X61 owners, feedback wanted

Apologies in advance if this has been discussed. Haven't been able to search the Lenovo section here for some time now so a new thread is born.

I've just ordered an X61 (not the 's' model) with XP, 2GB, 160Gb 7K2 HD, Bluetooth, 8-cell battery, slim AC/DC combo adapter, X6 Ultra bay, and 8X dual layer DVD recorder. I'm currently toting a T61p and it's a great machine. But I have some serious travel duties (Europe, Asia, South Pacfic, etc.) over the next 18 months and decided that an X61 was better suited to serious road warrior duties. The X61 performance is ample. I know I'm giving up screen resolution (1024 is going to seem so old school) for decreased weight. Not sure if I'll like the trade-off but it seems like the right thing to do.

I've read the review of the X61 here on notebookreview.com. But I'm looking for other first hand review of this machine -- positive, negative, and if you would get it again. I flirted with the X300 but couldn't stomach the price tag. Two thousand more than the X61 was more than I was ready to fork over. Thanks in advance for all comment and feedback on this ultraportable!

 

This is not much of a help but..I ordered an x61 as well recently(still in process) and just went on youtube and google to learn more about my machine. I know it can't be perfect but I think it will be pretty darn close for the price.

 

Perfect is no such thing...but if the backspace was full size I'd have 0 complaints with my x61s.

 

X61 is a great machine. The display is ass but it's adequate for work.

 

not to hijack the thread..I just want to ask about the screen brightness. I am currently using inspiron 6000 (WSXGA+) which has around 180nits i believe? and since x61 has 150nit brightness, I don't know if i can get used to it... So I tried turning down the brightness by 1 level on the Dell and I absolutely cannot stand it. So dark.

 

Yeah it's kinda dark which is part of the reason why I sold mine. Don't get me wrong everything else about it was great. Very durable construction, ridiculously good battery life, and the best keyboard I've ever used. However I had a Macbook Pro to compare it to and there really was no comparison. The thinkpad display looked like poo next to it. It's a business machine meant for work though and not multimedia stuff but I'm gonna wait for the x200s with LED display. They will at least have more even lighting and will be a little brighter.

 

x61 are built like tanks! never have any problem in terms of reliabilty and service. got vista business but downgraded to windows xp. I never had a problem with screen brightness since i can not stand staring at a very bright screen for long hours so i always used just 50% brightness. I work on it everyday due to its very good battery life. just tossed out my desktop and just use my x61 with ultrabase. I really love the keyboards! you just have to get used to ultraportables its like a swiss army knife.

 

Nice to hear the feedback. I guess I'm accustomed to semi-dark screens since I've used ThinkPads for years. I had a Dell Dimension earlier this year for a month. Talk about a fuzzy, dark screen! It went back to Dell quickly! I'm a little surprised to hear feedback about the screen brightness and not the low resolution. This is the thing that almost made me not buy one. Going from 1400 or 1920 down to 1028 is going to hurt. I'm surprised they don't bump this up a bit. But I understand that's the compromise I make for this ultraportable.

Are there other keys besides Backspace that are not full size?

Macbook would have been nice but just not possible in the business I work for. Can't wait for the day when I can order a ThinkPad with LED and SSD and have it cost less than a small car.

When I ordered the T61p, it came with Vista. I tried it for a month and it just didn't perform as well as it should. I have Vista on a home workstation/tower PC and it works fine. But on laptops it seems to be another story. So I upgraded it to XP Pro and it runs like a top now. The X61 was ordered with XP.

Thanks guys!

More feedback welcome!

 

I am to lazy so I didn't read the replys. My experience with X61 is like this. Ever since I bought it a year ago I didn't have one problem with it.

I see that you got the 8 cell battery. Maybe it's good that you bought it directly with 8 cell. I got mine with 4 cell and then later I got the 8 cell battery. The difference is huge. And I am not talking about the time, because that is obviously: almost 7 hours of work time. The difference is in weight and size. The 8 cell battery makes it a little bit heavier and the fact that it sticks out in the back at some point it's irritating.

I upgraded mine to 4GB RAM although it sees only 3.2 in Vista Business x86. The 2 GB and the 7k200 hard will make a difference (compared to the 1GB RAM and 120 GB drive at 5k400).

The only issue that could come up is the optical drive. I got an external one on USB and ever since I got it I used it only 3-4 times. (So that is not a issue for me). I love my thinkpad and I would recommend it to everyone, but if you travel a lot take a look at Panasonic ToughBook W7(with optical drive) or T7.

 

I forgot to mention that the keyboard is very well spaced and you will get used to it very fast. I would trust the spill proof option. The monitor is not what you would expect, but as people said before me there is no perfect laptop.

The operating system is up to you. Right now I am playing on Ubuntu 8.04 and it works great. But the same I can say about Vista, no problems but it loads programs a little bit slower than Linux.

I saw that some people on this forum get offended if you don't write correct, so I'm sorry if you find any grammar problems.

 

I also got the x61 recently. Great price and really small compared to my T61 15.4". Carried it around on a recent cross-atlantic flight and its soo much more portable. In contrast to all the nit-picking on the forums, I found the display to be reasonable bright.

Oh and full-screen mode (F11 in firefox) is your friend.

 

Thanks for the great comments, iorgus. I didn't know a USB DVD was available. I'll look into that for travel, rather than lug around the Ultra Bay. Not sure how much I really need an optical drive on the road though, which is why I settled for the Ultra Bay. From your post, it sounds like you use yours about as much as I would. For the price of a 16GB flash drive ($60), I can do most of what I need except burn discs.

No grammar policeman here. Appreciate the comments - thanks!

 

Good tip on F11. Too bad Outlook doesn't have an option to use screen real estate as efficiently as Firefox. Glad to hear you like it - the portability is what I'm after and it sounds like yours does the trick for you.

 

Be careful with the DVD burner. I bought mine but I didn't much attention and I realized that I need to power it from 120V (of course the DVD needed only 12 V or something like that). Problem solved with a Y cable that has two USB plugs. So when it needs more power the DVD gets it from the second USB.

I saw that Lenovo sells on their website DVD burners that needs only USB cable. But it's very expensive and you can find the same brand on other sites for less.

Good luck.

 

Of course I forgot.

Thanks for the F11 tip. It's really helpful for 12" screen.

 

yo excellent tip on that F11......big thanks for that.