Which is better Thinkpad X40 or Thinkpad R51

[D3ANGELO]

I have the option to purchase a r51 and a x40 for the same price the R51 has 512mb memory 1.60ghz Processor Speed and 20gb hard drive & the X40 has 1.33ghz Processor Speed with 1gb memory and 40gb hard drive which one should I purchase? Is the R51 noticeably faster?

[Neil]

They are just very different machines. The X is much smaller than the R, but in this case the R51 is likely to feel quite a bit faster than the X40. Even with a little more RAM, the X40 has a very slow hard drive, where as the R51 can be a reasonably snappy performer.

Just my $.02, others may have differing opinions.

[D3ANGELO]

They are just very different machines. The X is much smaller than the R, but in this case the R51 is likely to feel quite a bit faster than the X40. Even with a little more RAM, the X40 has a very slow hard drive, where as the R51 can be a reasonably snappy performer.

Just my $.02, others may have differing opinions.

Thanks for the input im aware of the slow hard drive so I was planing on installing a kingspec 1.8 ssd, if I install the ssd will performance be much better then the r51?

[jdrou]

R50 does have a higher maximum memory limit (2 GB vs. 1.5 GB).
Is the R50 Intel graphics or ATI? ATI would of course be much faster if you run any graphics-intensive programs.

[Weogo]

Hi Jdrou,

The X41 Tablet can take 2 gigs RAM.
Are you sure the X40 is limited to 1.5 gigs?

Thanks and good health, Weogo

[ajkula66]

Hi Jdrou,

The X41 Tablet can take 2 gigs RAM.
Are you sure the X40 is limited to 1.5 gigs?

Thanks and good health, Weogo

Yes.

X40 takes DDR, and has either 256 or 512MB soldered on board, depending on the model. So, with only one slot open, the maximum you can get is 1.5GB since the largest DDR stick available is 1GB.

X41/T uses DDR2, and you can slip in a 2GB DIMM in the spare slot.

As for the X40 vs. R51 debate, I'd be looking into the final cost of the project and deciding whether *any* of them make sense at today's day and age...my vote would likely go to R51, though...

[pianowizard]

If you plan on carrying the laptop a lot, get the X40. Otherwise, get the R51.

[Puppy]

You can get R51 with 15" SXGA+ IPS display that is much better than most of current poor notebook displays (except X220). Note: R51 was the latest R model with IPS display, R52 had ugly TN panel only.

As for HDD speed, my R51 (1829-L7G model) has 60 GB slow 4200 rpm drive. But it can be easily replaced with faster one.