Thinkpads Forum

If Lenovo were to release an x61s with a 12.1" SXGA (1400x1050) IPS Flexview LCD today - would you buy it ?

Do you mean whether one would be in general willing to buy such a laptop (independent of his budget) or that one will buy it?

If such a screen had been available when I bought my X61s in December, then yes, I would have paid extra for the higher resolution but I doubt that I would have paid extra for FlexView.

hausman wrote:If such a screen had been available when I bought my X61s in December, then yes, I would have paid extra for the higher resolution but I doubt that I would have paid extra for FlexView.

But I would pay extra for a Flexview

Marin85 wrote:Do you mean whether one would be in general willing to buy such a laptop (independent of his budget) or that one will buy it?

Whether one would be in general willing to buy such a laptop

Marin85 wrote:But I would pay extra for a Flexview

So would I (and I did) on other systems. I use my X61s in two ways, (1) as a portable system, mostly for surfing the web and checking e-mail, where there is no need for FlexView and (2) as a secondary desktop that's connected to a Dell 2001FP (IPS) external monitor. For me, FlexView on the X61s has no value, but SXGA when travelling most definitely does.

Let me put it another way, just to confuse the OP even more: if SXGA was available only with FlexView then I'd pay extra for that compared to the 1024x768 that I currently have.

I got your point For that matter I wonder whether one relly feels the virtues of the Flexview on a small 12.1'' screen (compared to 15'' screens).

Let me know when it comes out. I'd definitely consider buying it. All depends on the price.

I voted "yes"...surprise, anyone...

A good IPS/AFFS LCD makes a ton of sense on a small screen, especially if you're going to be using the given machine a lot. The only reason I parted with my X60T was the XGA resolution, otherwise that thing would've never left my hands...and I've NEVER used it as a tablet, not once...

On an X61s? No.

On a newer ThinkPad model from Lenovo? Probably

expecting lenovo to produce this is unreasonable since the X61 series have already been discontinued.   once stock sells out, they'll be pulled from the website.

if there was enough of a market for this mod then i'd consider going into production with it.   the issue is that the units would not have warranties.   the only parts i could reasonably warranty would be my work on the cables (which are bombproof, so that's not even a concern).

plus, until i can find the time to decipher the BIOS mod myself, i don't have a reasonable way for customers to stay updated in the event of a new BIOS release or have the ability to support X60/X60s models... only X61 and X61s.

then there's the factor of price.   i'd expect the mod to cost customers around $850~1000 on top of what they paid for their X61 or X61s -- add about $300 more if starting with an ultralight display.   for that price you could buy an X61T and have two thinkpads instead of one.

I also don't expect Lenovo to do this.

I don't think anyone embarking on this kind of customization would expect any sort of warranty from any other helpful enthusiast from this forum.

For me the BIOS is the brick wall. With cables and hardware you can measure up, burn in, buzz out forever knowing that all that testing is helping to ensure it works when you take the plunge. A BIOS mod is totally different. You make one wrong move and you've got an expensive brick. No matter how much time you run it in IDA you'll never know until you plug it in. That's what makes the BIOS originator such a crucial piece of this puzzle. How did they do it ?

Until the originator of the modified BIOS can be contacted and asked politely wether they would supply the modified BIOS to a another third party with the tools/skills/time to work on it then this mod is no go - even for someone with the cash to fund it.

The aim of the poll was the measure interest.
Perhaps some clever Lenovo person will read it......

emconuk wrote:Perhaps some clever Lenovo person will read it......

what would you expect as a result?

I voted maybe, because the high-res would scare me on such a small screen.

I would probably prefer SXGA (1280x960) on 12.1", as a good balance between real estate and reasonable DPI. Not that such resolutions are common, but since we are talking about something so hypothetical anyway - why not?

erik wrote:what would you expect as a result?

I want one of them to sit in their office, read this poll and go "[censored] ! we need an 1400x1050 4:3 IPS Flexview based laptop in our product range".

Joking aside. The answer is I don't know what I expect.

good grief... is that an expletive ?

delta
alpha
mike
november

???
Sorry to anyone who might be offended.

I might buy it on an X61 but not an X61s; I need the full-power CPU (I already have an X61 with 2GHz T7300).
I would certainly buy it on a newer equivalent of the X61 (X250?).

emconuk wrote:good grief... is that an expletive ?

delta
alpha
mike
november

???
Sorry to anyone who might be offended.

yeah, we added that one to the filter a while back thanks to the over-use of said word by a member.

btw, props for knowing the NATO phonetic alphabet.   i wish more citizens of the world knew it.

I would have bougt it at the time I bought my X61T (with 1400 resolution).

Now I would only buy one if
- the PCMCIA performance problem with eSATA was solved
- the capping of the seq transfer rate for SATA to 110MB/s was removed

I would want a decent screen, but I dont think I could handle that high of resolution on such a small display. Sure it is cool when using a desktop computer posting on the internet about it, but typing and reading text would just be uncomfortably small. I know I can size some things up, but if I am going to size things up I might as well leave them at a low resolution.

I would take any flexview regardless of resolution as long as it is XGA or greater though. For watching DVD's off the hard drive, at the very least.

Just a thought: Regarding the size of fonts and objects on the screen, I don´t really believe this is a problem since Vista built-in feature to increase dpi or to alter the sizes of different objects (like taskbar, icons etc) is almost excellent. With Win 7 these things are improved even further (really impressive), hence one can enjoy the detail without having to make compromises with the "readability" of the displayed objects.

Marin

Well, we bought the X61s notebooks with the 12.1 Ultralight display primarily because we wanted a better screen for a subnotebook (and battery life). Had a IPS screen (in non-tablet form - tablet was too heavy, and no one would have used the tablet functionality) been offered, and had battery life with the extended battery been reasonable, we would have purchased ones with IPS displays.

I have a hard time viewing a 14.1 T43 with 1400x1050 resolution and I can't imagine how I'd do with a 12.1 screen at that resolution. That said, I use my thinkpads as desktops, attached to an external monitor (or two or three) with an external keyboard and mouse. The lid stays closed. I have such a setup at home and the office, so the only time I use the thinkpad's built-in screen and keyboard is during travels and when I'm not at either home or office.

I have no problem at all viewing text on my 12" X61T with 1400x1050 and my eye sight is not that good.

I enabled ClearType (Display Properties | Appearance | Effects).
And customized the resolution to 125%.

I is easy to adjust text size in all applications I am using. I.e. CTRL+MouseWheel in Web Browser.
With Win7 things are even better.

For me higher resolution makes text only more crisp.

eye straining

My description seems not to have been clear enough:
With a finer resolution you can configure your text to have the same size as with a lower resolution and get a more crisp display.

pmeinl wrote:My description seems not to have been clear enough:
With a finer resolution you can configure your text to have the same size as with a lower resolution and get a more crisp display.

True, but you have to fight your computer to get that, and it's never quite right.

I guess I must fall squarely in the "old fogies" but 1024x768 is about the max for readability on that 12" screen. In most apps you can "zoom out" to fit more on screen, and as far as text readability goes, I don't see where the higher res on a small screen is much better than shrinking the standard screen fonts. Now someday, when Lenovo invents the "butterfly screen" like the revolutionary Thinkpad butterfly keyboard (Thinkpad 701 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_keyboard), THEN we'll be in heaven.

Would I have bought it? Yes. Would I have bought it the second they made it available? Yes.

Definately!
I'm still searching for something like this, as the X61 Tablet isn't directly what I want, but I want something more than 1024x768 and 12" or 13" and no widescreen... And I need battery time...

It's a shame that all newer notebooks have widescreens. I can see less Pros then Cons for me, for widescreens in portables (13" or smaller):
Bad for websites
Bad for pdfs
Bad for document writing
Good for Picture and Movie viewing (but just on the go, at home you better use bigger screens)