First business trip with X61s and very impressed

[levimax]

So far my experience with Lenovo and the X61s has been very positive.

I ordered on July 26th and received it August 8th

My x61s has XP Pro, 1.6 Ghz Processor, 2 GB ram, 100 GB 7200 RPM drive, ultralight screen, 8 cell battery

I upgraded from a T42 (2 Ghz Dothan, 1 GB ram, 60GB 7200 HD, 8 call battery)

First off the X61s is 1/2 the weight of the T42 which was great for carrying around in the airport. The smaller size also worked better in the airplane. I am used to the "touch pad" but after about an hour I now actually prefer the "pointer" system, especially the way it is laid out on the the X61s.

The X61s feels much quicker than the T42. It boots faster, opens programs faster, connects to Wireless and WAN faster , etc. I really only use it for office applications and logging in remotely to my work machine.

The screen is small so while the 1024X768 resolution doesn't sound too hot I don't think I could work with smaller fonts so higher resolution is not an issue IMO. The ultralight screen was bright enough and I prefer anti-glare screens. The screen is fine for office applications but not great for watching videos.

Battery life and standby life is great. On the airplane, when not connected to anything, the battery life appeared to be about 8 hours. When connected via WiFi or WLAN or even Ethernet the battery life dropped to about 6 hours. Also I found the "standby time" to be outstanding, especially compared to the T42. When I travel I often quickly open my laptop, log in, and log out. Waiting for long boot times is a huge problem but the X61s comes out of standby and back into standby very quickly and uses very little battery up in standby mode.

The machine is also quiet and only gets "warm" rather than hot. It is quieter and cooler than the T42 for instance

The thing I liked best about the X61s, and this is probably because I ordered it with XP , is that everything "just worked". Over the years I have struggled with many different laptops where "standby" and "hibernate" didn't always work quite right (and I arrived at meetings with dead batteries more than once because of this). With the x61s I just closed the lid, even if I was connected to WiFi or WLAN, and it would go into standby. It would also wake up ready to go.

I was hesitant about purchasing this machine because of comments about the screen resolution and format (which is the "weakest part" of the machine), concern about the speed of a 1.6 Ghz processor, and concerns about battery life. After using the machine on a trip I found my concerns to be unwarranted. The X61s is great on the road.

[ryengineer]

Another happy customer!

[politicorific]

thought I'd post my experience here as well...

4 days ago I flew from Chicago to Seoul, South Korea - a journey which took about 26 hours. The X61s served me extremely well, I watched several films in flight and managed to use the wifi in O'hare and Narita, Japan. The weight was perfect with 120gb, some noise canceling headphones, and an old mp3 player. Only problem was that I occasionally I turned on the wireless while pulling the notebook out of my backpack. I kept the display on the lowest brightness levels and pulled a staggering number of hours watching media. The only problem was turbulence caused the active protection system to park the hard drive heads - looks like I'll need to get a 4gig flash drive to put what I want on it for flights.

Now if I could only get to hongsan electronics market to pick up a vga to rca adapter and an external usb dvd burner I'd be set.

[gunston]

good to hear that!

[thinkpadmba]

It's yongsan.. not hongsan..