X200 Shots

[i-SnipeZ]

These are just some rough quick "sex" shots of the X200. It's a very sexy ThinkPad indeed.

[Tasurinchi]

Nice pictures i-Snipe! Congrats on the machine!

[LegendaryKA8]

Nice shots! How's the X200 treating you?

[wgg]

That is a nice machine you have there! I also want to know your impressions of the X200.

[i-SnipeZ]

Its a great machine. Fan noise is minimal and processing power is more than adequet thanks to Lenovo shying away from the ULV processors. I have a 320gb 7200rpm WD Scorpio Black installed in it at the moment with Windows 7 64bit and speed wise I don't notice a difference between this 2.4ghz C2D and the X201i i3 my friend has. It has a standard WVGA? (1280x800) screen and bluetooth but no WWAN so I can't comment on that. The screen isn't too shabby compared with other laptops surprisingly, viewing angles are a little shallow but due to the size and general purpose of this computer it doesn't really matter.

It's surprisingly lighter than I thought it would be, but pleasant enough it feels more sturdy than any ThinkPad i've held. It has no audible creeks anywhere I press on it either. The bezel also isn't quite as big of a deal as some make it out to be, without it, you wouldn't have much of a palm rest, and its not that big anyway. No bigger than the 11.6" MBA's bezel.

I don't really miss the disk drive at all, even though I bought an Ultrabase partly for that purpose.

The only thing I long for in this machine is a better graphics card, any of the ATi and nVidia integrated options would be better than this. The Intel GMA is servicible, but not good for any sort of graphics work of any type, which is kind of a disappointment, considering that this is supposed to be one of their better offerings. It's still worth living with considering the amount of work I can get done simply because its not a hassle to carry this with me everywhere as the T510 was. Then again, I guess if I really longed for it I could buy into that new OnLive service and just stream games to my computer during breaks.


That being said, I love this machine, its without a doubt the best ThinkPad I've used. Also, here's a picture of my actual setup with the machine.

[LegendaryKA8]

That's a really nice setup. What kind of monitor are you running? I've been looking to get away from my old CRTs and get a similar setup in my home office.

I do hear you on the X200's portability. I have a T500 as well, and 95% of the time if I'm headed out the door the X200 comes with me instead. I like the T500's discrete GPU, but the X200 is where it's at as far as getting work done when I'm on the go. From typing reports in my car to doing research while grabbing food at a restaurant, the form factor and light weight is pretty much perfect.

There is an external Vidock available that allows you to use a discrete desktop GPU with an X200 using the Expresscard slot, but power requirements, expense, and lack of portability have kept me using the T500 for any gaming I do. I've been revisiting quite a few older titles recently, so I have been playing stuff that I can run on the X200 anyway.

[i-SnipeZ]

That's a really nice setup. What kind of monitor are you running? I've been looking to get away from my old CRTs and get a similar setup in my home office.

I do hear you on the X200's portability. I have a T500 as well, and 95% of the time if I'm headed out the door the X200 comes with me instead. I like the T500's discrete GPU, but the X200 is where it's at as far as getting work done when I'm on the go. From typing reports in my car to doing research while grabbing food at a restaurant, the form factor and light weight is pretty much perfect.

There is an external Vidock available that allows you to use a discrete desktop GPU with an X200 using the Expresscard slot, but power requirements, expense, and lack of portability have kept me using the T500 for any gaming I do. I've been revisiting quite a few older titles recently, so I have been playing stuff that I can run on the X200 anyway.

The monitor there is a SyncMaster 204b which is a decent 4:3 monitor, however, its light balancing is pretty mediocre. It's clearly brighter towards the bottom, but color reproduction is spot on. I plan to go widescreen here after christmas though possibly with one of Lenovo's monitors. I too, have been going back to older titles. Namely the old Command and Conquers and Sim City 4. It does surprisingly okay with Team Fortress 2 though, as long as I keep the resolution around 1024x768. Most of those Vidocks performance wise aren't all that great from what i've seen. Cool idea that just doesn't work great.

[gdi2k]

Nice set up! Agreed about the graphics card - would love some sort of Nvidia GPU in my X200 - what's also lacking is a second digital output on the UltraBase - very frustrating that I have to power my second monitor with a VGA cable - the difference is especially noticeable when the monitors are side by side.

I replaced my 320 GB hard disk with a 60 GB OCZ Vertex 2 and the speed increase is amazing; the trade off of course is that I have to store all my media on an external USB disk now, but I can live with that as it's generally not needed while traveling...

Here's my docked set up (just got two Dell U2311H monitors which I can recommend, if a little lacking in the vertical pixel department...):

[LegendaryKA8]

That's a very nice setup, too! May I ask how you're running those monitors to the Ultrabase? Is one connected via VGA and the other DVI?

[gdi2k]

Yes, sadly I have to run one from the VGA port and the other from the DisplayPort port (Ultrabase has no DVI port) - I have a DP to DVI converter cable as my old monitor only had DVI in - the new ones do have DP in, but I don't have a normal DP to DP cable and it works just fine as is.

The one running on VGA is noticeably blurrier unfortunately - it's the main thing pushing me towards the T410s successor when it comes out; with the Minidock Series 3 Plus you get loads of digital video outputs...and of course with T-Series you get optional Nvidia GPUs.

[emeraldgirl08]

Love all the shots of the X200 laptops

[i-SnipeZ]

I too upgraded my screen. I'm running a new 24" Samsung. No pics right now as I'm away from home though. That is a very nice screen setup. Any lack of veticle resolution is compensated by the amount of windows you can have open i imagine.

[Tasurinchi]

Here's my docked set up

The setup is great, but the view you have there is amazing!!

[emeraldgirl08]

The setup is great, but the view you have there is amazing!!

I am also blown away by the view! Gorgeous!

[gdi2k]

I'm very lucky with the view - sometimes I feel a bit guilty blocking it with monitors!

If it were possible to see 150 km, I could see Iran from my window (never happened!). Being able to see much beyond the tip of the Palm is unusual due to an ever-present haze on the horizon.

[Tasurinchi]

I've just noticed that we have the same cordless keyboard

[gdi2k]

I've just noticed that we have the same cordless keyboard

Of course nothing comes close to the supreme typing experience offered by ThinkPads, but it's not bad

Actually, this is my second unit - the first failed after about a year of use with a bunch of keys not working anymore. Logitech was excellent about replacing it though; after describing the problem they shipped me a brand new unit from the UK free of charge and did not request for the broken unit back. Lenovo could learn from that (see rubber foot saga).

[sweety]

Nice shots! How's the X200 treating you?