X40 & X41 Performance - Fast, Normal or Slow?

[underclocker]

I currently have 5 ThinkPads and personally do not feel that the X40 is particularly slow, as many forum posts seem to indicate.

To me, my X40 with Dothan 1.4GHz CPU, 1GB RAM & 60GB drive, seems snappy and not much different in performance than my T40 or R51, with similar specs.

I use it for general computing; Internet surfing, MS Office apps., music, etc.

So, my poll question is, how's the performance of your X40 or X41?

[dorin]

after installing a 5400 in the ultrabay and booting from it, i;ve seen a relatively improvment (in the windows start for example). i wonder if i could put a 7200 in ultrabay, that would be lovely.
but, appart from booting proces, i think it goes as fast as the t40.
i didnt think ti change it till now, when i;, waiting for x61, i still could live with x40 for another year though. never had the feeling of smashing it cause it crallws...it never did

[mhm]

Performance is good as long as you avoid hitting the hard drive. That depends on what you do of course.

I restart my x41 maybe every two weeks and put it on stand by if not in use. I log off and back on to clean memory if needed.

There are about 60 processes running, cpu in the 25% to 50% range mainly due to Excel realtime stock updates/calculations.

Browser cache/history/cookies is the worst enemy in my experience, so that was moved to a 128MB ram drive. Response is snappy even if a full backup is under way.

I'm very happy since I moved this x41 almost two years ago and I see no reason for upgrading (no interest in Vista, Readyboost or even XP updates).

[brainpicker]

The constant complaining on the forum about the so-called "poor, hapless X4x-series" is a bunch of crap in my opinion. I've owned and own a LOT of laptops, and I fix laptops from others so I see and feel and play around with LOTS of them. The X40 and X41's are just as fast or faster than comparible units. YES, the hard drive is slower than some in it's (the X4x's) class. But it was designed as a TRAVEL laptop with SUPERIOR battery life and that's exactly what it is. Take a look at the power specs of Hitachi 1.8" 4200rpm drives and Hitachi & Fujitsu 2.5" 4200rpm drives compared to ANY of their 5400rpm drives. I just compared them all a few days ago when looking for a larger drive for one of my Stylistic slate computers. I wondered why Fujitsu used 4200rpm drives when every other aspect of the computer was the best of the best at the time it was built? Well, I found every option I had to "upgrade" to a 5400rpm drive was at best 12-20% more power hungry, and these were the latest and greatest 5400rpm drives that are 3 years newer than the 4200rpm drive in my slate! Now I get close to 9 HOURS of time out of my extended battery with wireless ON and I'm wondering just how much I would give up going to a 5400rpm drive? I can see I'm also going to have more heat with a 5400rpm drive too. So when all was done I decided the trade-offs were not worth it for my 1.1GHz ULV slate and just bought a larger 4200rpm drive. Why mess with what the designers likely spent years on? I didn't. And though I'd jump at a flash drive if there was a speed & power savings, I would not upgrade my 1.8" 4200rpm drive to a 5400rpm drive even if one were available. When you use your laptop away from power you want as much battery time as you can get in a small package (and I don't want to have to size up to an 8-cell battery as then I may as well just carry a low-line T-series). Just my views here.

- Yak

[snife]

I have access to almost every ThinkPad from the last few years and the performance of the X41 Tablet is the worst (relatively speaking for machines from the same era) performing ThinkPad ever - this is due to a couple of things: 1) Mainly the HDD, it is very slow with low cache and generally lower capacity and 2) The higher overhead of the Tablet PC OS.

If you use the latest preload for the machines (with google desktop and all that junk) with any less than 1GB of RAM then the machine is actually unusable.

It was well known that the performance of the X4* series was bad in general which is why IBM continued to sell the X32 systems throughout the life of the X4*.

Given a choice, I would never use an X4* system as my primary machine, I really liked the X32 and I love the X60 and the X60 Tablet though.

[brainpicker]

If you use the latest preload for the machines (with google desktop and all that junk) with any less than 1GB of RAM then the machine is actually unusable.

It was well known that the performance of the X4* series was bad in general which is why IBM continued to sell the X32 systems throughout the life of the X4*.

Given a choice, I would never use an X4* system as my primary machine, I really liked the X32 and I love the X60 and the X60 Tablet though.

1) I don't expect many bought an X4x as their primary machine. I also don't think IBM or Lenovo expected it either. The X4x was THE best example of it's time of a small, thin, light laptop for professionals and businesspeople to carry as a tool to perform their trade. Period. It was never advertised as a power-user machine nor did any knowing human buy it expecting such.

2) Of course the X3x series was sold through the X4x era! They were two different laptops for different people. Hands down the X3x used better hard drives. I also liked the balance with the front battery. But I felt the X4x was better constructed, had a better keyboard, and was just a better choice for someone who needed an average laptop to carry around. The X41T screen was far superior to any X3x screen too, and though I don't often use the tablet features I use that laptop in several locations because of that beautiful screen (Flexview in a 12' screen) even though the weight is more. Once the X6x came out it combined some of the better features of both so one series of small laptops was enough.

3) Manufacturers can stuff a new computer with whatever they want, but a smart user will delete and tweak their system to their needs and liking. Much isn't needed. Once this adjusting is done (and more RAM is added) even the X41T runs well. The Tablet OS isn't so overbearing. My Fujitsu Stylistic has a 4200rpm hard drive and a 1.1GHz ULV and still runs well using the Tablet OS doing what it was intended to do. That's probably the key... "doing what it was intended to do". These laptops were not made to run as servers or play intense games. They are not a computer for everyman. "Unusable"? ...far from it!

If X4x's were so bad for so many then instead of selling hundreds of thouands of X40's and then developing the X41 and then the X41 Tablet using the same drive in all, don't you think sales would have prompted IBM to either make design changes to incorporate a 2.5" HDD or beg Hitachi to improve hard drive performance? Sales were good. Things didn't change. That's because the X4x's all sold very well. The X32 sold dozens. So which was "better"? If one didn't know an X32 was ever made it would be difficult from looking at the marketplace to even tell one even existed! And don't tell me it's because it was such a great machine that their owners won't give them up. That's bull. I'm not knocking it as I'm sure the people who bought one did so for good reason (they prefered the X3 platform and needed an updated or new laptop). But, if any kind of numbers sold they would be out there as they aren't that much different than an X31 and there are thousands of those for sale every month.

Each served the purpose the buyer intended them to perform. When given the choice the market decided. If it wasn't good for YOU that doesn't mean that it wasn't usable. X4x's were sure usable for a LOT of people who put up their $2-3000 for each! And for a lot of use they continue to be usable today.

- Yak

[snife]

Brainpicker, while i agree with some of your points, you are making assumptions that I don't necessarily agre with. The question was about the preformance of the systems, and while I know the reasons for this or it can be justified saying the machine wasn't built for performance, it doesn't excuse the fact it has poor performance in comparison to all other ThinkPads at the same time (or even the previous generation).

1) I think you'd be surprised - most companies that give laptops to their users only give them one so they need to decide on whether they want an ultraportable or not and even for many individual users its not practical to have more than one system (I myself use an ultraportable as my primary machine during periods where I am travelling a lot).

2) This is not an 'of course' situation, this was never the initial plan for series (the X4 was meant to replace the X3), it was only because of the poor performance and feedback from the channel partners that it was decided to keep the 2 of them.

3) Agreed but the fact remains that many users don't wipe a system or remove all the unnessessary junk. Your add RAM comment is just a throwaway comment but its a major issue, you have to add RAM just to get a usable system if you have under 1GB, the point is that the new preload was being shipping on X41T systems which came with 256MB of 512MB of RAM - i'm not saying you couldn't play intense games etc, I mean in this configuration you cannot even navigate windows; thats a performance problem if a machine is being sold that cannot even be used out the box without some changes.


The X4*s were bad imho, I believe the reason they sold well was because they were called X4, who is going to buy an X3 when an apparently updated model exists for the same price? The X41T sold because it was the first ThinkPad tablet - there is no mystery but that is no indication it is a good performing system. Added to this the salesmen were pushing X4 series.

You have no idea how many complaints the performance of the X4* caused for Lenovo and its partners (i do), the machine was not as well received as you would think and I have never experienced any other ThinkPad causing so many complaints or returns.

A properly configured OS with a decent amount of RAM will give a system which performs 'acceptably' but it still struggles on multitasking if anything is accessing the HDD such as newsgroup downloads. I didn't say that the systems were unusable in general but they are not good performers by any stretch and I expect any machine that I would carry about to be able to download stuff, have my notes open and maybe do some basic photoshop or watch a movie at the same time - even with 2GB RAM this isn't seemless on the X4* series, as I say I understand why but i don't have to like it and think it was a very bad idea to use the 1.8" drives (and IBM/Lenovo obviously agreed which is why they decided to stop using them other than in Japan where a certain type of customer will always choose size/weight over anything).

[asiafish]

I've used both X32 and X41 models and yes, they are very different. The X41 wasn't enough smaller and lighter to matter much on a spec sheet, but when actually in your hand or in a case the difference is noticeable.

The X4 series have a better keyboard (at least if you had the Thai NMB).

The X4 series have available fingerprint readers.

The X40 gets better battery life, the X41 about the same as the X32, with the X31 I'm guessing somewhere in between.

X32 (and other X3 series) have a better ultrabase with better speakers on it and the ability to use a second main battery ON the ultrabase - very cool.

X3 ultrabase uses conventional 12mm optical drives, compared to the slim 9.5mm drives on the X4 ultrabase. If you are sharing drives with a T4x or T6x you will want the slimmer drives, while if you are sharing drives with a T2x or T3x (contemporary of original X30) then you will want the thicker drives (or an adapter to use slim drives in the X3). If this was my only laptop, I'd prefer the thick drives so I could get a slot-loader!

I've had both, and except for the Flexview tablet screen, X4x and X3x screens are about the same, varying just as much within series as against the other.

Other than the physical characteristics of size, weight and docking, the only real differences are performance related, which again are part of the size-weight compromise the engineers made in selecting components.

The hard drives is the most obvious. When the X4 was designed, they couldn't fit (or chose not to for battery life) a 2.5" drive and so compromised with a 1.8" drive. The 60GB drive on my X41 wasn't fast, but it was most definitely usable. I even did light gaming when I traveled and was very happy with the performance of the laptop.

The X4 also uses integrated graphics, a decision again to help stretch out battery life. This is a real trade-off that isn't always as you would imagine in real world use.

When I had an X32 I used it to watch downloaded TV shows from iTunes (QuickTime). The X32 with its discreet 16MB ATI graphics did a terrific job playing these files, despite this being a very wimpy card by 2005 standards.

Those same TV shows played on the X41, but were a bit choppier, most likely on account of the integrated video (both systems had the same 1.5GB of RAM), but also have been the result of the slower hard drive or the fact that the X32 was a 1.8GHz while the X41 was a 1.6GHz.

Games that the X3 would actually run (not as many) played smoother than on the X41, but the X41 would run many games that the X3 couldn't even launch. The GMA900 video (and the GMA950 in current X60) is a far more advanced video card than the Mobility Radeon in the X32, but the X32's, while simpler and with lower capabilities, is still faster.

I like both. Looking at cheaper used ultraportables today I went for a used X31 mainly because X4 prices are still high. At the same price point, I'd take an X40 or X41 in a heartbeat.

The real difference between the two is much the same as the difference between the current X60 and the smaller X60s, though the engineers have managed to squeeze a full-sized drive into the small model in the current line. The X32, like the regular X60, is designed to work and feel much like a small T-series. The X41 and X60s are fully optimized for ultraportable use. Its quite simple really, a slight size and weight penalty for a machine with no sacrifice in performance, or a slight performance penalty to get a machine that is as small (and long running) as can possibly be had.