X61 owners: Need your advice

I want to get an X series machine and price is a big thing. I am looking at refurb machines from Lenovo's Outlet, ebay or any deal that is great. It looks like I can get an X61 machine for a pretty good price, but I have read some pretty bad things about it recently. The issues that people are complaining about don't seem specific to the individual but seem to apply to the whole line. They seem like manufacturing defects. Here are the 2 major complaints I have been reading from a LOT of people.

1.) The machine gets VERY VERY hot. It gets especially hot near the right palm rest to such a degree where most people can't use the machine for more than 30 minutes. After which point their hand is burning and sweating and is very uncomfortable. It seems that the WIFI card was put right under the palm rest, which is the source of the heat. The heat issue is no better with the X61s, which should be more energy efficient.

2.) With the X61 Tablet many people are complaining with the bezel separating from the screen. Others are reporting the bezel just crumbling in their hand like candy. These are people who have taken very good care of their machines. Not sure if these bezel problems effect the regular X61(non tablet) line.

These seem like very big causes of concern. What do you folks who own these machines think? Have you experienced the same problems? Thanks.

 

1) I wouldn't say "very hot". It is warm for sure. I have the X61s but the heat is from the wifi card, not the CPU.
2) only had this since december but no problems at all with that.

 

The X is very thin. Any machine that thin will seem hotter because there's not as much space between the hot parts and the case. In my own experience with the X61s, it was warm, but I never felt uncomfortable using it.

I know Chaz had a X61t with the screen separation issue. He we quite bitter about it. I don't have a lot of details on it myself. I'd bet you'll get more information about this on ThinkPads.com.

 

However, x200s is also thin, but seems quite cool?

 

It's thanks to a combination of a redesigned cooling system, low voltage processors, and a more efficient chipset over the previous generation.

 

I don't know what kind of prices you've seen for the X61, but I just saw this on ebay for an X200 WITH a dock and long warranty. It looks like they deal primarily with Thinkpads and their feedback seems to be really good. http://cgi.ebay.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X200-Ultraportable-Notebook-Dock_W0QQitemZ290330162515QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_comp_laptop?hash=item439906b553&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1234|293%3A1|294%3A50

If it's legitimate, then this will solve the heat and bezel problems

 

That does look like a very good deal. You may need to buy a spare battery as it only comes with a 4 cell, but other then that it looks very solid.

 

In regards to that one on ebay and the X200 in general. Is there that much of a noticeable difference between battery life and weight for the X200 and X200s? Is the X200s worth the premium?

 

Well, the cheapest X200s I found was for $877 without a dock and only a one year warranty... but it does have a 6 cell battery. It also has a hi-res screen that would be worth the premium for some.

Weight for the X200s:
* 4-cell battery ~ 2.6 lbs
* 6-cell battery ~ 3.0 lbs
* 9-cell battery ~ 3.3 lbs

Weight for the X200
* 4-cell battery ~ 2.95 lbs
* 6-cell battery ~ 3.24 lbs
* 9-cell battery ~ 3.58 lbs

Whether the weight difference will be noticeable or not is really up to you. I personally would not be able to, however, here's a good post about battery life and weight, as well as what you'd be getting for the premium you'd pay:

Edit: By the way, no problems with the bezel on my X61 tablet... so far

 

Those weights for the x200s are actually a little on the high side. The x200s should be about 0.5 lbs. lighter and get 20-25% better battery life [due to LED and low voltage CPU]. That being said, both will be so much lighter than your T61 that you may not notice the difference.

 

Thanks giangdude. Right before you posted that ebay link, I was looking at it. We must have been looking at the same auction at the same time

 

Thanks everyone. I got an X200!

I looked around a lot for a X61 but they all seemed too high in price. Many times they worked out to be the same price or more than the X200 models, so that kind of put me off. I wasn't willing to spend as much as for a X200 on an older machine.

I was thinking of going for the X200s for the increased battery life and lower weight, but I got such a great deal on the X200 that I couldn't pass it up. The only thing I wish it had was a larger battery(6 or 9 cell) and bluetooth(it has everything else ), but its not the end of the world. Also from reading Tabook it seems that the X200 seems a littler stronger construction than the X200s, due to the all magnesium body. Where as the X200s has the carbon fiber plastic top and sides. As always there are tradeoffs. Hope I made the right decision....

One thing that I noticed is when I was looking at the X200s models(the ones I was looking at) they had a processor clock speed of 1.2GHz where as the X200 models that I was looking at had 2.4Ghz. Thats double the speed difference, is it not? I know they are trying to save battery power with the X200s but I thought that was a pretty huge difference. What do you think?

Now I have to get ready to sell my T61p. It has been a great machine and is in perfect shape, but I just never had use for a lot of the capabilities it had, like I thought I would.

 

The x200s does use carbon fiber and plastic composites to reduce weight compared to the magnesium alloy employed by the x200. Whether or not this reduces durability is arguable (I don't think it does), but it certainly reduces weight and increases cost of materials.

Those particular x200s models were using the relatively slow SU9300 Ultra-Low Voltage CPU with a 10 w TDP. The P8600 (medium voltage, 25w TDP) offered by many of the x200 series should be roughly double the speed in CPU bound applications. Many of the x200s and x200 Tablet (including mine) offer the Low voltage SL9400 (17w TDP) at 1.86GHz w/ 6MB of L2 cache (some even offer the 2.13GHz SL9600). The difference between the SL9400 and P8600 is much smaller.

Overall, I think you will enjoy the x200. Even with a 9 cell it is quite light. With the 4 cell you ordered it should be extremely light (about 1/2 of most 15" notebooks) and should still provide adequate battery life (2-3 hours most likely).

 

Hi Fire Snake,

Congratulations on snagging a good deal! You made the right decision.

The extra grunt from the processor comes in handy if you need to do some heavy lifting. Otherwise, if battery endurance is important for you, it's best to keep it lean, mean and sipping instead of gulping.

Retrofitting a bluetooth module into your X200 shouldn't be an issue if you need bluetooth.

Enjoy the service training videos: http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/X200/index.html

... the hardware maintenance manuals: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-39298.html

... and the drivers software for your machine: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=TPAD-MATRIX

Give yourself a while to adapt to a smaller screen and you'll definitely enjoy your new X200.

 

Congrats on the X200!

You got a great deal, and with the savings you made you could even upgrade the battery!

 

True, but most things don't push the CPU in way you'd notice a difference. Only for CPU intensive tasks will there be a noticeable difference.

Congrats on the machine.