I saw the review a bit to late :(

I've just purchased a brand new DELL Precision 4400 - and - thought WS2008 here I come. But then I got the same problem you described related to the Ethernet driver. I know your review is about the Lenovo Thinkpad W500, but do you have any advice to a frustrated/tired Dell owner, that might point me in the right direction with my ethernet issue. Other drivers installed nicely (used x64 Vista drivers)

Cheers,

Frode

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Kannan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:11:36 GMT

Keith,

We just bought recently the ThinkPad W500 and are having getting the network drivers to work with w2k8 x64. It would be great if you can let us know the steps you followed to force the network installation going.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:01:43 GMT

Kannan,

See the instructions at http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2008/10/18/installing-windows-server-2008-x64-on-the-lenovo-thinkpad-t400.aspx

The T400 and W500 are nearly identical so you'll find the ethernet driver instructions written there work nicely.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Kannan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:15:32 GMT

Thanks Keith, I did try the trick you had mentioned in the other article, but unfortunately that didn't work. After selecting "Intel ® 82567LM-2 Gigabit Network Connection", the installation went through fine, but I did not see any network connection. Is there anything else I can try.

Regards,

Kannan

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Kannan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:28:12 GMT

Keith,

I don't what was the issue, but is now working :-). Many thanks.

Regards,

Kannan

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Security Cable — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:49:20 GMT

Hi,

Appreciate your review. I'm just about to purchase the W500 elite, but needed to know if it comes with a secuity cable ability. (I saw something on the back side, on the left.) Do you know if the W500 offers a connection for this?

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Jayson — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:11:04 GMT

Hi,

I was wondering if you could test SolidWorks with the FireGL graphics card. I heard people are having problems with this card not performing as well as should and other saying its great. Is there anyway you could do some tests with this program or another 3D CAD and comment on how the W500 performs?

Thanks,

Jayson

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:42:45 GMT

Sorry Jayson, my eval unit has been returned.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Sanford — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:02:08 GMT

Keith -

Thanks for the incredibly through review. I have been a loyal IBM user for four years, even with joys and pains of the repair process.

My question is one of comparison - I have been somewhat frustrated with IBM/lenovo's designs since they feel like they have changed for DVD/multimedia watching, instead of roadwarrioring. I love my T42 15" (true) screen, and find myself frustrated with the 15.4" screens. I did try with the T61p and found it too bulky and flimsy (which surprised me). 14" is too small for working - any suggestions on the way to go?

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:08:28 GMT

Getting used to widescreen over 4:3 screens takes time. Reading email and getting that nice long list of items on a 15" screen is nice. But the preview pane is a better experience on a 15.4" widescreen.

I think in this day and age most people are adapting to widescreen formats for their laptops, monitors and high def television.

If you use the LCD screeen of a laptop a lot, seems like 15.4" is the way to go which rules out the smaller T400.

If you work in an office setting 50% or more of the time, then you should consider a good 24" monitor. That's a huge productivity tool in my opinion.

re: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Rob — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 04:37:27 GMT

Well, a large monitor is a benefit when working at a desk. However, that only holds true if you need large (low dpi) images, or if the monitor has more resolution. In the case of a WUXGA W500, the resolution is the same as a 24" monitor. Unless you need the physical size, there is no benefit (pixel-wise).