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Lenovo’s X200 Tablet and X200 Tablet With Touch Go Head to Head

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X200 Tablet on left, X200 Tablet with Touch on right

X200 Tablet on left, X200 Tablet with Touch on right

I have the distinct pleasure of having both a Lenovo x200 Tablet and a Lenovo X200 Tablet with Touch to compare against. I’ll be taking the touch version to CES with me, so I wanted to see how they stacked up against each other to ensure I made the right decision. The big differences between the two machines is the screen: touch vs non-touch, flush bezel vs regular bezel, SuperBright vs regular.

I’ve run some benchmarks, taken weight measurements, and taken some comparison pictures. Here are my general impressions:

  • The screen on the regular X200 Tablet appears a tad brighter and clearer than the X200 Tablet with Touch. This is due to the X200 Tablet having the SuperBright option. Both viewing angles are similar, though.
  • There is less parallax on the X200 Tablet with Touch vs the regular X200 Tablet
  • It is clear that Lenovo improved the touch / pen experience as I have yet to experience any vectoring while inking on the X200 Tablet with Touch. I remember experiencing vectoring issues on the X61 Tablet with Touch
  • The X200 Tablet with Touch has a little milkly substance from fingerprints that the X200 Tablet does not. It is only visible when the screen is off
  • The X200 Tablet with Touch is a tad lighter, weighing at 4 lbs 1 oz (with 8 cell). the X200 Tablet weighs in a 4 lbs 2 oz. I can’t tell the difference to be honest.
  • I still have an X61 with Touch and will do an InkShow comparison between the two. The touch is good on the X200 Tablet with Touch, but it still doesn’t compare to capacitive touch
  • Which one would I get? Because the SSD and other performance options can be ordered on either tablet, I won’t let that push me either way. However, from the benchmarks, I’d probably opt for the 7200 rpm upgrade drive instead of the SSD soley due to the cost difference. In addition, there wasn’t that big of a difference in processor performance to push me either way. Although the SuperBright screen provides a brighter screen on the regular tablet, I prefer the less parallax on the X200 Tablet with Touch. Because vectoring is not an issue on the X200 Tablet with Touch, I’d likely go for the $200 upgrade and get the touch version. The Touch version is going to CES with me!

Click on each image to view a higher res version.

16 Comments

16 Comments

  1. stormeye

    12/17/2008 at 3:40 pm

    How about when you take the Tablet outdoors? Is the difference in brightness (55 nits) noticeable? or is the Tablet with touch still bright enough to use it under direct sunlight?

  2. Rob Bushway

    12/17/2008 at 3:56 pm

    I’ll them outdoors and see. I don’t do a lot of outdoors stuff for it to matter much to me, though.

  3. stormeye

    12/17/2008 at 4:09 pm

    Thanks Rob!
    I wonder if the parallax on the X200 tablet is annoying (I understand that both models have parallax, X200T with Touch being less noticeable) Not having the capacitive touch, I wonder if the touch function comes handy on everyday use, other than scrolling with the finger tips and/or websurfing.

  4. Rob Bushway

    12/17/2008 at 5:17 pm

    you get used to the parallax, but I’m very sensitive. It doesn’t bother Warner at all, though.

    Without Windows 7 out yet, touch is a novelty and best experience with scrolling websites and launching applications. Windows 7 will change that though.

  5. Michael Meier

    12/18/2008 at 12:06 am

    Wow, only 4 oz.! I seriously need either one of those.

  6. Mats

    12/18/2008 at 5:43 am

    But this is still now multitouch (two finger touch) like Windows 7 will support, so how do you think Windows 7 will change the experience?

  7. Rob Bushway

    12/18/2008 at 7:50 am

    what I’m saying is that touch in vista is a novelty experience, and also support duel pen / touch support much better natively. although the x200 doesn’t offer two finger touch yet, I expect the overall OS experience to improve with Windows 7 whether the system support multitouch or just passive touch.

  8. Jon

    12/18/2008 at 1:49 pm

    Hey Rob,

    Your write-up could not have come at a better time for me, as I’m on the fence about the x200t and had heard vague references to “graininess” on the touch version. Can you verify, does it have this problem? If so, is it noticeable?

    And, kinda more generally, how does the touch here compare to the XT from your previous inkshow? I realize it’s apples and oranges with capacitive and resistive touch, but I’m wondering whether we’re about to see a whole spate of capacitive-touch tablets in the next six months because of the clear superiority of that technology.

  9. Rob Bushway

    12/18/2008 at 1:53 pm

    Jon – the touch version is a tad grainier than the regular tablet version. I do notice it.

    The touch on the X200 doesn’t compare to the XT at all. The capactive touch on the XT is much easier on the fingers.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bunch of capacitive touch tablets hit the market in the next year.

  10. Jon

    12/18/2008 at 2:07 pm

    Yeah, that’s kinda what I expected. The x200t is clearly a fabulous offering for the moment, but it seems to me that we’re at a clear jump in the technological trendline.

    Usually I can hold my breath on these now-or-later decisions and just buy, but I think for my purposes I’ll be happier this time next year.

    Thanks Rob!

  11. Donald

    12/25/2008 at 10:17 am

    Rob,

    I just received a x200t and I am having trouble with the eraser feature on the pen. They are sending me a new pen but wondered if you had any problems.

    Donald

  12. Rob Bushway

    12/25/2008 at 10:24 am

    have not experienced any trouble with the pen.

  13. Rob Bushway

    12/25/2008 at 10:25 am

    btw – check the tablet pc settings in control panel, make sure the user pen back as eraser is set.

    also – not all programs support the back of the pen – try journal

  14. Sara

    12/27/2008 at 6:34 pm

    Could you try an experiment, running Ubuntu, on both the X61 with Touch and the X200 with Touch, perhaps with Wubi? That way, you wouldn’t have to install Ubuntu on a dedicated partition and potentially have trouble, but with the benefit of really seeing if touch has improved by some improvement in hardware, or improvement in the drivers. Because I can honestly say that there is at least a 50 percent improvement with touch in Linux on my X61 tablet (with the touch option) as opposed to Windows Vista. In Vista, when I’d touch the screen, at first the pointer would go into the far top-right corner, and then to the place where I actually clicked. This was nothing short of annoying, of course. Additionally, in Vista, I had to use a harder touch to click while Ubuntu (amazingingly, Linux has soundly beat Windows on something) the lightest touch activates the screen perfectly. It’s almost like the iPhone touch everyone raves about.

    In Ubuntu Linux, the wacom digitizer is detected automatically, and all it needs is editing the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, and installing wacom-tools (to enable most screen rotation scripts to work, and to calibrate the touch-screen). Wacom-tools needs Java to have been installed. If it’s something you can’t do on these Lenovo-loaned machines (though I think a Wubi install is a sensible no-mess option), I understand perfectly. I am just highly skeptical of the touch improvements Lenovo claimed, when I saw a clear difference when I simply used Ubuntu.

  15. Sara

    12/27/2008 at 6:35 pm

    By the way, when I mentioned Ubuntu, I specifically meant Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10), the latest version.

  16. Michael

    01/02/2009 at 2:34 pm

    Great post – considering both X200’s as well as Fujitsus.

    A couple terms went over my head (kind of a newbie):

    – Can you define parallax (as it relates to tablets)?

    – Same with vectoring.

    – I haven’t seen other references to capacitive vs. resistive touch. Does that affect the amount of pressure required?

    If there’s a “101-style” post of yours I should be reading, please let me know. Don’t want you to have to repeat anything you’ve already written/posted.

    Thanks

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