Thinkpads Forum

My grandson has an X301 which appeals to me as to form factor and weight. The downside seems to be the hard drive being "out-of-the-ordinary." What is the current equivalent? Or, what Lenovo units are similar?

There is no equivalent to the X301, but the closest thing you can get is the X1 Carbon.

If you put in a 1.8" to mSATA adapter like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/301360345057 in the X301, it's a lot less "exotic".
mSATA SSDs in various sizes up to 1TB are available.
Mod that adapter a little, and you'll be grand: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 08#p781708

I've been successfully using "Aleratec mSATA SSD to 1.8" SATA Drive Converter with Frame" in my x301 Thinkpads for a while now and they work great -- FWIW, got them from Amazon and eBay. Using up to 512gb SSD (but there is an expensive 1tb mSATA but it's a Samsung SSD).

With 8gb of RAM an x301 is still a pretty darn decent computer (a better screen and a faster CPU is about all it could use to upgrade it further). If only the Retro project could one day produce an updated version with a bright high resolution IPS screen with a useful aspect ratio, an i7 CPU, 16gb RAM, USB 3.0, BluRay DVD Burner / HDD / Battery / etc. UltraBay, HDMI out, and newer fast SATA interface SSD (or even an innate mSATA), etc. all would be well ...

It sounds like if I want something just like the X301 it doesn't exist, but there are mods to bridge the objections to drive size. But isn't there still a limit to what drive will fit? I have a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB but it is too big for the X301; or am I missing something?

Read my first post again about the 1.8" adapter for mSATA SSD....

1.8" drives are more abundant than you might expect. They are still being produced by Intel. Personally, I use a Crucial C300 1.8" 128GB in my X301. The biggest 1.8" SSD you can get is the 800GB Intel DC S3500. The best place to get these is eBay.

You might look at the Thinkpad 13.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/th ... 3-windows/

I've yet to get my hands on one but it looks interesting (from an owner of five x301s).

The Thinkpad 13 looks like an interesting unit.

This post is being typed on my X301 running Windows 10 Enterprise. To be quite honest, it's still a decent machine. I do get some weird graphical issues on web sites, but from my looking around it appears to be display driver issues and since the CPU is so old there is no update from Intel, nor will there be. Minus that, it's still useful to me. I love the size and weight of this unit. I still get a few hours of battery life out of it.

I have the "slower" 1.4GHz unit and 6GB of RAM with a 1.8" mSATA SSD EVO 250 installed. Runs fast and cool. Excellent for use in the server room.

The Thinkpad 13 looks interesting but the build quality could be suspect compared to the X301. If and when I move away from using my X301 as a daily driver I will need to find something of quality to replace it.

I don't recall having any problems with website graphics on my X301. I have Windows 10 Pro on an SSD but I have switched back to Windows 7 lately which I have installed on another SSD. Both OS's run fine on the X301.

shawross wrote:The Thinkpad 13 looks interesting but the build quality could be suspect compared to the X301.

In truth, build quality of *any* ThinkPad nowadays won't come close to X30* series, which was arguably their finest offering in that respect ever.

Hi, I was just curious where you obtained a battery which last several hours. I purchased an X300 second hand and a new in box sealed Lenovo battery from Ebay and I'm lucky if I get 1.5 hours from start to finish. I do realize the X301 and X300 use different mobos and processors but fundamentally they are similar. Do you also have the battery in the CD drive as well?

Thanks

When I was using my X300 I couldnt find any genuine batteries. So I worked around the 3hrs you got from $20 copy batteries.

Its now retired and I'm on a T400s. Again original batteries are no more. Not that it matters too much, I get 3-4 on the current one and I have an Ultrabay battery now.

Your T400/410/420? Full size isnt an issue. S units? no.