Thinkpads Forum

raydabruce wrote:Comparing any mobile Atom processor to the i7-620m is like comparing a late-model Ferrari to a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle.

Perhaps so, but typical notebook usage usage does not hit the CPU that hard and you can only go 70MPH on freeway anyway. Often the problems with the netbooks I've seen is they're so loaded with bloatware and have slower drives, both of which can really sap the performance.

About six months ago I was working a co-workers kids Acer netbook, who was about to deploy over to Afghanistan. I did a clean install of XP and threw in a 30GB Agility SSD. Afterwards, the performance was pretty good for most stuff. Now if they wanted to spend all day on Hulu, the Atom won't keep up, but for keeping in touch and going on the Internet it worked quite well. Plus it was small, portable and inexpensive, which were more important than having Ferrari like speed.

raydabruce wrote:I'm not looking at anything else now, I just got my X201 a couple weeks ago. I'm happy enough with it that I don't think I'll be looking around for a few years. I'm getting tired of the constant upgrading and the expense of having the latest model. I'm going to try and just make what I have last for at least 3 yrs. By 2013 there will be some interesting new options and I'll probably succumb to upgrade fever once again.

In the meantime, I can always get an SSD for the X201 or, maybe, upgrade to 8GB of RAM (I can't imagine why, though).

You can see on the NBR forum a thread I have (samsung vs intel ssd...or something like that I forget the exact title...yes, of my own thread) - I'm coming to the conclusion that while the SSD benchmarks way faster than the 7200rpm HDD, it's not worth buying when you look at the speed in actual use.

marlinspike wrote:...it's not worth buying when you look at the speed in actual use.

Good point. I'll probably wait until the next generation of SSDs are "road tested" to see if they might be worth the expense. I'm hearing generation 3 is due out later this year.

FredGarvin wrote:Perhaps so, but typical notebook usage usage does not hit the CPU that hard and you can only go 70MPH on freeway anyway.

I'll contest that statement due to the fact that it depends a lot on what you want to do with your notebook. If you do any encoding, encrypting, compression, heavy number-crunching, etc., you'll use the power of the stronger CPU and it will save you a lot of time. So, actually, there is no speed limit on this highway... except for the limitations of the bandwidth of your internet connection.

Granted, those who understand what they're getting when they buy a netbook do not normally intend to use it for CPU-intensive tasks (except maybe flash video, before version 10.1).

marlinspike wrote:I don't know how lol. Give me your e-mail and I'll just email it to you. PM me if you don't want all the world to know your e-mail.

Would you guys be kind enough and post the profile somewhere so reset of us without hardware calibrators can download it too?

ps. I tried searching online to find a profile for x201 but couldn't find one,

I can host it if someone emails it to me. Send me a PM for my email address.

marlinspike wrote:You can see on the NBR forum a thread I have (samsung vs intel ssd...or something like that I forget the exact title...yes, of my own thread) - I'm coming to the conclusion that while the SSD benchmarks way faster than the 7200rpm HDD, it's not worth buying when you look at the speed in actual use.

I don't get this either. There are people who say SSDs have been a life altering experience, but that's not what I've seen using SSDs. They're a little faster here and there, but that's about it. If you're just opening a small 4MB file, which is pretty common cause who copies and pastes files all day, if it's a million times faster, how much faster can it be and if it is would you be able to tell? The main benefit of mine is it runs cool and is quiet. I derive more value from those the supposed performance increase.

raydabruce wrote:I'll contest that statement due to the fact that it depends a lot on what you want to do with your notebook. If you do any encoding, encrypting, compression, heavy number-crunching, etc., you'll use the power of the stronger CPU and it will save you a lot of time..

That's exactly what I said. That's not typical usage. A little office, internet and media, I would say is more conventional. Thought there certainly are people who do heavy lifting on their notebooks.

Harryc wrote:I can host it if someone emails it to me. Send me a PM for my email address.

Pretty sure I have your e-mail somewhere. You'll either have a PM or e-mail incoming. Normally, I'd be opposed to doing it on such a widespread basis because I really do think individual monitors should be profiled, but it seems these are fairly consistent because everybody who I have sent it to who gave me feedback noted significant improvement. Still though, ideally people should calibrate their individual monitors.

FredGarvin wrote:[\
That's exactly what I said. That's not typical usage. A little office, internet and media, I would say is more conventional. Thought there certainly are people who do heavy lifting on their notebooks.

Photo-editing is CPU intensive and getting to be more and more common.

FredGarvin wrote:That's exactly what I said. That's not typical usage. A little office, internet and media, I would say is more conventional. Thought there certainly are people who do heavy lifting on their notebooks.

Well, here's a typical, conventional use: open a large, graphically complicated .pdf file on an Atom-powered netbook. Now, after you go fix and eat your dinner, it might have actually appeared on the screen. That same file will load nearly instantaneously on my X201. That's the sort of normal, everyday usage that several netbooks totally failed to impress me with.

I'm sure netbooks have their place. Grandma or a teen wants to surf the net at the coffee shop. Okay. That's fine. But don't try using the full suite of MS Office Professional unless you have the patience of Job.

Anyway, to get back to my original point: The X200 and X201 are not netbooks. They are high-powered notebooks that share NO similarities with netbooks other than a small form factor. So, it is somewhat of an insult to a fine product like the X20x to call it a "netbook". At least in my (not so humble) opinion.

I would agree photo editing can be very CPU intensive, but touching up photos for the most part is not in my experience.

While you may do it, I would say opening a large PDF file is not a common or even conventional usage for a netbook. Why do you care what someone who you're never going to meet on an internet board thinks or has in their sig?

I forgot how this all started...
I like that Fred says it's the best netbook...because netbooks pretty much have nothing on an X201 - it's small enough to be a netbook, but it's so much better than any netbook, hence best netbook.

marlinspike wrote:I forgot how this all started...
I like that Fred says it's the best netbook...because netbooks pretty much have nothing on an X201 - it's small enough to be a netbook, but it's so much better than any netbook, hence best netbook.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

X201 Profile -

http://home.comcast.net/~harryc56/Misc/ ... 2010_2.icc

@marlinspike,
Is the profile offered in Harry's post the same one you sent me? Just wondering if you made any changes.
Thanks.

Same one.

[quote="Harryc"]X201 Profile -

http://home.comcast.net/~harryc56/Misc/ ... 2010_2.icc[/quote]
That's cool. Does anyone have one for the x201s display?

thinkpad drama. love it.