Need a travel laptop...

[gcchatel2]

Hi,
I used to hang out a lot on this forum but have been out of it for a while traveling around the world. I have a t42p and I love it. 3 years and still going strong bu I am traveling more and more and need something smaller and lighter.

I travel by motorcycle and bring a regular sized backpack for all of my stuff. I need to start bringing a laptop to work on the road and to download photographs I take on the road. I do web development and need to be able to keep working (albeit locally) while on the road. My work is typically php/mysql apps and I can set up a local testing environment so I don't need an internet connection.

As you can imagine, I am looking for one of the thinkpad x series since they seem to be the most portable. For the type of work I do, mainly text stuff but some photo editing (photoshop cs2, lightroom) which would you recommend?

Thanks for your help!

Gael

[joprodse]

I do mostly office2007 stuff, PS CS3 and some Lightroom editing and it runs smooth and flawless on my "old" X32. So my guess is any of the X60's will do just fine. Just load it up with RAM

[SFWrtr]

I've ordered an X61 tablet. My reasoning can be found in a post in the thread link below.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

I am a heavy Photoshop CS3 user (I like Bridge and Camera RAW). The X61 tablet is roughly 3 times more powerful than my DELL 8500, a Pentium 4M 2.4ghz with 2GB - a desktop replacement. I too am doing more traveling and lightness is a factor (compared to the DELL 8+ lb. gorilla). I am hoping to be able to tether my Canon DSLR to the tablet, keeping the tablet in a tablet sleeve so that I can shoot and download at the same time, then see instant results during photo shoots (even outside using the mult-view screen). And, as a bonus, I can use the multi-touch screen to edit in Photoshop with my finger or with the pressure sensitive pen!

[gcchatel2]

Thanks to the two replies. Ideally I would love the tablet with the SXGA+ screen, it'll take some getting used to to go from my SXGA+ 14" screen to the 1024x768 12" screen.

The problem is that I can't buy the top of the line laptop. I simply don't have the funds right now. I am looking to spend around $1000 for one which is why I am leaning towards the x41 since these can be found for roughly that price.

I have a portable storage device that allows me to copy directly from a card to a hard drive and then read from the hard drive via USB. This allows me to not need a computer for most of the time when I am out shooting. I would probably be buying an external slim USB dvd-ram to make backups with and send home.

Are there any issues with the x41 that I should know about (I know this is the wrong forum). Would I get that much more out of the x60/x61?

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Gael

[MeaninglessNick]

Probably someone with more direct experience can tell you more information, but I find the my x40 OK for most digital photography tasks, but too slow/small memory (which could be upgraded) to deal with raw format photos.

I noticed a significant speed boost running off of an external USB2 5400 rpm hard drive compared to the internal 4200RPM drive.
If I didn't have an X61s on order, I would seriously look into upgrading the drive. I don't know off hand if the x41 has those same slow drives.

[ZaZ]

The X4x al use the slower 1.8" hard drives which cannot be upgraded. speed wise unless you want to get a SSD drive which is very expensive.