Thinkpads Forum

I'm interested in your thoughts on the value of an X60s with 1.6 ghz core duo, 2gb ram, with an external CDRW/DVD drive (IBM branding)

Also, would this make a decent machine into the future? It's running XP pro now, but the time will come when that's not going to cut it and I would have to move to Windows 7

I bought one for $200 locally but it was quite rough. I had to put roughly $100 into it to get it to a point that it's decent. Realistically, $300 for a good one with the specs your talking about.

These computers run Windows Vista quite nicely, so they should run Windows 7 even better. The GMA 950 will run the Aero interface, the processor is more than capable. The hard drive should be fine, but I would consider getting a newer 5400 RPM drive or upgrading to a 7200 RPM depending what you get. Mine came with a 100GB 7200 RPM drive, it worked fine, but it was very noisy.

All in all, the X60s is a good notebook IMO. It beats out a Netbook anyday in both performance and usability.

I suppose it depends on what you plan on doing with it in the future. I've got an X60T that has become my primary machine, and I"m very satisfied...though up until 2 years ago, I was still running a 600X as my primary machine, so I obviously have a pretty high tolerance for old and cranky software and hardware.

There are two or three things that create potential future bottlenecks in the X60/S/T series:
- 3GB RAM max: this is due to the motherboard, and won't change if you move to a 64 bit operating system, including Win 7 (though I think you may be able to bump things up if you get an X61/S/T?) -- You can put in up to 4GB and configure the extra 1GB for turbo boosting or something, but only 3GB is recognizable to the operating system.
- SATA speed: I don't honestly know about the different specs, but I know you are limited to SATA 1 or something, instead of SATA 2 (?)
- Graphics card: there is no good way to expand your graphics capability, and the limits of the GMA 950 and your shared video RAM will probably become more and more evident over the next couple years. In particular, it is a challenge to figure out how to run dual screens in a docked configuration.

Having said that, I do desktop publishing, web development, and graphic design on mine, and I'm plenty satisfied with the speed and options. I've decided to stick with XP -- it uses less memory overhead, I think it may actually be faster than Win7 on these memory-limited X60 machines when it is tuned correctly (except for boot times which Microsoft finally got right in Win7), and my dual screen docked config depends on VTBook, and the version I'm using is not compatible with Win7.

About the only thing you'll probably lose by upgrading is the 4:3 standard ratio screen, which is actually important to me, but may not matter to you.

If you are compiling software or doing a lot of video editing, then you will probably want something more powerful and with more memory expandability. I've thought of upgrading, but not in order to get better performance: I'm not looking so much for an upgrade as a supplemental addition via a T60p/T61p/Z61p/W5x or some such thing with a UXGA or full HD def screen and a big ole' dedicated video card. But I'm willing to wait until the prices drop a bit further on those...

Phil.

i would probably skip the X60s and spend a little extra to get the X61s.

lead_org wrote:i would probably skip the X60s and spend a little extra to get the X61s.

I second this. Mechanically, they're the same, but the updated internals in the X61s are definitely worth even a rather hefty price premium.

Bought the X60 in my sig.
Upgraded to a 250gb sata hdd, 2gb ram and it runs incerdibly good. Am i'm using it mostly with Autocad, sometimes even working with several 10mb+ dwg's open.

lead_org wrote:

i would probably skip the X60s and spend a little extra to get the X61s.

My experience has been that X60s runs cooler and has better battery life than X61s.

Everything really depends on one's needs and preferences.

For an average spec'd machine with the base, I'd say between $200 and $250 depending on the seller's trustworthiness, shape and exact configuration...

My $0.02 only...

ajkula66 wrote: My experience has been that X60s runs cooler and has better battery life than X61s.

Battery life I agree, but cooler? Fair enough. I must have had a bum unit, because the X60s I had lived up to its Core Duo lineage and ran *hot*... not that the X61s ran cool, but the X60s seemed worse to me.

I'll defer to your expertise here since you've probably owned more of them than me.