The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs, The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymous Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and The Attachment Parenting Blog, discussing topics of interest to parents. Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs.

Why I won't be buying a Lenovo X41 Tablet PC

Those of you that have been reading this blog for a while know that Lenovo generously loaned me one of their hot new X41 Tablet PC notebook computers to try out for a few months, and that my experiences have been mixed. I really like the form factor (what's not to like about a 3lb computer?) and I am highly impressed with Windows for Tablet PC, but after spending a few months with the X41 system, I'm ready to send it back to Lenovo.

There are a number of problems I've encountered with the unit, but none greater than the performance issue. My expectations of an ultralight are obviously less than a full-size PC laptop, but the performance of the Lenovo X41 is really quite terrible, and the battery performance is even worse. Some of these issues might well be to do with the settings of the computer, but I'm quite a savvy technologist and have spent hours tweaking and tuning the system for the best possible results.

And yet...

Here are just a few examples of the problems I've seen with the Lenovo X41 Tablet PC:

Last night I was using the system and put it into "standby mode" when I was done. I checked the battery meter on the Taskbar and it indicated that it had a 76% charge. This morning, no more than 12 hours later, I woke the X41 up and was surprised and distressed to see that it had dropped down to 53% charge. That's right, having the system sleep had consumed almost 25% of the battery charge overnight. And yes, I checked, it was definitely asleep when I put it down last night (there are status lights that make it obvious if it's in standby mode or not).

I was also at the Consumer Electronics Show last week and left the X41 on my desk for a week. When I returned and tried to restart it, the battery was completely drained, as I would expect, but unlike other laptops, plugging it into the wall was insufficient for me to be able to restart the computer. I had to let it charge for at least 30 minutes before it would actually start up.

Oh, and while I'm talking about power issues, I have never had a laptop that had an alarm klaxon to warn you when the battery is about to die. The first time I heard it I thought the fire alarm in my office had been triggered (it's that loud). A weird design feature, if you ask me.

While the battery may not be ideal, the key thing that's driven me batty with the Lenovo X41 Tablet PC is the overall performance of the system. Once the system is all running properly it's not too bad, but waking up from it being in standby is out and out painful. I have woken up the system and watched as it took ten to fifteen minutes before the applications were responsive to events. Even when the stars are all aligned just so, the fastest wake from standby is still a few minutes long on the unit.

I thought that perhaps there were issues with viruses or spyware, since I didn't recall it being so slow when I first got the unit from Lenovo, but after having run a raft of different troubleshooting utilities, I couldn't find anything that's wrong with the unit. Sure the X41 checks in with IBM, Norton checks in for updates, Spy Sweeper checks in for updates and even Windows XP for Tablet PC checks in to see if there's anything new, but really, how long should that take and why would that leave the computer disabled until they'd all completed?

In the end, I am not impressed with the usability of the X41 Tablet PC and am not going to buy a unit for my office after all. I am quite impressed with Windows for Tablet PC, however, and will try to find another ultralightweight unit that has better battery life and higher performance, but until then, I'll have to go back to my trusty Apple PowerBook. And dream of when the MacBook Pro has a Tablet option.

Background reading on my experiences with the Lenovo X41 Tablet PC:

• Lenovo X41 Tablet PC: One Month Later
• Tablet PC Handwriting Recognition is Superb
• Lenovo X41 Tablet PC: I'm Not Impressed

Posted by Dave Taylor at January 13, 2006 9:15 PM

Comments

Dave:

I'm using an X41 tablet pc and I have not experienced any of the problems you are. In fact, I'm quite pleased with the peformance. It is not an 2.0ghz M200, but I can tell you it is quite zippy.

two things I have found that helps - make sure that your battery settings set to either adaptive or highest. When running on battery, the x41 defaults to low. You can change it though. The other thing I've found is defrags. For some reason, I've noticed that the harddrive gets fragmented much quicker.

Rob Bushway
Tablet MVP
Colorado Springs

Posted by: Rob Bushway on January 14, 2006 12:35 AM

Thanks for the tips, Rob, but I have to say, I've been using computers for years and I just can't believe that I need to defrag this laptop after only a few months of use. It was, as far as I know, a pristine install when Lenovo sent it to me.

Posted by: Dave Taylor on January 14, 2006 12:54 AM

Whew! Thank goodness! I was beginning to think I was the lone voice of sanity. I too have been using the media darling Thinkpad X41 for a few months and quickly found myself underwhelmed. Yet everywhere I look, there's nothing but the highest of praises being sung for the X41.

The X41 simply has far too many tradeoffs to make it a good bang-for-the-buck value either as a notebook or a tablet PC. The X41 is sluggish even with the RAM bumped to a gig and the keyboard - the entire reason for buying a 'vert - is no marvel either. I consider the lack of a Windows key on any post-circa-1995 keyboard to be a dealbreaker. Additionally, the Function key is exactly where the Control key should be - another big problem if you particularly keyboard-centric - and again, why else would you be spending the extra money on a convertible tablet if not for the keyboard?

Then there's that silly TrackPoint nub instead of the standard touchpad interface that nearly all notebooks offer. I know that this is just a personal preference niggle, but even the greenest of PC users have at least a cursory familiarity with notebook touchpads, whereas the TrackPoint feels quite foreign. Most newcomers - and even some veteran users - seem to have a tough time getting comfortable with the TrackPoint interface.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of tablet PCs. But I advise that if you need a notebook PC, get a notebook PC. If your intent is to get a tablet, you should go with a "slate" (I'd encourage you to try a Motion Computing model.) and embrace the tablet UI.

You can always hook up a compact USB keyboard and even a nice optical mouse if you're in a pinch to do some hardcore data entry.

Posted by: Rob O'Daniel on January 14, 2006 4:34 AM

You're not the only one who is underwhelmed by the X4. I'e commented about it in numerous other places, I support five or six of these and all of them are darn slow, esp when compared to a 1.1 GHZ TC1100. Unfortunately, it appears that Rob's experience is the exception, not the rule. I consider the X41 to be a version one product and look forward to the next version to be a much better performer.

Posted by: Mike Karr on January 14, 2006 9:31 AM

I'll weigh in on the positive side. I've been using mine for six months and love it. I've fiddled plenty with sleep vs. hybernate vs. shut down and found that I can put it in the right mode depending on the situation. I had a weird "slow wake up from sleep" problem for a few weeks - it magically went away. Today when it looks like it's in a "deep sleep", I press the on button (not long enough to reset) and it wakes right up.

Quirky - yes - but most laptops that I've used are in and around sleep mode.

Posted by: Brad Feld on January 14, 2006 11:40 AM

Dave,

Whew. Saved me. I have been an ardent user of the x series (x20,30) and now my x40 which performs great- I do have the extended battery and it's fully loaded. I love the light weight (especially compared to my Alienware monster gaming thing) but was considering going to the x41. I think I'll wait.

-Wayne Porter

Posted by: Wayne Porter on April 5, 2006 5:07 PM

I like mine. I added some ram and took off most of the IBM stuff that is preloaded. I find that sometimes the windows updates create problems but IBM is quick to generate updates that solve those problems. I dont think anyone else has a product on the market that is close (features and weight) so, I am personally willing to tweak it a bit to make it work. I give the x41 a strong recommendation and suggest you remove as much of the preloaded stuff off as possible.

good luck

Posted by: JDP on May 21, 2006 9:51 PM

i've almost the exact problems you have been encountering. even though i have purchased the longer life battery, (that claimed it had up to 5 hours of energy,)with nothing running, the battery runs out in less than 2 and a half hours. and i've the EXACT problem when up the system, it takes MORE than 15 minutes. and many more similar problems. is there any way to fix it, or do i just have to buy a better and experienced laptop?

Posted by: ariel newman on May 8, 2007 10:47 PM

I just got a used Thinkpad X41 Tablet for my research project, and I have exactly the same problems. I am not sure adding RAM will solve the issue. My old X22 with 256MB was way more smooth than this one. Mouse is showing choppy behavior nearly 30% of the times. Startup time is about 5-10minutes. I am not sure if it is because of 1.8 harddisk drive since the difference between 15ms and 12ms shouldn't be that much... I cleaned the fresh recovery system from lots of IBM software, reduced the process number by 10, but still it is way slower than a usable machine should be... :-( I was expecting a lot from this machine... Sad story.

Koray.

Posted by: Koray on June 4, 2007 8:34 AM

I added 1GB RAM to my system and it works a lot faster now.I reconfigured the system to utilize RAM for cache so it doesn't get stuck because of hard disk access. Another thing I noticed is that the CPU speed was stuck at about 300MHz -you see there is a big difference between 300MHz and 1.5GHz! You should all check this out, too. Now my system is doing great!

Posted by: Koray on June 11, 2007 8:09 AM

I have had a terrible experience with the X41 tablet until I reformatted and installed Ubuntu on here. Not only was I able to retain nearly every feature (barring handwriting recognition, which was pretty bad under windows anyway), but everything runs really smoothly! I'm amazed how much more this processor and the minuscule amounts of ram can do under linux.

Posted by: Asma on July 1, 2007 9:41 AM

I would never go to a powerbook from the x41 tablet, mainly because of the weight with either battery (especially the four cell), battery performance has been great for me even after upgrading to vista and also upgrading RAM to 1.5 GB, and overall satisfaction with the system. Granted, the hard drive is slow and start up time pales in comparison to many models, if you disable many of the startup and useless IBM bloat software you should be able to speed up the system considerably. In fact, my brother just received his x61 tablet and I was trying to improve the performance for him before he left to med school because it came with all IBM's preinstalled software which he really doesn't need. The system was possibly as slow initially as my x41 tablet, even though he has 3GB RAM, on a 1.8Ghz core 2 duo, 7200 rpm hard drive. Ok that's an exaggeration, but performance can be tweaked. But the problems of battery life I'd have to assume are defective units. If only I could justify buying a new tablet...

Posted by: noor on December 23, 2007 11:26 PM

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