Lenovo ThinkPad X220 Vs. ThinkPad X120e Comparison

A high level description would classify both the Lenovo ThinkPad X220 and X120e as being ultraportable business laptops.  The ThinkPad X220 has a 12.5” screen while the X120e has an 11.6” screen, both are 1366 x 768 resolution matte finish displays.  From a distance the two laptops look very much the same, but it’s when you sweat the details and what’s inside that it becomes clear the X220 is the superior laptop here.   Make no mistake, if you can afford the X220 then that is the laptop to get between these two.  This isn’t our typical laptop comparison where we take two closely related laptops and weigh the pros and cons of each and then recommend one.  Rather, we’ll investigate what makes the X220 superior and if you’re on a strict budget and simply cannot afford the X220 help determine if the X120e is a worthy enough substitute for your needs.

Specs Comparison

Below are the specs for each laptop being reviewed:

Video Comparison

For those who prefer visuals to dense text, here’s a video comparison of the X120e and X220.  The video also gives a good comparison of the screens for the two laptops, demonstrating the superiority of the X220 IPS screen.

Price

The ThinkPad X120e is the cheapest ThinkPad you can buy, in fact, the X120e you see featured here was purchased for a mere $298 at Walmart.com during a sale.  Meanwhile the ThinkPad X220 starts at $899 on Lenovo.com right now, clearly the price gap is huge, you could easily purchase two X120e laptops for the price of one X220.

Advantage: X130e

Design and Durability

Here’s where the road starts to diverge and you see why you pay much more for the X220 over the X120e.  The ThinkPad X220 has features such as a rugged ABS plastic body, spill proof keyboard, thick steel hinges, internal magnesium roll cage to protect what’s inside, and ThinkPad Active Protection System (APS) that parks the hard drive head during a drop situation.  The ThinkPad X120e has none of this.  That’s not to say it’s built like a toy, the X120e is a sturdy feeling overall laptop, but the plastics used are thinner and the overall build is just not as rugged as the X220.

In the Above picture the ThinkPad X120e is on the left, the X220 on the right

Design wise the two laptops look very similar.  They’re both all black, have a red trackpoint and sport a ThinkPad logo.  The major difference is simply the fact the X120e is smaller and has a chiclet style keyboard.

Advantage: X220

Thinness and Weight

The weight and dimensions of the ThinkPad X120e and X220 are as follows:

• ThinkPad X220: 3.34 pounds, 12.0” x 8.13” x 0.75” – 1.35” (Width x Depth x Height)
• ThinkPad X120e: 3.31 pounds, 11.1” x 8.3” x 0.6” – 1.2” (Width x Depth x Height)

ThinkPad X220 weight

ThinkPad X120e weight

The specs for the weight and dimensions are so close that it’s not even worth worrying about the difference.  If you consider you get a larger screen with the X220, which could provide for more comfortable viewing, the weight savings of 0.05 pounds isn’t really worth much.  The X120e is slightly thinner, but again nothing that’s going to be very noticeable unless you put them right next to each like I have so you can see how close it is below:

ThinkPad X120e on the left, X220 on the right – you can see the X120e is about 0.15” thinner at the back

At the front the X120e and X220 are almost exactly the same thickness

At the end of the day you won’t be able to tell the difference between these two laptops if you were blindfolded and handed one or the other, the weight and thicknesses are so similar.

Advantage: Neither

Display

The X220 has a 12.5” screen display while the X120e a smaller 11.6” display.  Both are 1366 x 768 resolution so you see the same amount of stuff on there, it’s just a little smaller on the X120e.  What truly sets the X220 apart though is the fact you can upgrade to an Premium IPS screen for $50.  It’s an upgrade that’s totally worth the cost, the premium screen provides excellent viewing angles and coloration.  To see the IPS screen of the X220 compared to the regular TN screen of the X120e just checkout the comparison of the screens at different vertical viewing angles below:

X220 on the left, X120e on the right with screens vertically oriented

X220 on the left, X120e on the right with screens tilted down

X220 on the left, X120e on the right with screens tilted back

Notice that in each case with the screen tilted the colors hold better on the X220, it’s a little hard to tell when tilted back due to the light reflection on the screen, but take my word for it!

Advantage: X220

Performance and Storage

The Lenovo X120e is not intended as a performance machine, but rather just for productivity work on the go.  Think web, email and Office programs.  The X220 meanwhile can be configured with up to an Intel Core i7 processor and can easily be upgraded to an SSD or have a mini SSD installed in the mSATA slot.  When running the benchmark PCMark 7 on the X120e the score came to 874:

Meanwhile with the same PCMark 7 benchmark the X220 scored 1,689:

That doesn’t exactly mean performance of the X220 is twice that of the X120e, but it does show that the Intel Core i3 processor that the base model X220 comes with is certainly going to perform better than the AMD Fusion E350 1.6Ghz processor.  The X220 being used in this comparison is far from being maxed out in terms of configuration and performance, you could certainly spend more on an X220 and get results that further increase the performance gap.

Advantage: ThinkPad X220

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the X120e is certainly one of the nicest and most usable for this sized laptop, any other 11.6” screen laptop would pale in comparison.  However, it still doesn’t have the same feel as a full sized keyboard you get on the X220.  The keys are shrunken, feel a little more cheap and the chiclet style design is different to that of the bigger ThinkPads.  You only get 6-rows of keys on the X120e while the X220 comes with the standard 7-rows of keys the larger ThinkPads have.

The X220 touchpad is also larger than that of the X120e, this is mainly due to having more room and the fact Lenovo chose to integrate the lower mouse buttons into the touchpad on the X220.  I also like the fact the touchpad on the X220 has a textured surface and not smooth and glossy like that of the X120e.

Advantage: X220

Battery Life

A run down test of both batteries under a scenario in which brightness was set to 50%, wi-fi on and the laptop left on with a web page open and refreshing every 60 seconds the X120e lasted just over 5 hours while the X220 7 hours and 15 minutes.  The X220 can also be upgraded to a 9-cell battery that has a claimed battery life of 9 hours.  Not directly related to battery life, it’s worth noting the battery sticks out on the X120e while it is flush with the back of the X220.

Advantage: X220

Upgrades

The X220 is designed to be easily upgradeable and provides easy access to the hard drive, mSATA slot and RAM slots.  The X120e is more of a challenge to upgrade and doesn’t offer a docking station port on the bottom like the X220 does for an easy way to expand ports and connect to a monitor and peripherals when at your desk.

Advantage: X220

Ports

Let’s take a tour of the ports to see what you get on each laptop, in the pictures below the X120e is on top and the X220 on the bottom.

The X120e has an SD card reader, powered USB 2.0 port and regular USB 2.0 port on the right side.  The X220 has an SD card reader, powered USB 2.0 port, Ethernet RJ-45, headphone jack.

The X120e has an HDMI port, USB 2.0 port, Ethernet port and combined headphone/microphone jack on the left side.  The X220 has a USB 2.0 port, monitor out port, DisplayPort, USB 2.0 port and then ExpressCard 34 slot.

Sum total the X220 has more ports, but then again those that view HDMI as a must have might consider that the X120e is actually better than the X220 on this front.  Because so many do weight HDMI with such importance, it’s probably a tie on the port comparison.

Advantage: Neither

Wireless and Networking

The wireless X220 offers integrated Broadband and you can upgrade to an Intel 6250 wireless card over the default ThinkPad b/g/n card.  If you don’t make any upgrades, the wireless card and performance will be the same, but because of the upgrades offered the X220 has the capability of being the better option here.  Both include Bluetooth as a $20 upgrade option.

Advantage: X220

Conclusion

As was stated at the beginning, the clear winner between which laptop is best is the X220.  Not only because it wins on so many points, but if you’re looking for a rugged, ultraportable and high performance laptop that will last 4-years or more then the X220 is probably the best option of any on the market.  The X120e meanwhile is very attractive because of its cheap price of $400 or less if you can find a good deal.  At that price the X120e makes a lot of sense as a companion laptop if you need something that’s small and easy to take to meetings but already own a larger 15” – 17” laptop that’s better suited on a desk than in a café.  If you really want a ThinkPad X220 but don’t have the budget for it, the X120e can certainly be a capable stand-in until the day comes you find a few $100 bills lying around that you didn’t expect to find (right).  The X120e has a nice keyboard for its class and from a distance could actually be mistaken as a ThinkPad X220.  But at the end of the day the X120e is not the same class of laptop as the X220 in terms of build quality and performance, so if you have the money don’t be tempted by the lower price tag of the X120e, the X220 is the better option.