Newbie buying an X41t

[Markell1991]

Hi there everybody. I've been browsing the site for a little over a week now, and I'm very impressed with what I see. Anyway, I am interested in getting an X41t, it's time for a new laptop (I've had my latest one for around 6 years). This thinkpad would be great for university with its tablet feature (plus I want the old IBM logo on it!).
Basically, what am I looking for when buying one? Price isn't a real issue, around $300/£200 would be perfect. Thanks in advance for helpful information!

[Tasurinchi]

Welcome to the forum!

For $300 you may even get a tablet from the X6x Series. Check the UK Ebay or local markets in NL for prices. Some of the advantages of this newer series are the dual core processors, more RAM capacity and the standard 2.5" SATA drives.

Happy hunting!

[pianowizard]

For the most part, I too would rather have the X60 or X61 tablet because the X41 tablet's 1.8" 4200rpm hard drive makes it really slow. Also, the X6* tablets offer the 1400x1050 option whereas all X41 tablets only had 1024x768. If you must have the IBM logo, I think some X60 tablets still had it. The X41 tablet does have the advantage of being about 0.3 lbs lighter, although it's still quite heavy at 3.5 lbs. If you want something lighter, there are slate tablets running Windows 7 that weigh less than 2 lbs. Many Windows 8 slate tablets are coming out in the next few months although all of them will be well over $300.

[Markell1991]

Thanks guys. When you say the X41t's hard drive is slow, how slow are we talking? I only want to use it for Microsoft Office, making notes in lectures etc, and websurfing. I only really want to have Windows XP, but if you think the X60/1t is just easier to live with then I'll probably go with that. What's the deal with Windows 7 in a tablet? Is it easy to set up or is there a lot of faffing to get it to work?

[ajkula66]

Windows 7 is not supported by X41/T. The graphics driver is missing, and the lag - even if you were to use a SSD or a newer ZIF hard drive - can be rather painful.

On the other hand, X60T and X61T support W7 fully and everything works out of the box. At today's prices, there's no reason not to get one of them.

[twistero]

What are you looking for? You are looking for this! http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=103081

I can't comment on the speed of the original 4200rpm hard drives because I never used them. It is said to be veeerrrrrrryyyyy slooooooooowwww though. But with an SSD, the system feels quite responsive, and only lags slightly with heavy tasks like 10+ tabs in Firefox. I mainly used OneNote 2010 on it for taking handwritten class notes, and it felt quite smooth overall.

Of course, the newer X60/61 tablets offer dual core CPUs, more RAM, SXGA+ screens instead of XGA, and a Windows key on the keyboard, which are the reasons why I switched over to a X60 tablet. But for MS Office work, the X41 should be sufficient. Also, the X41 tablet feels much sleeker in hand for some reason.

X41 does not officially support Windows 7, but I got it to work with no issue. XP drivers for the 915GM video chip works perfectly under 7, no problem with screen rotation or sleep. (The previous generation, 855GM, is a royal pain to get working under 7.) Pretty much all drivers can be found via a simple Windows Update.

[Tasurinchi]

What's the deal with Windows 7 in a tablet?

It's more about Win7 itself. It's more stable, safer and even faster than XP. And when installing it in a X6xT mostly everything works out of the box.

[Raceboy]

The graphics driver is missing, and the lag - even if you were to use a SSD or a newer ZIF hard drive - can be rather painful.
.

I found a Windows 7 GMA900 driver from Windows Update and it works perfectly. Also with SATA conversion+1.8" SSD the machine is really snappy.

Only drawback (or not?) is that there is no Aero glass available on X41/T.

[pianowizard]

Thanks guys. When you say the X41t's hard drive is slow, how slow are we talking? I only want to use it for Microsoft Office, making notes in lectures etc, and websurfing.

Web surfing isn't as easy as it used to be, and watching videos can be a struggle even on some Core Duo machines with 7200rpm HDD. My suggestion is, get an X41t only if it would cost you < $150.

I only really want to have Windows XP,

XP has at least two problems. First, Microsoft will stop releasing security updates for it in April 2014, and second, my understanding is that XP doesn't work as well with tablets as Vista or 7. These problems, together with the X41t's performance limitations, make the X60/61 tablets a much better choice. But like I said, are you sure you want a laptop tablet, when there are so many much lighter and much more portable slate tablets around? If you can live with the Android OS, there are tons of choices available. If you must stick with Windows, you still have several good, not-too-expensive slate tablets to choose from e.g. the Fujitsu Q550 and the HP Slate 500. If you can wait for a couple more months, you will have a lot more Windows slate tablets to choose from. Some of the Windows 8 RT slate tablets may be quite affordable, like $399.

Laptop-style tablets never caught on no matter how hard Bill Gates pushed them. I had an X41t and an X61t several years ago and sold both after just several days, because I disliked them so much. Slate tablet plus a Bluetooth keyboard is the way to go.

[ajkula66]

I found a Windows 7 GMA900 driver from Windows Update and it works perfectly. Also with SATA conversion+1.8" SSD the machine is really snappy.

Interesting.

Between yourself and twistero stating the same thing, I guess I'll have to reconsider my statement above and dig a bit deeper. The lack of graphics driver is the only reason I still have XP on my T43F with Intel graphics...

[Tasurinchi]

Between yourself and twistero stating the same thing

+1 here, my X41T with 2GB RAM and a ZIF HDD runs Win7 Ultimate very well. Getting the video drivers to work is tricky but possible. Apart from that the rest of the tablet features was working ootb...

Back to the OP's question, for the $300 I'd jump directly to an X60T... I've heard they're getting very cheap on UK Ebay. You can also check the Marketplace at this forum as well as the Marketplace at the German Forum, (since you live in Maastrich I think shipping costs from Germany will be cheap)

[Markell1991]

Thank you everyone for your help, this forum has so many experienced and knowledgable members!
I mainly want the laptop for general use, I'm not too fussed about all the nuances and slight differences of all the models
Even though I said $300, I wouldn't look too spend all of that on an X41t. I've heard a lot of good things about both the X41, 60 and 61t so it's basically my arbitrary criteria which will determine which one I will get.

[AGoodSolution]

Thank you everyone for your help, this forum has so many experienced and knowledgable members!
I mainly want the laptop for general use, I'm not too fussed about all the nuances and slight differences of all the models
Even though I said $300, I wouldn't look too spend all of that on an X41t. I've heard a lot of good things about both the X41, 60 and 61t so it's basically my arbitrary criteria which will determine which one I will get.

The 4,200 RPM drive is unusably slow, the XP 2005 Tablet PC factory image takes nearly three minutes to boot. Linux doesn't invigorate the slow drives either because it is just slow hardware. An 4,200 RPM iPod HDD is faster than the ThinkPad Hitachi.

Optimizing the OS by disabling every service even the Workstation and Server and uninstalling everything still requires about 2 1/2 minutes to start from boot.ini to secure channel.
Using MS office on that hard drive will make you type profane documents from all of the frustration.

The SSD options and adapters are too numerous too list here.

Since no one has posted the warning about X41's with the jumping cursor issue.

Google has over 200,000 results on the topic but ThinkWiki has a great page about it including undervolting parameters.

http://www.google.com/search?q=x41+jumping+cursor

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problems_ ... ing_cursor

The problematic systems aren't as commonplace because IBM was aware of the issue and just promptly instructed complaining owners to return the systems for a no questions asked replacement.

If you still find a compelling X41Tablet for sale, ask the seller if it is an afflicted model and ask it was replaced. If the owner seems clueless or suspicious, ask them to open Calculator from XP and enter 999999 (six nines) to expose the defective CPU.

The issue arises from a defect or incompatibility of the Intel CPU with the motherboard, it isn't clear since IBM and Intel unofficially blamed each other for but the issue seems to be more prevalent in the 1.5GHz but the 1.6GHz versions have been reported.

NOTE: I edited this post and corrected misplaced "/bold" flags.

[Nprod]

I'd also suggest the X60 or X61 tablets. The 1.8'' hard drive in the X41 is a pain in the butt to upgrade (rare form factor) and the integrated GMA900 graphics are pretty slow by today's standards - it doesn't even support DirectX9.0c, only DX9.0 and OpenGL 1.4. If you're keen on the IBM logo (i know i am ) you can always buy a sticker off eBay and replace the current one. Also, the X61T unofficially supports a maximum of 8GB DDR2 memory instead of the stated 4GB (but XP can't use more than 3.2GB...).

Contrary to popular belief, WinXP Tablet has proper tablet support. The problem is rather that most copies of it are old - you have to find an .ISO and use something like nLite to slipstream ServicePack3 into the installation CD. My X61T was sold to me with a copy of Win7 on it, but i quickly reverted to a custom XP Tablet SP3 and it has been most awesome.