7 ms·

Has a Lenovo part # on it, so I suspect this is the PCIe SSD inside the new ThinkPad X1 released as CES 2015, and there was a nice discussion on HN about it yes

Has a Lenovo part # on it, so I suspect this is the PCIe SSD inside the new ThinkPad X1 released as CES 2015, and there was a nice discussion on HN about it yesterday [1]. In that article, the author mentioned that in the tests "read speeds reached 1350 MB/s", which is pretty freaking awesome for a laptop! Update: Yeah, the SM951 (shown in this article) is in the X1 [2 - see specifications heading]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847411 [2] http://www.thinkscopes.com/blog/2015/01/06/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-gen-3-review-2/ http://www.thinkscopes.com/blog/2015/01/06/lenovo-thinkpad-x...

JoshTriplett 12y ago
That's amazingly frustrating. I bought the second-generation X1 Carbon last year, on the theory that Lenovo had killed off mouse buttons permanently so there was no sense waiting for a new system that had them; now they release the third-generation X1 that not only has the mouse buttons back, but kills off the insane touch-strip in favor of real function keys again.
- chao- 12y ago
  I was waiting all of 2013 for that X1 refresh, and spent a whole day swearing at random inanimate objects after seeing what they actually built. Bought an ASUS Zenbook instead. I would LOVE to have somehow lasted this year without a new laptop and sprung for this fixed-up X1, had I known they would correct course. Alas I only buy new laptops every 4-ish years. So Lenovo lost me as a customer for a 7-8 year span because of those asinine touchscreen keys. I loved Thinkpads as reliable Linux workhorses, but the phrase "Will change their usage per app!" might as well say "Will never work in Linux!".
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    The "adaptive" strip actually does work in Linux; hitting the Fn key toggles between F1-F12 and volume/brightness/etc. It's just not fun to use, since it has no tactile response.
- walterbell 12y ago
  The trackpad/keyboard change made me so happy, because I can now buy a Lenovo laptop again. Now they need to bring back the Ultrabay (so we can have 2 spindles (1 swappable) + M2 SSD in a 14" laptop) and get rid of non-removable batteries. The customer backlash must have had a substantial financial impact for Lenovo to reverse course. Other than Blackberry, has any technology vendor trumpeted their own course-reversal in launch marketing for a new product?
  - DatBear 12y ago
    Apple... The iPhone 6's screen size.
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      The entire history of the iPhone is one instance of this phenomenon after another. "Nobody wants big screens." "You don't need cut and paste on a smartphone." "You don't really want multitasking, you only think you do." "Web apps are all you're going to get, and you'll like it."
      - huxley 12y ago
        The first instance is the only real case of that phenomenon, the others Apple openly framed them as temporary compromises.
        swift 12y ago
        I might be mistaken, but my impression was that the "web apps only" thing was real and not a temporary compromise. They may have spun it that way retroactively, though.
        jamestnz 12y ago
        I can assure you that the iPhone as originally announced was never going to allow third-party native apps; it was to be web-apps only forever, and this was not intended to be a temporary position. Even though their language was often cagey, it is my clear recollection that Apple's general attitude around/beyond the release of iPhone OS 1.0 was that web-apps were essentially "as good as" any native app could be, and were therefore everything developers would ever need. As I recall it was some 13 months before they finally relented and began to talk native third-party API access. I was at WWDC 2007, here's what Jobs said at the time - "The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps. And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we’ve got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today." Additionally - Apple board member Art Levinson told Isaacson that he phoned Jobs “half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,” but, according to Isaacson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.” The following article discussed this http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-i...
- nullc 12y ago
  Same boat. I finally bought one, after trying out someone elses and deciding that I could live with it. Ugh. It's almost unusably bad. Fortunately I already don't use the mouse much, but it's gotten worse with more use not better. :(
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    It also has severe overheating issues under load; fullscreen video or compilation will hard-hang it, and it won't boot up again for a while.
mrmondo 12y ago
This brings them in-line with the 2013 retina MacBook Pro's PCIe SSD speeds though which I believe we're just below at around 1GB/s?
- vegardx 12y ago
  You have no idea what kind of performance you'll get with an Apple SSD. My almost brand new Macbook Pro has the worst SSD I've ever used, we're talking sequential speeds comparable to a hard drive. But it still works, so they refuse to change it.
  - imaginenore 12y ago
    You should blog about it. Write a simple article, post it everywhere. Submit it to hardware review sites like Anandtech, they might get interested. They definitely jumped on the recent EVO 840 issue.
    - vegardx 12y ago
      This has been common knowledge since Apple started selling Macbooks with SSDs. They simply refuse to do anything about it unless you can prove that it's not working. I'd shortcut the SSD if that didn't mean being without my laptop for a good two weeks.
      - Zisko 12y ago
        shortcut?
        antocv 12y ago
        Drive higher voltage into it to burn a few wires in it? No need to open it up to void warranty or whatever.
  - notsony 12y ago
    I think this is because Apple uses two or three suppliers, so if you're lucky you'll get a Samsung SSD, but if you're unlucky you'll get a slower Toshiba SSD.

JoshTriplett 12y ago

That's amazingly frustrating. I bought the second-generation X1 Carbon last year, on the theory that Lenovo had killed off mouse buttons permanently so there was no sense waiting for a new system that had them; now they release the third-generation X1 that not only has the mouse buttons back, but kills off the insane touch-strip in favor of real function keys again.

chao- 12y ago
I was waiting all of 2013 for that X1 refresh, and spent a whole day swearing at random inanimate objects after seeing what they actually built. Bought an ASUS Zenbook instead. I would LOVE to have somehow lasted this year without a new laptop and sprung for this fixed-up X1, had I known they would correct course. Alas I only buy new laptops every 4-ish years. So Lenovo lost me as a customer for a 7-8 year span because of those asinine touchscreen keys. I loved Thinkpads as reliable Linux workhorses, but the phrase "Will change their usage per app!" might as well say "Will never work in Linux!".
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  The "adaptive" strip actually does work in Linux; hitting the Fn key toggles between F1-F12 and volume/brightness/etc. It's just not fun to use, since it has no tactile response.
walterbell 12y ago
The trackpad/keyboard change made me so happy, because I can now buy a Lenovo laptop again. Now they need to bring back the Ultrabay (so we can have 2 spindles (1 swappable) + M2 SSD in a 14" laptop) and get rid of non-removable batteries. The customer backlash must have had a substantial financial impact for Lenovo to reverse course. Other than Blackberry, has any technology vendor trumpeted their own course-reversal in launch marketing for a new product?
- DatBear 12y ago
  Apple... The iPhone 6's screen size.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    The entire history of the iPhone is one instance of this phenomenon after another. "Nobody wants big screens." "You don't need cut and paste on a smartphone." "You don't really want multitasking, you only think you do." "Web apps are all you're going to get, and you'll like it."
    - huxley 12y ago
      The first instance is the only real case of that phenomenon, the others Apple openly framed them as temporary compromises.
      - swift 12y ago
        I might be mistaken, but my impression was that the "web apps only" thing was real and not a temporary compromise. They may have spun it that way retroactively, though.
      - jamestnz 12y ago
        I can assure you that the iPhone as originally announced was never going to allow third-party native apps; it was to be web-apps only forever, and this was not intended to be a temporary position. Even though their language was often cagey, it is my clear recollection that Apple's general attitude around/beyond the release of iPhone OS 1.0 was that web-apps were essentially "as good as" any native app could be, and were therefore everything developers would ever need. As I recall it was some 13 months before they finally relented and began to talk native third-party API access. I was at WWDC 2007, here's what Jobs said at the time - "The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps. And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we’ve got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today." Additionally - Apple board member Art Levinson told Isaacson that he phoned Jobs “half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,” but, according to Isaacson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.” The following article discussed this http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-i...
nullc 12y ago
Same boat. I finally bought one, after trying out someone elses and deciding that I could live with it. Ugh. It's almost unusably bad. Fortunately I already don't use the mouse much, but it's gotten worse with more use not better. :(
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  It also has severe overheating issues under load; fullscreen video or compilation will hard-hang it, and it won't boot up again for a while.

mrmondo 12y ago

This brings them in-line with the 2013 retina MacBook Pro's PCIe SSD speeds though which I believe we're just below at around 1GB/s?

vegardx 12y ago
You have no idea what kind of performance you'll get with an Apple SSD. My almost brand new Macbook Pro has the worst SSD I've ever used, we're talking sequential speeds comparable to a hard drive. But it still works, so they refuse to change it.
- imaginenore 12y ago
  You should blog about it. Write a simple article, post it everywhere. Submit it to hardware review sites like Anandtech, they might get interested. They definitely jumped on the recent EVO 840 issue.
  - vegardx 12y ago
    This has been common knowledge since Apple started selling Macbooks with SSDs. They simply refuse to do anything about it unless you can prove that it's not working. I'd shortcut the SSD if that didn't mean being without my laptop for a good two weeks.
    - Zisko 12y ago
      shortcut?
      - antocv 12y ago
        Drive higher voltage into it to burn a few wires in it? No need to open it up to void warranty or whatever.
- notsony 12y ago
  I think this is because Apple uses two or three suppliers, so if you're lucky you'll get a Samsung SSD, but if you're unlucky you'll get a slower Toshiba SSD.