Purchasing Advice Request + Various Other Questions

[sere83]

Hi Guys,

My name is Nick and I am brand new to the forum. Hope you are all well, looks like a great community. Anyway the reason I joined was to get some advice relating to X series Thinkpads, the x60 in particular. I currently own a netbook which I use to dj with via 2 midi controllers. I am having major issues with the usb ports though as they don't seem to have enough power to run my controllers depite working well for a long time they have started playing up. My friend owns an x31 and I was blown away by its performance, stability and build despite it's age. I had been considering getting a a pc to do a small amount of photoshop work and now run my dj software too and was looking at getting an X60 as they look like they perform better than the x30/40 series. I am on a very tight budget though so was going to get one second hand off ebay with a maximum spend of around £210. I also wanted to upgrade the HDD. Having the extra power and screen real estate over a netbook would be great and will hopefully solve my mid controller issue.

Anyway have a few questions I just wanted to ask.

1. Are the usb ports powered?

2. I notice there are X60 machines Running a T1300 1.66ghz core solo cpu or various clockspeeds of the 2400 core duo versions. What is the performance difference between these two processors. I presume the duo will be improved but I am on a tight budget so wondered how well the T1300 machines perform.

3. I will be looking to upgrade the HDD. Will the X60 take any 2.5inch SATA HDD? What would people recommend in terms of buffer size / RPM. Any brand in particuler? I will only be looking to spend an additional £50 or so for a hard drive. I was considering something like this >>>

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT

Or would it be better to get a 7200rpm drive? How will this affect battery? Is there a limit to the capacity of drive that can be added to the X60? I need 160gb minimum.

4. If I do change the harddrive, how easy will it be to get hold of drivers and is there a way to get back the ibm power management and diagnostic tools?

5. Are the OEM batteries you see on ebay any good?

6. Is it worth considering either the X31/41 models if on a budget? Will these model be able to take a larger HDD's like 250gb for example.

Apologies if some of these questions are a bit straight forward, I am a noob! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Atreides]

Let me just say that the X-series is fantastic, much better than your average netbook. I was going to get a netbook, but thought I'd go for something different and get an X60s instead; couldn't be more pleased.

I'll try and answer some of these questions, although I really don't know all of them :\

1. Good question, I'll have to check sometime. (if some other forum member knows, I am curious as well)
2. I would definitely recommend the dual core version, even if you have to spend a little extra it will offer you much more processing power for the future. If you plan on buying from ebay, Core Duo's also seem to be BY FAR (at least in the US) the most commonly offered processor (namely the 1.66ghz version, which is what I have). In my months of searching I think I saw one Core Solo, and no Core 2 Duos.
3. From my understanding, most any 2.5in SATA will work (but I have yet to upgrade mine myself). I cannot comment on buffer size, but I know you can get a fair performance boost buying a 7200rpm drive versus the standard 5400. It will create more heat, and possibly more noise, but if you are going to spend the $ on a new HDD I would recommend it. I'm partial to Seagate myself (use 3 of their drives in my desktop). I'm not too up on HDD prices, but I'll post a link I saw in some other thread.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus- ... 286.c0.m14

4. Its all on Lenovo's website
5. I can't speak from experience, I was lucky and got my X60s with a decent battery.
6. I myself was looking at the X41 initially, but I would highly recommend you to spend a little extra for an X60 model. Firstly, you can get a Core Duo versus a single core Pentium M. Secondly (and probably most important to you) X4x's use older zif 1.8 inch hard drives. Not only are these drives noisy and expensive to upgrade, they max out at 80gb. X60's use standard 2.5" SATA drives, much faster and easier to upgrade.

[sere83]

Many thanks for your help. I would like to get a core duo as the performance improvement does seem considerable. However I am on a very tight budget, plus I need to buy an HDD too. I can pick up a core solo version with 1gb ram for around £185 here in the Uk in excellent condition. Unfortunately the cheapest core duo versions are coming in around £260.

I will only really be using this to dj, some light photoshop work and web browsing so major multitasking will not be necessary. I had been looking at the seagate drives too, I think the one in the link you psoted may be the way to go.

If any one does know about the powered USB thing that would be very helpful.

[Atreides]

Core Solo will probably be adequate for what you need. Look on the bright side, you'll get longer battery life.

I don't know if prices are higher in the UK, but I got my X60s with a Core Duo 1.66ghz, 1gb ram, and a 60gb HDD for $326 shipped. That comes out to about... 205 pounds if I'm correct?

I know the US usually gets the benefit of better prices than Europe though

[sere83]

Yeah we tend to get screwed for everything here in the Uk. Tbh at the moment i'm running my Dj soaftware/hardware off a 1.6ghz atom based eepc! So I don't think it will be a problem. Increased size of the thinkpad is a bit of a bummer. 10 inch would be nice, but I want better performance for photoshop.

I got a real dilema on my hands now though. I found a 1.83 core duo, 1 Gb ram, 60gb HDD verision with external dvd/cdrw for £253 shipped. Refurbished Grade A condition, so cosmetically looking/functioning very well. Although they only guarantee batteries for 30 minutes!

Thing is i'm expecting the battery to be pretty poor being a second hand unit anyway. MAy buy a bettery in future. So maybe if I don't really need the extra processing then the core solo will give better battery performance, especially when I replace the HDD with a 72000 rpm one. Saying that though i'm sure a 1.83 core duo will show a significant performance improvement over the solo particuarly when multi tasking. For an extra £60 it does seem worth it, plus they chuck in a cdrw drive.

Btw can you link me the thread where the link to that segate HDD was posted?

Aaaaahhh decisions decisions!

[LegendaryKA8]

Battery guarantees like that are pretty much standard amongst private/Ebay sellers. I lucked out getting one whose battery is in excellent condition, about 50 cycles old but retaining all of its charge capacity. You might get one that still retains a decent charge.

If you're concerned about battery life, I would recommend an X60s. I don't think there's a Core Solo variant, but all of the 's' models run a low-voltage Core Duo. The performance is about the same of the non-undervolted Core Duos, but battery life is increased. Power Manager estimates my battery runtime at about eight hours, and you could definitely get nearly that with light use(Web browsing, word processing, stuff like that). This is with the extended 8-cell unit, however.

I'm not sure if this really counts as being a 'powered' USB port, but I'm able to charge my mobile, Nintendo DS, and navigation unit off of my X60s with no issues, and I'm willing to bet you can run a hard drive off of one just fine. I don't know what sort of draw your keyboards will run, but I think these USB ports are fully functional.

In my opinion, the X60/s is a big step up from a netbook. If you get one you will not be disappointed.

[John H]

I was fortunate enough to score a X60s for $285 on eBay with a dead battery (it won't work right with a dead battery even if plugged into AC).

I got a chinese no-name 4-cell battery that runs about 3 hours in coffeeshop duty. I luckily scored an new OEM Lenovo 8-cell for $50 that I look forward to using, too.

The chinese no-name AC adapters are crap: they put out so much RFI that they interfere with every receiver and computer in the house! Usually you can get an OEM AC adapter for $30.

The X60s is a real honey! It's light, compact, powerful and solid. The only complaint I have is that the keyboard is a little tight compared to my widescreen T60, but at least it goes fully from side to side without wasting real-estate.

I even watch HDTV occasionally on the X60s. It's handy if I'm just laying around in bed.

[sere83]

Cool, thanks for the opinions. Yeah the X60s is definitely looking like the one. Hopefully that ULV cpu will help a little with power saving. I have seen a couple floating about on the bay so may just have to pull the trigger!

[LegendaryKA8]

Cool, thanks for the opinions. Yeah the X60s is definitely looking like the one. Hopefully that ULV cpu will help a little with power saving. I have seen a couple floating about on the bay so may just have to pull the trigger!

I was definitely still on the fence when I bought mine, and was wondering if I had made a mistake. However, from the first time I started this system up I have loved it, and strangely enough it's becoming my primary. Reasonably powerful, compact, and great battery life.

Bottom line is, you won't regret getting an X60s.