x300 thoughts

[phr]

There have been some x300 price drops with the x301's introduction, and there are a few units in Marketplace that are pretty affordable, not that much more than an x61. Here are the thoughts I get of the x300 based on specs and reviews (I haven't seen an actual unit), comments are welcome:

1) The x300 has a thin slot holding either a fragile, exotic 7mm DVD burner or an extra battery. DVD burners are less useful than they used to be (8gb USB flash stick is under 20 bucks) so I think they should have gotten rid of that slot.

2) On the other hand, the 64gb ssd is very expensive and may not have enough capacity to satisfy. It is a 1.8" unit and I think it would have been better to make space inside for a 2.5" hard disk. Does anyone know if an Ipod-style 1.8" hard disk (preferably 2 platter, i.e. 160/240gb) can be installed in the x300 in place of the ssd?

3) I hear the screen isn't the greatest (washed out color) but I'm ok with that, I'm into text not graphics.

4) Displayport doesn't seem that important unless it supports dual link dvi, which the current new thinkpads don't.

5) The x300's (and x61's) ddr2 memory is actually superior to the ddr3 memory of the newer models. DDR3 is a few percent faster but around 3x as expensive and not available in such high capacity (4gb sodimm modules are available in ddr2 but not ddr3).

6) I do like the x300's extra screen resolution compared with the x61's.

I'm not trying to buy one of these machines with any urgency since for a travel machine my old X40 still pretty much fills my needs. But the new machines are much more powerful and the prices are kind of tempting. I think of getting one (x61 or x300) before they are discontinued completely, since I don't like the x200/301/400/500 series as much.

[aaa]

2) On the other hand, the 64gb ssd is very expensive and may not have enough capacity to satisfy. It is a 1.8" unit and I think it would have been better to make space inside for a 2.5" hard disk. Does anyone know if an Ipod-style 1.8" hard disk (preferably 2 platter, i.e. 160/240gb) can be installed in the x300 in place of the ssd?

It has a 1.8" SATA disk. I believe the ipods use PATA disks. So it is possible, there just wouldn't be as big of a selection.