by Kevin O'Brien
The
Lenovo ThinkPad X61is an ultraportable business laptop geared to individuals who demandthe best. Like its larger brothers of the ThinkPad line, it shares allof the same rugged features, as well as the creature comforts of afull-size keyboard. The X61 looks as if Lenovo took a
ThinkPad T60and shrunk it down by 30 percent. Although it is much smaller than itscounterparts, it is every bit as fast. This model came loaded with a7200rpm hard drive, 2GHz
Core 2Duo processor, and 2GB of RAM. Light business travelers can rest easyknowing they didn’t sacrifice anything but weight when they bring theX61 on the road.
Specifications of the X61 being reviewed:
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz T7300
- Chipset: Intel 965 Express
- Memory: 2048MB DDR2 PC5300 (2x 1024MB)
- Hard Drive: 7200RPM 100GB Hitachi (HTS721010G9SA00) SATA
- Screen: 12.1" 1024x768 LCD
- Optical Drive: LG GCC-4247N DVD/CDRW (Through X6 UltraBase)
- 8x DVD-ROM
- 24x CD-R
- 24x CD-RWX
- GPU: Intel X3100 Integrated
- Network/Wireless: Intel Wireless 4965AGN, 1Gb Ethernet Card, Verizon WWAN Modem and Bluetooth
- Inputs: 95 Key Keyboard with Three Button Touchpoint
- Buttons: Power, ThinkVantage, Power, Volume Up and Down, Mute, and WiFi/Bluetooth On/Off Switch.
- Slots: PCMCIA/PC-Card
- Battery: Eight Cell
- Dimensions:
- Width: 10.58", With WWAN Antenna: 10.91”
- Depth: 8.35” ,With 8 Cell Battery: 9.37”
- Height: 1.41"
- Weight: 3lbs 10.6oz
- Operating System: Windows Vista Business
- Warranty: One Year Warranty
- Price as Configured: $2033 ($1863 without UltraBase and Optical Drive)
Lenovo ThinkPad X61s on the left, X61 on the right (view large image)
Design and Build
ThinkPad X61 (view large image)
TheX61 is a durable ultraportable computer. It shares many designcharacteristics with the rest of the ThinkPad line including itsinternal unibody structure, full-size keyboard, stainless steel displayhinges, and complete port selection. The fit and finish is astounding,with no creaks anywhere (not even a small creak), as well as littleunused space. The outside case is very strong giving it a good deal ofprotection when thrown into a briefcase or maybe even a tall purse. Itreally seems like a handbag sized ThinkPad down to the smallest detail.
Thickness of X61 compared to Blackberry Pearl (view large image)
Forupgrades and repairs that might come up down the road, the X61 has theuser in mind with easy to remove access panels and covers. The mostfrequent upgrade items being the
HDand RAM are accessed through panels on the bottom and side of the X61.Other items such as the keyboard, wireless cards, and backup batterycan be reached by removing a handful of labeled screws on the bottom,and easily popped out. For my first time taking it apart it tookroughly three minutes to figure out how the panels came off once thescrews were out. I found almost little to no risk of breaking othercomponents during this process, unlike other laptops which are not souser friendly in this area.
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view large image)
Oneconcern worth mentioning is the amount of heat that can build up belowthe palm rest after the computer has been powered up for about an hour.The right side was fairly warm to the touch, and when I took the laptopapart to find the cause of the heat, I found that both the WiFi andWWAN cards were directly under this area. Lenovo includes an additionalfan with models equipped with the WWAN card, but this may not activateif the card is not in use. During my testing, I was only using the WiFicard for internet access. Since items are packed quite densely in thisultraportable laptop, it is hard to win on all design points.
Input and Output Ports
Front
Front view of X61s and X61 (view large image)
The only items in the front of the laptop is the screen latch and wireless on/off switch
Left Side
Left side view of X61 on top of X61s (view large image)
Left to right we have the CPU heatsink output grill, USB Port, VGA connector, 1Gb LAN, PCMCIA Slot with SD card reader below it.
Right Side
Right side view of X61 on top of X61s (
view large image)
Leftto right we have the mini 4 pin firewire port, 2 USB connectors,headphone/mic jacks, HD access panel, 56k modem jack, power plug, andKensington lock port.
Back
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view large image)
One really wide battery
Keyboard and Touchpoint
Keyboard view of X61s and X61 (view large image)
Themost surprising thing about the 12” X series laptops is it has a“full-size” keyboard. The primary letters, numbers, and function keysare all the same size as the larger 14” and 15” models, with only theouter keys reduced in size. This gives you a comfortable typingsurface, that once you get used to the odd size outer keys, becomes apleasure to type on. Build quality is 2nd to none, and it shows with the very precise quiet clicks that each key press gives as feedback.
Thetouchpad or lack thereof will probably come as a shock to most usersseeing only the red cap of the ThinkPad Touchpoint. To save space theX61 omits the touchpad system in favor of a touchpoint. I never reallyused the Touchpoint on my T60, falling back to the touchpad on almostall occasions. Even so I found transitioning to the Touchpoint to bepainless, and I even found myself using it on my T60 without realizingit. The only problem that did come up is occasionally the pointer wouldstart to drift without any input from me. I had to tap the Touchpoint abit to make it stop. This may be a result of the fine sensitivity I hadit set to, but it was hard to duplicate the problem enough to pinpointthe cause.
Screen
The screen lacks definedblacks and good contrast. Vertical viewing angles are not that good --quickly inverting colors at the slightest change of angle from beingperpendicular to the screen. Since this laptop will be close to youduring normal use, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I found thebrightness of the screen to be pleasant typing indoors, although itwould be quickly washed out outside in the sun. For normal use inside,my comfortable viewing level was six or seven notches down from the maxof 15.
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view large image)
Protectionfrom the display cover is very good, requiring a ton of pressure beforeyou start seeing any ripples on the screen. The hinges are strong, butthey don’t feel as tight as other ThinkPad models. Normally it requirestwo hands to open up the display of a ThinkPad, but the X61 onlyrequires one. Given that the hinges are so much smaller on this model,it could be that they have a much smaller friction surface.
The screen on my X61 had no defects like dead pixels or backlight leakage.
Speakers
Thespeakers inside the X61 are very weak, and I would have to suggestwearing headphones for watching movies. For better speaker performance,the optional X6 base provides much better sound quality. Thedifferences between the 2 systems are pretty amazing. Playing musicoutside of the dock sounds like headphones with the volume cranked,then when docked it sounded like a boom box.
Performance
TheX61 is very impressive when it comes to raw power in such a smallpackage. As the following results show, it provided some veryrespectable benchmarks. Overall I think the 7200rpm hard drive providedthe biggest benefit, giving it instantaneous load times. Windows Vistastartup time from the moment I pressed the power button to no activityon the desktop was 46 seconds.
PCMark05 System Results
| Notebook | PCMark05 Score |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100) | 4,153 PCMarks |
| Lenovo 3000 V200 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100) | 3,987 PCMarks |
| Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB) | 4,189 PCMarks |
| HP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400) | 4,234 PCMarks |
| Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400) | 3,487 PCMarks |
| Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX) | 5,597 PCMarks |
| Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400) | 3,637 PCMarks |
| Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400) | 3,646 PCMarks |
Super Pi Comparison Results
| Notebook | Time |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300) | 1m 01s |
| Lenovo 3000 V200 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300) | 0m 59s |
| HP dv2500t (1.80GHz Intel 7100) | 1m 09s |
| Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300) | 0m 59s |
| Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo T7200) | 1m 03s |
| Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (1.73 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T5300) | 1m 24s |
| Toshiba Satellite A205 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo) | 1m 34s |
| HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52) | 2m 05s |
| HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T2400) | 0m 59s |
| Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo) | 1m 02s |
Battery Life
Ifound the battery life to net between four to five hours of use on the8-cell extended battery. With Vista the system likes to occasionally gowild in the background almost pegging the processor, eating up preciouspower from the battery at times. I also had problems with the ThinkPadpower management software competing against Vista's power managementsettings. After every reboot settings such as HD spindown, standby, LCDshutdown, etc. were all changed back to the default Vista settings.Even though I had the Vista and ThinkPad settings both set to “Never”for every power option, it still returned to 5-10 minute intervalsafter every reboot. I found myself returning from a coffee break to thecomputer shutting itself down, only to have to spend another minutepowering it back up. Compared to Windows XP, Vista has been horrible inmy uses for power management or power efficiency. It was hard to everhave a moment just sitting where the HD didn’t start seeking likecrazy, or the CPU going under load wearing the battery down.
Whencompared to other Lenovo laptops, the X61 recharges its batteryextremely fast. I could easily say it was between 30-50% faster than myT60 trying to charge, especially as the battery got to a higher chargelevel. Around 90% the T60 slows down to about 40-50 minutes left, butthe X61 takes 15-20 minutes from this point. Both systems were usingtheir respective extended batteries, which were around the 80Ahcapacity.
The power adapter is 65w model, measuring 4.134” x1.709” x 1.138” and 8 oz in weight. This was small enough to not addany real bulk to my carrying case, a great pair to the X61.
Heat and Noise
Heatoutput from the laptop is more than you would expect from such a smallmachine. Unless idle, the laptop usually had its fan spinning at a lowspeed outputting a fair amount of heat. Fan noise was minimal though,so when its one you may not notice it.
The palm rest was alsoanother heat source, with both wireless cards mounted under the rightside. After being powered on for 30-40 minutes, the right side getspretty warm. With a room temperature of 76F, the right side of the palmrest was measuring 97F, with the rest of the laptop around 90F. If youwere typing for a couple of hours, your wrist may start feeling somediscomfort from the heat.
Wireless
ThisX61 was equipped with the Intel 4965AGN, and reception through thelaptop was above average. The Atheros alternative (ThinkPad 11a/b/g)which I have in my T60 did manage to pull in wireless networks that theX61 could not see, and may be a better option if you are customizing iton the Lenovo website yourself.
I wasn’t able to fully test thebuilt-in Verizon wireless WWAN card since I don’t have that service,but I did check its reception in my house. Usually cell phones barelywork and cutout frequently. The X61’s antenna saw a 30% signal, anddidn’t seem to change if the antenna was fully seated, or extended allthe way.
I found the
ThinkPad X61to be a fantastic alternative to my larger 15” T60 in situations that Ididn’t want to lug around the heavier machine. It had all the grunt ofthe much larger machine, but inside a much smaller package. I was alsosurprised by how easy it was to upgrade the ram in the X61, by removinga access panel on the bottom of the laptop. This is the only ThinkPadthat doesn’t require you to remove the palm rest for this upgrade.Besides the screen, the only qualms I had with this laptop related backto Vista. For the ultimate travel machine, I personally would installXP Professional on it for better battery life.
Pros
- Primary keyboard keys are full-size for easy typing
- Extremely fast ultraportable
- Lightweight, even with the 8 cell battery
Cons
- The display has poor contrast and view angles
- The palm rest gets very warm from the wireless cards mounted below it.
- Touchpoint made mouse drift at random times
