Can a 12.1" ThinkPad X200 play 1080p videos? And other questions when buying used.

[Erare]

I was thinking of buying one secondhand, but I need it to at least play 1080p videos YouTube, is the CPU or GPU powerful enough to handle it?

Does this laptop have a CFL or LED backlight? I was thinking since this laptop will be quite old will the screen have yellowed?

Any other advice or stuff to beware of when buying a used ThinkPad? I read the ThinkPad buying guide and I plan to check if I can go into the BIOS and see if computrace is turned off.

I am also located in Toronto, Canada. How much should I typically pay for one? I see some numbers of craigslist/Kijiji, are they accurate or will I have better prices here on this forum? I assume shipping is not worth it? Only local deals?

[brchan]

Should do fine, but a X201 would be a better choice. Not too much more expensive and a lot more future proof. Some X200 models have ccfl, others LED (all x201 models use LED displays). For specific models, they are listed in the psref sheets (withdrawn models).

[Saucey]

Never tried YouTube 1080p on my X61T, but it did do well playing a .mkv 1080p video from an SD card with little hiccup, nearly perfect video with an external screen and external harddrive.

Flash/YouTube taxes the X61, I would suspect the same, my guess is that an X201 with an 3rd best i5 or better would be good for you, but it is all guesstimates.

[Hans Gruber]

Basically an i3, i5 or i7 can play 1080p with no problem. They have instruction sets built into the CPU's that are independent of clock speed. HD decoding instructions sets are just one example.

[CPC464]

Hi,
my X200t (Core 2 duo L9400@1,86 GHz) can reproduce 1080p @ 50 fps from my camcorder without problems on its LCD screen (1280x800), but I haven't tried it with an external FHD screen.

[ryan1212]

Agreed that an x201 would be a much better choice. My x60 (which I realize is a generation older than the peryn based core2duos) with a 2.0ghz T7200 studdered when I would stream either netflix or youtube at 720p or higher.

I bought my x201 for $100 on eBay, and it had everything except a hard drive and AC adapter. I was able to contact computrace which was able to remove the tracking that was turned on, and re-use my hard drive and ac adapter from my x60. I am really happy with it, although I miss the battery life of my x60 with the 8-cell since this one only lasts about 90 minutes.

Basically an x201 is a big improvement performance wise from the x200, and not much more expensive on the used market IMHO.

[ajkula66]

Basically an x201 is a big improvement performance wise from the x200

In all areas but one this holds true.

That one area is called battery life.