Category: Hardware

As the ‘first-call’, ‘boots-on-the-ground’ IT administrator for the family of companies I work for I need a dependable and flexible laptop.

My Dell XPS 12 (2012) has served that role competently since I purchased it at launch. It’s tablet-like functionality is pretty nice in quickly navigating through many tasks. Then you have normal laptop input when more nuance is needed. Where it eventually fell short is not having a built-in Ethernet port, forcing me to use awkward dongles. Boy those get old after a while. It was also very top-heavy as a laptop, and even on a flat surface wanted to tip backwards. And on top of all that, the Ivy Bridge processor was just not as power efficient as I would like especially with the ground that Haswell and Skylake gained in that arena.

Dude…you’re replacing a Dell!

So the time came for an upgrade. My criteria were very simple:

• Generic laptop/notebook form-factor. No hybrids or convertibles.
• Built-in Ethernet.
• No heavier than 3 Lbs.
• Greater than 720/768 vertical resolution. Some WebGUIs I deal with are hard to navigate on lower resolutions.
• Must fit in my beloved Macbook Air Wallet from Waterfield Designs. So not larger than about 12 in, depending on overall design.

 

Turns out there are very few machines that meet all these criteria. The hardest thing is finding machines with built-in Ethernet that are not either bulky or cheaply built. Much less in the size range I needed.

After much searching, I ended up at a machine line that I had drooled over before. The Thinkpad X200 series. It just so happened that Lenovo was releasing the Skylake based X260 soon after I began searching early this year. Initially, they were only offering a 768p screen, I bided my time and eventually they opened up customization and offered 1080p IPS screens. So now it met all my criteria! I saved a little coin by not splurging on the SSDs that Lenovo offered and decided to install a spare ADATA SP600 I had from my TestCore turned FreeNAS.

The configuration I decided on was:

• Intel Core i5-6200U
• 8GB DDR4
• 12.5in FHD IPS Non-Touch Display
• 500GB HD 7200RPM (replaced with the aforementioned SSD)
• Intel 8260AC+BT 2×2 vPro

Shock and Awe

I have had a little hands-on time with IBM and Lenovo Thinkpads. I think the best way I could describe them is reliable and confidence inspiring. Even not knowing anything about all the work they put into making sure that anything with ‘Thinkpad’ on it will live up to that name…you can just tell that this machine is a tad better that the other guy’s. Some might question my decision to go Lenovo with all the spyware and security drama. Not to mention the fact that they are slowly running the Motorola name into the ground. Most of the drama was around the Superfish spyware that came bundled with the Ideapad line and never touched the Thinkpad line (Consumer vs. Business). That is just real poor decision making that every OEM has or is doing on some level. My doing a fresh install on the SSD solves all the crapware problems that one might find with any OEM. Then there is the Lenovo Service Engine drama that was blown way out of proportion. They were utilizing a method of installing support software via the BIOS that Microsoft provides in Windows. This software installs even on fresh operating system installs. Microsoft changed their policy on using this method after learning how fully OEMs were using this and Lenovo ceased doing it and release a patch to prevent it from running after install. This is similar to how connected Windows 8 and 10 are. How Microsoft wants feedback on everything people are doing with the OS. I understand the desire to want as much feedback as possible to improve your product and ensure returns on a very low margin business. These are multi-billion dollar companies. They do not care about your personal data. They just want to know if you tend to hit this button or that. Or how often you run a particular app and how you launch it. Sure we need to take them to task when we catch them being irresponsible with the collection of this data and Superfish was a huge overstep, but they have a legitimate claim in wanting an eye into the usage of these systems.

Anyway, I was not deterred by the controversies surrounding Lenovo. And I am so glad I wasn’t. I love this machine. It serves my purposes so much better than the XPS12 ever could. It fits in my bag a tad better. It is lighter. It has physical mouse buttons. And most importantly…it has Ethernet.

Build Quality

While it is not build as tank-like as Thinkpads of the past, it feels very solid and mine does not exhibit some of the QC issues that some on the Thinkpad sub-reddit had seen early on. Even after taking it apart to install the SSD, all the seams are tight.

Keyboard

The keyboard feels a tad better than the XPS12. I am not privy to the more luxurious notebook keyboards out there, and am not composing novels on it, so the keyboard is not a huge category. Of more concern is the actual keys available, and it is even better than the XPS12 in that department. Namely no need to hit function for Home, End, Page-Up, and Page-Down. And NO BACKLIGHT! I hate backlights on keyboards.

Screen

The screen is a 1080p semi-gloss IPS screen. It looks good and deters glare well enough. Much better than the glass touch-screen on the XPS12. The initial run of the XPS12 came with a really bad IPS screen that suffered from what appears as temporary burn-in. I see no anomalies with this screen at all.

Touchpad/Nubbin

The touchpad is the best Windows one I can remember using in recent memory. I think there was a nicer HP I worked on in the early Windows 8 era that might be the best ever, but I fail to remember the model. Another bonus is that it has physical mouse buttons. That is getting rarer and rarer on all but the clunkiest laptops. I am new to having the nubbin at my disposal. I always made a point to try it when I found myself in front of a Thinkpad or Latitude and could see the utility. I find myself using it about 20% of the time.

Verdict

So I guess you can tell I am very satisfied with this machine. It might not be the pinnacle of the Thinkpad name, but I think it carries the torch well in its own ways. It does come in at a much friendlier price point than if they had tried to build a tank. I think some of the material decisions and construction methods make for a rugged, yet unassuming package that suites its place in the modern PC market perfectly. And like most of this article rants on about…there just aren’t a lot of machines in this category and I think it is laps ahead of the competition.

Of salt and memories

Any geek worth his salt has had to boot a PC or a hundred from a USB flash drive to repair, recover, or re-install. Those that are REALLY worth their salt have put many a flash drive to pasture from repeated ISO unpacking. Being the resourceful geek that I am, I run around with a multi-boot utility on a flash drive that allows me to boot into any number or tools and operating systems. My utility of choice is YUMI. One drawback to it is that you can only have one Windows install available at a time, so I still abused the memory quite a bit due to my having to work with everything from XP to 8.1; throw in 32-bit and 64-bit variants and you have a lot of unpacking still. I solved this problem somewhat, by switching to a 500GB portable USB drive. A spinning disk can take the abuse much better and is actually faster for writes than the cheapo NAND and controllers you find in run of the mill flash drive. However, I found that many machines that I work with end up not being able to boot from my USB-HDD at all. I needed to find another way…

Enter the Zalman ZM-VE300. It first came to my attention in a video covering Zalman’s booth at CES 2014. And a later review by the same people. It is no normal portable drive enclosure. The VE300 can emulate an optical disc drive (ODD) and mount one of any number of ISOs that you store on the enclosed hard drive. There are 3 modes to optimize for different use cases: HDD, ODD, and Hybrid. HDD mode makes it behave like any USB HDD and lets you access storage. ODD mode emulates an DVD/CD-ROM drive and lets you select an image to mount and boot/load. Hybrid mode exposes both ‘devices’ to the system. You select the modes with a jog dial the flicks up & down, and select items by pressing it in. There is a ‘Back-Up’ button that interacts with Zalman’s bundled back-up software and serves as a back button in menus.  The back-up software will not be discussed here as I have no need for in my use case of the enclosure. The ISOs are stored in the root directory of your drive in a folder that you label “_isos”. The rest of it can be used for whatever storage needs you have.

I will answer the burning question of whether the drive ‘does what it says’ up front…YES!. It has booted a number ISOs on a handful of machines that I tried it on. Only one PC failed to play nice with it; my old Dell e1505 laptop. It recognized something was plugged in, but complained that no OS was present. Every other PC loaded the selected ISO without any complaint. There is a trick to getting things going though. You need to enter either a boot menu or BIOS screen to allow the drive to be powered but idle. This is so you can select the correct mode and ISO to boot to. On most computers it is best to do this anyway rather than hope it is setup to boot willy-nilly from any random drive thrust into it. Once you have selected a mode and ISO you just select the Zalman from the boot menu or restart if you went to BIOS and maybe enter the boot menu if you couldn’t change the boot options to prioritize it. If all goes well, your selected ISO should load as if it was sitting in the disc drive. I opted for a Crucial M500 SSD to occupy my VE300 so this goes ridiculously fast. I chose an SSD to avoid moving parts. Memory wear will be minimal as I will not be using it for storage, only multi-booting. I still have the my 500GB portable drive for storage and recovery dumping.

A grain of salt

It wasn’t a painless endeavor turning this beauty into a multi-booting beast. Long story short, I had to end up pre- formatting the SSD before using it in the enclosure. A problem that might have been quickly solved by another man, but it took an off hand mention in a YouTube review/tutorial to guide me to the solution. Nowhere in the limited and highly visual manual or any other documentation did it mention that you might need to format your drive prior to insertion. This could be a big speed bump to even a slightly lesser geek that might lead them to believe they purchased either a bunk drive or enclosure. I will have to drop a suggestion Zalman’s way on filling out that manual a little. And if I am going to knock it on anything else…I think the dial needs to be rethought. It just feels chinsy and really cuts down on the fit and finish. I don’t see it standing up to too much manipulation, but I hope I am proven wrong. Some other reviewers might knock it for its interface, but I like the dead simple UI. Hard to get lost or screw anything up.

But you can never have too much salt

With all that said…I freaking love this thing. It solves a huge problem that I run into repeatedly in my professional and private dealings with computer repair. Short of the odd PC that doesn’t play nice, it allows me to instantly boot any install disc or recovery tool or password reset or memory test that I need for a particular task. No more fumbling around getting the right assortment of install image and tools,; all the while eating through the life expectancy of my flash drives. I of course still carry a couple flash drive with a few select tools on them so I can leave them running for extended virus scans or SpinRite sessions, but the ZM-VE300 it never leaving my go bag.

UPDATE (08/01/2014):

Felt the need to reiterate how ridiculously useful the VE300 is. What blows me away more than anything is that this isn’t even a product category. It ,and it’s variants from Zalman, seem to be the only devices that serve as a virtual optical disc drive that mounts on-board ISO’s. There are no other such devices that I could find in my research. And it is not like they are perfect. There is the finicky setup and the industrial design could use a closer look. Sure, people aren’t demanding such a device, but I have never seen a device with zero competition. These facts don’t make me love the little guy any less, though. Since writing this review originally it has proven invaluable in cleaning, restoring, and troubleshooting a plethora of machines. Still a must buy!