X200 for $631 on buy.com - good deal?

buy.com has an X200 for $631 a Buy.com - Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Notebook - Intel Centrino 2 vPro Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz - 12.1" WXGA - 1GB DDR3 SDRAM - 160GB HDD - Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth - Windows Vista Business - Black

After checking daily ebay and outlet for an X200 I looked on buy.com which has:

Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Notebook - Intel Centrino 2 vPro Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz - 12.1" WXGA - 1GB DDR3 SDRAM - 160GB HDD - Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth - Windows Vista Business - Black - 7458M3U

Besides small amount of RAM, what else could be the reason? Screen?

Thanks.

PS: No webcam though

 

Looks good, but yesterday they were at $605. My sister snagged one and seems pretty happy about it. If you're worried about the webcam, kits to do the conversion come up on Ebay pretty often for about $40 or so.

 

Very good configuration for that price.

The 12.1" WXGA is standard for the X200/201, not a problem. 1GB RAM used to be plenty, but this may be upgraded easily and inexpensively, not a problem. You might want to upgrade to Windows 7 later, this is also not a problem.

The webcam depends on your personal needs. To me, it's not essential.

If you're looking for a light, compact laptop that is efficient on battery - in addition to what is listed above in terms of components - the X200 is a great choice for that price.

 

having a webcam would mean that you would only get two antenna for the wireless card.

 

I would need 3 for n ?

 

I think you need 3 antennas to achieve a full 300Mbps transfer rate... unless you're going to routinely do huge file transfers over your wireless network, you're most likely not going to need those speeds. The 2-antenna N-wireless supports up to 150Mbps, I think... compare this to the 1-10Mbps or so you're dealing with from your Internet connection.

 

you got the intel 5100 card which only supports 2 antennas, so you should be okay. I have an intel 5300 card with mine X200, but it only have 2 antennas. So now i have swapped the Intel 5300 to another X200 that i have, which have 3 antenna setup.

 

LegendaryKA8, lead_org, Kaso thanks for your input.

LegendaryKA8, you said your sister got one as well, which comes with 3 years warranty. Do you know if warranty is offered by Lenovo? I would think so, but you never know.

Thanks

 

If it comes with three years of warranty, it's quite likely that it's the factory warranty. However, what remains to be seen is how much of that warranty is still remaining. If it's been sitting in a box for two years, well... the warranty will be up in a year. ThinkPad warranties start when the system is made, not when the original owner first takes possession of the system. However, if this system was one of the last production X200's, then the warranty will be much more current... I'd say December of 2009 or January of 2010 at the best case. I'm wondering if this is perhaps an excess TopSeller stock that a reseller bought off of an outlet that deals chiefly in new ThinkPads.

My sister ordered this one earlier today, so it'll be a while before it gets here. I'm curious as to what shape this one will be in... it'll be a hoot if it's in the original packaging.

 

an intel 5300 with two antennas will reach 300 Mbps if supported by the router.   with three antennas it will reach 450 Mbps if supported by the router.

if a 5300 only has two antennas connected, it's no better or worse than a 5100.   the same goes for the 6300/6200 on X201 systems.

the whole two/three-antenna issue seems like it has been blown out of proportion.   if you're transferring GBs worth of files, you should be using a wired connection anyway both for speed and file integrity.

 

^ Thanks for the correction.

 

Again, learned something new. If that's the case, it's kind of misleading.

Looks like there is 45 days return policy, I could make use of it if warranty is too short.

 

The 3 antennas in the laptop are only fully utilized when the router currently serving it also has 3 antennas. Simultaneous transmissions are not always achievable or optimal, given the equipment.

My regular working areas are served by 2-antenna routers.

 

call the warranty entitlement department and ask them to reset your warranty to match the purchase date from the authorized reseller (which in this case is buy.com).   you'll probably be required to send them a copy of your receipt.

being an old system might create a problem though and i don't know how leftover systems are handled in a case like this.

in any case, it never hurts to ask rather than assuming you're completely out of luck.

 

I think you made my day, Erik Thanks a lot!

 

i got a new Apple Airport Extreme which can make use of the 3x3 setup offered by the Intel 5300 card.

 

Under the Q&A it says it does have a camera. (?)

 

Or an external USB drive.

Then it probably does.

 

Meh, and once again, those living in USA get super deals, meh, meh, meh!

 

Australian customers did get something quite close to the US, with the X200 $799 sale. Lot of my friends jumped at the chance of owning the X200 with the P8600 CPU, when undervolted you could get close to the X200s in terms of battery life.

I think R400, T400, R500, T500, X200 represents extremely good value right now, so for those people whom are still using those T4x and T60 machines, it maybe time for the next upgrade, or maybe just get one as your second backup laptop (if you got a T500 right now, why not get a X200 too). You can get them in many places for the price of a consumer grade laptop. So for those whom wants a new laptop but is not too fussed by the CPU benchmark score, then it is time to start hunt one of these machines down before they are all sold off.

 

Yeah, I figured If I'll put 8GB of RAM and an SSD drive into it, I'll end up with price close to a new x201... but faster in real life conditions.

 

but that 8 gigs of ram and new SSD can be used in X201 too. You can buy them aftermarket to get the purchase price down.

 

Yes i know, but start price on x201 is $1200, the one i'd want. Another point would br that I may not need a portable laptop sp dont want to invest too much money now.

And last one would be that i'll have better luck running linux on it.

Thanks.

 

About CPU power - judging by notebookcheck benchmark stats, new Core cpus arent so much more powerful compared to Core 2 Duo, so if one needs cheap backup/secondary laptop, then there is absolutely no reason to pay more for, lets say Core i3 based machine, when in real life (unless doing 24/7 number crunching/media encoding literally) P8400 and up based machines are as powerful. Unless you really need faster integrated graphics chip, Core i has it.
So, yeah, once again, those in USA get a chance to grab excellent machine for really low price.
Unless you want your 12-incher or other TP to have USB 3.0, Sandy Bridge, SATA 6Gb and ExpressCard 2.0 then there is no reason to look further imo.
Get it cheap and upgrade it later if you want more power, before upgrading to latest tech (sandy b/ivy b), see how new tech evolves and matures and then spend your hard earned cash.
Thats what i intend to do, buy cheap Penryn laptop and keep it for some while and then get latest USB/SATA in new laptop with new cpu with up to date components, because imo "Core i" are way overpriced compared to now out-of-date Core 2 Duo.

Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge is what Im interested in, unless AMD kicks Intels @ss with their Bulldozer/what not

 

This is an important point. Thanks.

 

Well, in my case I was hoping to make it my primary machine(with an external monitor).

Currently I have a T61 with T7500. P8600 on x200 would be better.. also it has a better graphics card that can handle HD video and it has a much smaller form factor.

We'll see how it goes.

Thanks.

 

Unless you're in need of a really fast CPU and powerful GPU, I think you'd be okay with an X200 for a while, at least in my opinion. I'm heavily considering using mine as a primary system for my schoolwork and etc. I've got a pretty much identical config to what's being sold on buy.com and I don't think it's underpowered at all. Put 4GB of RAM in here, get an Ultrabase, and enjoy. That's my opinion.

 

Thanks for your input.

 

i would totally jump on this if it had a trackpad. unfortunatly i use the trackpad almost exclusively and would really throw me off not having it. maybe someday a x201 though /w trackpad

 

very small trackpad (optional) on the x201.

 

Bumping with more info, as I said I would.

My sister's buy.com X200 came in today. Brand new in the original Lenovo box. Manufacture date of Feb. of 2010, so these are probably the last X200's ever made. These machines have factory 3-year warranty with an expiration date of September 2013, so they started just recently.

The system had a FP reader and Bluetooth but no webcam, and the installed OS was 32-bit Vista Business. While everything seemed to be running just fine, Vista really isn't all that responsive with just 1GB of RAM. I'm bumping her up to the 2GB I have laying around after bumping up my T400, so that should alleviate some headaches.

So, if these systems are still around and you're looking at an X200, treat yourself to a brand new one!

 

Nice. Mine should arrive on Monday.

By the way, newegg has a deal (more or less) on memory:

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBSQ

G.Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1333 8GB (2x4GB) for $159

I just ordered mine, hopefully it will work with x200 that's coming.

Next thing will be an SSD, although not sure when that will happen. I want to make sure 1st that it can be my primary machine.

PS: Couple of my friends didn't believe me that x200 has a full size keyboard, they say it's too small to be true.

 

I followed ZaZ's advice and got RAM off ebay. Incidentaly, the RAM I got was taken out of another Lenovo . Bought new 2GB for $25. Might wanna check there.

The keyboard doesn't look very fancy but is very comfortable to type on for few hours. I just had to yesterday.

 

welcome the X Kappa Chi fraternity.

 

Can get a X201i for US$780. You get the newer tech, touchpad and 2GB of RAM:

US$780 12" Lenovo X201i i3-370M 2.4 2Gb 160GB *touchpad* W7P

 

Hey, thanks for posting, but:

-I don't want to buy new tech, just because it's newer.. in a few months it won't be new anymore.
-I don't think i3 will do for me, it has limitations. I was looking at i7, but it gets too expensive.
-2GB is not enough for me, I'll replace it anyway.
-I'm not a big touchpad user, trackpoint works great for me.
-And I don't care about WP7.

Thanks.

 

touchpad on the X201 is pretty small and unwieldy, i guess it is there to entice other brand's ultraportable customers to the X201, whom might have been put off by the previous generation of the X200 and X6x due to the lack of touchpad.

Also, i3-370m is only about 10% faster in synthetic benchmark score compared to the P8600. I would stick with P8600 for the better battery life.

 

But I guess it may be worthwhile getting X201 from that link IF you plan on buying Win7 pro afterward. And it has a touchpad. However, as a long time touchpad user I had no problems adapting to the trackpoint - it works equally well.

 

if the OP is a university student, they can get the Win 7 Pro cheaply through the its not cheating program.

 

- I'm planning to install linux on it... so no win 7 for me.
- Also x200 comes with 3 years of warranty, hard to bit that one.. i think.

 

Or for free through MSDN AA.

 

If you're planning to go for the $631 deal at buy.com, then go to Fatwallet dot com, sign-up for an account, go to the buy.com cashback page, click through the appropriate $10 off coupon + 4% cashback makes this deal $631 - $10 - $25 = $596.

 

Can this machine be upgraded to 8 gigs of RAM? I thought it can only go up to 4?

 

As far I know yes. Multiple users have reported that they've installed 8GB of RAM. Even on this forum there are couple of signatures with x200 and 8GB of RAM.

 

x200 can take a maximum of 8 gigs.

 

Have you tried two of the new 8GB SoDIMMs in one?

 

what do you mean? you mean 8 gigs single ram module? no. I did not even know they existed.

But i have used 2 x 4 gigs before.

 

That's good to know. On the buy.com webpage: http://www.buy.com/pr/product.aspx?sku=208975051 and Lenovo data sheet http://shop.lenovo.com/ISS_Static/merchandising/US/PDFs/X200_Datasheet.pdf it says 4GB is the max.

Maybe they released BIOS update? (No I am not doing any more flashes today... )

 

when lenovo released those figures, 2 gigs ddr3 SODIMM ram sticks were the largest you could get, since there is two ram slots they set the arbitrary value to 2 x 2 gigs = 4 gigs. But you can definitely install 2 x 4 gigs.

 

Yeah, I was worried too, but after some googling found out that it can handle 8GB of RAM. The only thing I'm still worried if it matters what kind of RAM, I mean chips on both sides or only one..

I ordered 2 x 4GB sticks of G.SKILL and will post my result as soon I'll get them.