Lenovo ThinkPad X220i review

This 12.5in ultraportable boasts good battery life for mobile professionals

Lenovo's ThinkPad X220i is the successor to the company's popular 12in X201 ultraportable from last year, and is likewise aimed at delivering a mix of portability and good battery life for professional users.

Announced in March and available now, the X220i features Intel's second-generation Core processors and a slightly larger display of 12.5in. Like the X201, it is also available in a tablet version with a convertible display, known as the X220t.

With a standard weight of 1.5kg and a footprint about the size of an A4 page, the X220i is the right size to be carried around by mobile workers, and Lenovo has paid a lot of attention to detail, especially in its ThinkVantage technologies designed to provide extra help for users.

One of these is Lenovo's Power Manager, providing more options than the standard Windows power management, which seemed to make a difference in our tests as the X220i managed a better than average battery life for a 12in system.

Although a little chunky when compared with some of the latest thin-and-light designs, ruggedness has been a feature associated with ThinkPad models, and the X220i certainly feels sturdy enough for a life on the road as a mobile workhorse.

Lenovo offers the X220 in a range of configurations covering Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, plus several battery options, allowing users to pick a larger battery as long as they don't mind the extra bulk.

Our review sample featured the 2.1GHz Core i3-2310M, a dual-core processor with hyper-threading to support four threads, but which does not feature the performance-enhancing Turbo Boost technology.

In our view, this is a good thing in an ultraportable. Turbo Boost racks up the clock speed above the chip's rated frequency whenever the operating system asks for maximum performance. The problem is, it does so even if the laptop is running on batteries.

In performance, the X220i punches above its weight with a Windows Experience Index of 4.6, which is tied to the score of the Intel HD graphics built into the processor. The CPU and hard disk scores rated the X220i well above average.

The rest of the specifications consist of 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 320GB Sata hard drive, with an optional 128GB SSD. On a relatively small system as this, there is no optical drive option, however.

For wireless connectivity, customers can choose from Lenovo's ThinkPad 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi adapter, an Intel equivalent, or an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 with 802.11a/b/g/n support, which was fitted in our review sample.

The ThinkPad X220i can also be configured with a 3G cellular modem for connectivity virtually anywhere. This was not fitted on our review unit, but the SIM card slot is present inside the battery compartment.

Opened up, the X220i has the characteristic ThinkPad styling, with a Trackpoint controller embedded in the middle of the keyboard as well as a touchpad below it. We prefer the Trackpoint, as do many ThinkPad users, but either controller can be disabled from the Windows Control Panel, depending on preference.

The touchpad itself has now been enlarged by removing the separate left and right mouse buttons. Users now click the pad itself on the left or right side, which sounds like a recipe for disaster but seemed to work fine when we tried it.

Lenovo ThinkPad X220i review

This 12.5in ultraportable boasts good battery life for mobile professionals

Lenovo's keyboard proved comfortable for typing, and one neat feature is the addition of separate mute keys near the screen for the laptop's speaker and microphone - handy for web conferencing or video calls.

The 12.5in screen has a native resolution of 1,366x768, providing ample desktop space for applications and delivering a bright and clear image on our review unit. A webcam for videoconferencing is optional, supporting resolutions up to 1,280×720 pixels, good enough for 720p HD.

Lenovo has also equipped the X220i with a decent set of I/O ports for such a relatively small system. The right side has an Ethernet port for a physical LAN, along with a jack socket for an audio headset, Flash card reader slot and a USB port that can charge devices even when the system is powered off. The right side also has a security slot for chaining the laptop to a desk.

The left side adds a further two USB ports, VGA and DisplayPort outputs and an ExpressCard slot for adding extra capabilities via adapter cards. There is also a slider switch to enable or disable wireless.

Underneath the case is a cover that unscrews to provide access to the memory slots. Only one of the two was occupied on our review sample, allowing an upgrade to 8GB in the future. A second cover on the right hand edge of the underside allows the hard drive to be swapped out.

There is also a connector allowing the X220i to be used with a desktop dock or port replicator, and which can additionally be used to attach a battery slice for longer life.

There are a number of battery options for this ThinkPad model, the standard configuration being a six-cell 63Whr battery pack. This protrudes from the underside, raising the back of the X220i by about a centimetre when resting on a desk.

A smaller, four-cell battery fits flush and costs less, but obviously carries less charge, while a larger nine-cell option protrudes further and adds to the weight.

However, we found that the standard six-cell battery offers quite a decent life, thanks to Lenovo's Power Manager software. Under the Battery Eater Pro benchmark, the X220i lasted for two hours and 26 minutes in Classic mode, which simulates system activity, but for 10 hours and 33 minutes in the Reader mode simulating less intense use.

This suggests that users can realistically expect to see six or seven hours from the standard battery, although this is largely delivered by dimming the screen, which might affect usability.

As usual, we tested with the laptop in the configuration it was delivered with, except for disabling timers that would have turned off the screen or suspended the system while the battery benchmark was running.

On the security side, the X220i comes equipped with a trusted platform module chip and has a swipe scanner near the touchpad for fingerprint authentication.

However, potential corporate buyers should note that the configuration tested here does not have Intel's vPro management technology, which is supported only with Core i5 and i7 processors.

Software supplied with our review unit included the standard fare of Microsoft Office 2010 Starter edition, which provides reduced functionality versions of Word and Excel, plus a trial version of Norton Internet Security.

However, Lenovo also includes various tools of its own, including the Power Manager mentioned previously, the ThinkVantage Toolbox, which includes various health and diagnostics functions, Rescue and Recovery, Password Vault, and Access Connections, which helps to switch easily between Wi-Fi and 3G mobile broadband connections.