Thinkpads Forum

just bought X61 for use in office and home. At office I use an external LCD monitor (1280x1024).

Trying to figure out which of the above to use to reduce wear and tear on the video, ethernet, USB connectors. Am confused about the description on the lenovo website of the USB port replicator - it says it is not good for DVD streaming or web video - does this mean the video port is not as good or fast as for the ultrabase? Have no need for the slimdrive slots on the ultrabase.

can anyone comment on the relative merits of these two devices?

Thanks! -

Ultrabase replicates the VGA port directly. And adds a REAL serial, REAL parallel port, and REAL SATA connection for the CDROM/HDD. By REAL i mean you can take legacy applications and still use them ex. DOS.

The USB 2.0 dock is like every other generic USB 2.0 dock. It Does the USB Serial, USB Parallel and puts a USB 2.0 VGA port that needs its own driver to your computer.

So it is slower because its a USB driven VGA port.
While the Ultrabase is just your external VGA port being rerouted to base.

There's no comparison. The poster above summed it up pretty well...all of the ports on the UltraBase are not USB > Serial, USB > VGA, etc...they are actual ports connected directly to the system board through the docking port. As for the question of video, the USB video adapter is usually slow and laggy compared to the machine's onboard video. I would definitely get the UltraBase.

Great - Thanks much for the information. Seems pretty clear what to do -