this is the drive currently in my helix 

http://ark.intel.com/products/71180/Intel-SSD-525-Series-180GB-mSATA-6Gbs-25nm-MLC

so it is indeed a MSATA.

Hey Guys,

  I've been an avid "Lurker" lol, following this thread since February, anxiously waiting for the Helix to be released and completely excited for this new piece of machinery. I ordered mine from PC Connection on Monday (the i7, 180gb ssd which I will be upgrading to 512 when they release a 512 mSata). I received it the next day, great shipping and everything arrived in great shape. I'm not replying to any specific questions, I'm just writing this original post as a general first impressions review. I've already read every piece of literature about the device so there's nothing here I was unaware of and thus I'll try not to be redundant.

  To reiterate from the few of us that have received, I am thouroughly impressed so far with the battery life. I used it all day today at work non-stop running it through such a variety of tasks, uninstalling and reinstalling programs, multiple restarts, multiple downloads, multiple connections, etc and this thing just keeps going. Easily sits in the 8 hour range and for me personally I've been able to push it into the 9 hour w/ screen brightness at 85%. As far as trackpad goes, this is my first ever Lenovo so its new to me. I will admit I'm struggling with no physical buttons and I have experienced the cursor bump when clicking that was mentioned by a few others. This might be a learning curve, but personally I would much rather have two small dedicated buttons for left and right. As far as build quality I'm throuroughly impressed. I have had so many compliments on this thing it's ridiculous. It just feels solid and quality as opposed to alot of the flimsy plastic crap that's out there. Fan noise has been a complete non issue for me, I'm completely stoked about how quiet this machine is. Yes, I'm used to having 15" screen sized laptops that may have been noisier, but I just really feel like this thing is downright quiet, even when docked. Screen brightness and color have also been well within acceptable levels for me (I'm not an artist or any way qualified to make anything besides personal opinions in this area) Windows 8 is quite quirky for me but I can tell you one word that has pretty much saved my life...."Stardock"  That's a program (very popular, Paul Thurrott reviewed it on his site) that give you back your start menu and allows several other options for customizing to help give you the best way to marry the desktop to the new Metro UI without trying to obliterate one or the other (though there are options and registry hacks that allow you to do both) I think patience and just learning alot of the Windows key shortcuts will help the user base that will be moving forward with Windows 8, along with the fact that Windows will be updating it's OS much sooner that it used to in the past (research Windows Blue). I have used my purchased adapter for running ethernet over usb 3.0 as well as the adapter for mini Display Port to DVI/VGA/HDMI and this worked great as well. I have been playing with the pen, though this is honestly the very first pen experience for me so once again, I'm not even sure what all I can or should be doing with it. It seems to be pretty responsive, the hover function works (pretty neat), and I love the fact that it's tucked away right into the tablet itself. As far as heat goes, I've had very little heat at all, and the fact that it's the "screen" portion that heats up when it's sitting in your lap is so awesome as I'm a huge fan of using my laptops while in my recliner and so used to my legs getting hot from the bottom portion always heating up. I haven't used it in tablet only mode a whole lot, but I have a few times and it works fine. I would agree that its still heavy for a tablet only type of thing but not unusable, you simply can't compare it to the weight of an ipad because your not comparing apples to apples at that point. All in all, I'm am very very impressed and it truly has turned out to be everything I had hoped it would be. Nothing is perfect and it doesn't mean there won't be bumps in the road along the way, but I'm certainly looking forward to my future with my Helix. Sorry for the long post, I figured I'd finally contribute :smileyhappy:  Please fire me any questions you might have and I'll help the best I can.

The very first ThinkPad Helix Unboxing video is available, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myOihMTGY9w

Sounds like a lot of us have the 36984RU model from PC Connection (the i7, 180GB, 8GB RAM).  This has a SIM card slot, but it doesn't appear to have a cellular radio.  That's a little strange -- anyone have insight into that?  Guess it might've been cheaper for Lenovo to put the slot into all of the machines even for those that don't support 3G/LTE, perhaps...

BTW, after sleeping on it, the machine is still fantastic.  I'm a little concerned about the flap cover on the back sometimes but you'd need to abuse it to break it for good.  Loving the keyboard in particular, and I've only now been able to drain the battery.  Also, as a bonus, the tablet mode "feels" lighter than the Surface Pro ever did, despite being nearly an inch larger.  I think it weighs ~0.1lb less, but it's also the material.

I have a question about the new TrouchPad: I know it is possible to turn off the touchpad in the BIOS. If you do that, will the integrated TrackPoint buttons still work? And could someone post a screenshot of the UltraNav options of the Helix (the options in the driver)?

The return options on PC Connection seem to entail a 15% restocking fee if there's no manufacturing defect, but I'm not sure it's enforced. You'd want to call first.