Thinkpads Forum

Does anyone have photos of Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 running on the 12.1 inch screen of the X61 or X61s? Does it runs fast?

Thanks in Advance...

I run the lastest Visual Studio .net a half year ago with only 1.5GB RAM on a 1.66Ghz Core Duo Thinkpad x60s. I works pretty well and fast enough. But I guess it always depends on the case, I was just developing a small C# application.

Since I am using my x60s, which is quite similar to the x61/61s, almost every day with Eclipse for J2EE development, I would say it is possible to use an x61 as development machine. Of couse it is more convinient to use IDE's with larger screens. But then try to carry an 22" screen every day around


best regards Marco

So you're telling me that (1024 X 768) on 12.1 inch is not that good for Visual Studio Enviroment. Is it the characters on screen too small to read or is it because the screen is not wide enough to provide you a suitable work enviroment??

Thanks in Advance...

Character size is fine, but the resolution will be a problem. If you're committed to using a X61, you can make it work (toolbar customization will help), but if you are willing to use a 14" notebook instead, that's probably a better option.

Alternatively, you could use an X61 Tablet with SXGA+ resolution which is very readable in my opinion. I have an X61s and Visual Studio 2008 and it works well enough. You get about 90 characters across when hiding the left panels and 110 characters across when hiding the right panel.

Speed is good enough with 7200 HD (and probably the 5400). Just max out on the RAM (3 GB for 32-bit, 4 GB for 64-bit).

So I guess that the problem is the width of the screen, due to the fact that Visual Studio looks better on widescreens. I think some toolbar customization will just do the job.

mcmanaman wrote:So you're telling me that (1024 X 768) on 12.1 inch is not that good for Visual Studio Enviroment.

Definitely NOT. XGA is useless resolution for any serious work. I've tried extremly small fonts and "pin" all windows, still it wasn't useable at all. SXGA+ is the lowest resolution for such purpose.

I have an x61s and i can't stand working on 1028 resolution. The size of the font is perfect but its the worksapce that sucks. I constantly have to scroll left and right plus auto hide all my window (explorer, console, watchlist etc)

I love the portability of the x61 - and that's what its meant for. When i need to do quick tweaks to code the resolution and desktop space is bareble, but i do my most serious work on an external monitor, at least 1600x1200

Please!! Can someone give me some photos of Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 on X61s, in order to decide whether it is worth to install or not.