X61s First Thoughts
Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:44 pm
I got my X61s for about 4 days now here are my thoughts on it.
Overall it feels really small compared to the 15.4 inch Acer laptop I have had for the past year and half. The screen is much brighter (I have the UltraLight screen), but the viewing angel is somewhat limited. The lip is very solid, no flex what so ever and when I press hard on it there isn’t any ripples on the screen at all, very impressive. However the LCD does ripple when you press on the bezel around the screen (probably not a problem just FYI). There is also some flex on the palm rest, both left and right (slightly more on the left since there’s the card slot underneath), but it’s pretty minor and still seems solid.
The screen hinges are great, it’s easy to open when one hand and it doesn’t wobble, it’s a good balance IMO.
I ordered with Vista Home Basic to save a few bucks and I installed Vista Ultimate 64 bit. My laptop came with a 512MB stick and I put in another 2GB stick, however it only shows up as 1GB, this could be just a problem with the RAM (maybe NewEgg shipped me a wrong one?), but I’m leaving the country for a month and half on Wednesday so hopefully when I come back I can still exchange for another stick.
I have the Atheros ABG card, the right palm rest gets quite hot (both above and beneath), having a laptop cooler underneath seem to alleviate the heat, but still a little uncomfortable to rest my hand on there for too long. The top left corner when the fan is (the CPU) also gets hot after prolonged use. Overall it’s a little uncomfortable to use on my lap. The power adapter also gets very hot, it also hums, I plan to call up Lenovo to get another one for me when I come back.
With Windows Vista Ultimate I’m running about 70-80 processes, it takes about 1GB of memory constantly. My Vista score is 3.4, here’s the breakdown:
Overall it runs pretty snappy, but some programs takes time to start, such as iTunes (could be due to not supported for 64 bit) and Firefox. Startup also takes a while since for some reason ThinkVantage Accesss Connections is really slow to start. I think it will be much better once I get more RAM in there. The X3100 graphics is not as great as I had hoped for. The only program I tried was World of Warcraft and with low setting I only get a max of 20 fps when outside, a little laggy as well. It’s better than my Acer with GMA 950, but not significantly.
On an eight cell battery I get around 6 hours of battery life when I’m doing light web browsing, I expect that to be much better if you had Windows XP, which I wanted to have in the first place, but installing it on a SATA drive is too much of a pain.
Overall it’s a great laptop, very small and light weight, godlike keyboard, solid built, I love the rubberized paint on it, there is no finger marks whatsoever. Although I wish it runs much cooler, since which will probably be on your laptop for the most time. Also the screen could be improved, I’m fine with XGA on such a small laptop, but I would like to have better viewing angle. Another cool thing to have would be the magnetic power adapter jack on the laptop like a MacBook, my friend just got a new black MacBook and the magnetic thing is very cool (Although his laptop is extremely heavy for its size and got this ridiculous toy-like keyboard).
That’s all I can remember to write at this point, please let me know what you guys think.
Overall it feels really small compared to the 15.4 inch Acer laptop I have had for the past year and half. The screen is much brighter (I have the UltraLight screen), but the viewing angel is somewhat limited. The lip is very solid, no flex what so ever and when I press hard on it there isn’t any ripples on the screen at all, very impressive. However the LCD does ripple when you press on the bezel around the screen (probably not a problem just FYI). There is also some flex on the palm rest, both left and right (slightly more on the left since there’s the card slot underneath), but it’s pretty minor and still seems solid.
The screen hinges are great, it’s easy to open when one hand and it doesn’t wobble, it’s a good balance IMO.
I ordered with Vista Home Basic to save a few bucks and I installed Vista Ultimate 64 bit. My laptop came with a 512MB stick and I put in another 2GB stick, however it only shows up as 1GB, this could be just a problem with the RAM (maybe NewEgg shipped me a wrong one?), but I’m leaving the country for a month and half on Wednesday so hopefully when I come back I can still exchange for another stick.
I have the Atheros ABG card, the right palm rest gets quite hot (both above and beneath), having a laptop cooler underneath seem to alleviate the heat, but still a little uncomfortable to rest my hand on there for too long. The top left corner when the fan is (the CPU) also gets hot after prolonged use. Overall it’s a little uncomfortable to use on my lap. The power adapter also gets very hot, it also hums, I plan to call up Lenovo to get another one for me when I come back.
With Windows Vista Ultimate I’m running about 70-80 processes, it takes about 1GB of memory constantly. My Vista score is 3.4, here’s the breakdown:
Code: Select all
• Processor: L7500 1.6 GHz – 4.7
• RAM: PC 5300 1.5GB – 4.5
• Graphics: Intel X3100 – 3.4
• Gaming Graphics: 3.4
• Hard Disk: 7200RPM 100GB Hitachi – 5.0 (was 5.1 at one point)On an eight cell battery I get around 6 hours of battery life when I’m doing light web browsing, I expect that to be much better if you had Windows XP, which I wanted to have in the first place, but installing it on a SATA drive is too much of a pain.
Overall it’s a great laptop, very small and light weight, godlike keyboard, solid built, I love the rubberized paint on it, there is no finger marks whatsoever. Although I wish it runs much cooler, since which will probably be on your laptop for the most time. Also the screen could be improved, I’m fine with XGA on such a small laptop, but I would like to have better viewing angle. Another cool thing to have would be the magnetic power adapter jack on the laptop like a MacBook, my friend just got a new black MacBook and the magnetic thing is very cool (Although his laptop is extremely heavy for its size and got this ridiculous toy-like keyboard).
That’s all I can remember to write at this point, please let me know what you guys think.
