"Need advice" or "x200s or x301?"

[pau]

Hello,

first of all, I would like to apologise. I know the answers to my questions are spread in the internet, that probably after 2-3 days of carefully reading manuals and specs I would draw a conclusion on my own, but I am in the middle of a move and this forum has been just too useful in the past, so that I have to be a parasite and ask you for the information you have already processed.

I have posted in "general" the following :

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=71367

As I said there, I have been running a 10.2" fujitsu siemens 1.6 kg laptop with 1280x768 pix of resolution for many years and also a T41p with a high resolution screen.

I asked:

I am looking for a thinkpad with the following requisites in order of importance:

1- with a higher resolution than 1024x768
2- small in size and light
3- a long battery life
4- if possible, with apm support and not only acpi
5- if possible, with a pad and not only the joystick thing

It seems that I have to choose between the x200s and x300/x301

A bit more of information. I need this laptop just to do "minor" things like using TeX, surfing, connecting via ssh and not much more. I do not need power... on a laptop, I do need power, but in the scale of Teraflops. I will use this machine to log in to some supercomputer to start the stuff I need.
Also, I will be exclusively running a Unix on it., namely OpenBSD, so that I do not need "cool" features focused to gaming or whatever. I will be running graphics only in 2D mode. Battery life is important to me, since sometimes I have to sit in a plane for some 15 hours and I have always teratons of accumulated work.

The x300 seems very solid and nice but I really want something small in size. In this case, of course, the x200 is the winner. But what about noise, battery life and heat? x200s seems to help in this respect. SSD is a point in favour of x300/301 or does the x200s have one too?

I am probably more inclined to the x200s but I had for 2 months in the past an x61 and I didn't like it at all : It was too noisy, the fans would kick in and remain on, the laptop was dissipating a lot of heat and the screen was abhorrent (the resolution).

I have a kind of bouillabaisse soupe syndrome; I think I would prefer the x200s but something in me says "Nooo, the x61 was so bad!"

Please feel free to influence me as much as you would like to.

Thanks,

Pau

Do you have suggestions?

[martin255]

I bought a X200s about five weeks ago, and before that I had a Fujitsu that was probably similar to yours (mine was a T75L, the japanese version of the P7010D). I can safely say than except for the trackpad, the X200s is everything you want - high resolution(same DPI as your Fujitsu), light (1,350kg with the 6-cell battery that can last 6-9 hours), powerful enough to be usable but not a powerhouse, relatively small, quiet when using a hard drive and completely silent if you put an SSD in it. The CPU fan almost never starts if you use TPFanControl, except when playing 3D games, and you mentionned that you won't.

According to what you said, the X200s is exactly what you are looking for if you can get over the lack of a trackpad - and, believe me, after a day or so getting used to the trackpoint you will never miss your trackpad ever again.

There is the issue of the screen, though: the current X series, including the X200s, have pretty lousy viewing angles. That does not bother me but some cannot stand these screens (see other threads in this forum).

[Thecla]

Please feel free to influence me as much as you would like to.

Ok, well you asked for it.

I moved from an X41 to an X300, and I infinitely prefer the X300.

Reasons: I also use a touchpad (more than the pointing-stick); the lack of an integrated DvD drive in the X41 was a defect for me (even though I only used it occasionally, it was annoying not to have one or have to carry along an external drive/docking station when I did want one---on the other hand, the X300 is very self-contained and I never missed my old docking station, just plug in my power, ethernet and mouse and I'm all set); I like the larger screen and keyboard of the 13.3" form factor; the slow hard drive of the X41 drove me nuts (though I'm sure the more recent ones are just fine).

The X300 is, in my opinion, extremely portable. I wouldn't sacrifice the extra keyboard and screen size for any additional portability.
It runs very cool and quiet, as I'm sure the X200 does (not that I have any personal experience of that model) so I wouldn't worry about that either way.

However, that's all about my needs. For you I'm not so sure --- the X300 seems like overkill for your intended uses. If you're not doing a lot of writing and don't care about the extra screen and keyboard size, you don't need an integrated DvD drive, and you can get over the lack of a touchpad, the X200 sounds like a better fit.

Especially since I would categorize the X300 battery life as ok but not great. Without turning the screen brightness down low, which I don't like to do, I definitely run down my battery quite often.

[pau]

Hello,

thanks a lot for your help. I appreciate it a lot.

Martin, the laptop I had was exactly that, an FJS lifebook P7010.

I loved it a lot. Especially the screen. After having 1280x768 on 10.2" I cannot stand lower resolutions.

I have two questions

1- The only x200s which has wxga+ and an SSD seems to be the model 746974G, at least according to lenovo.de:

http://www5.pc.ibm.com/de/products.nsf/ ... eb_express

Is this something international or a german weirdness? How much is this in the US? I have seen that prices tend to be higher in Europe... X$ will be about (X + 20%X) Euros in Europe

2- Is there anybody here who has had an x61 and has now an x200s? If so, could you please tell me about your experience regarding noise, heat, fans etc in the newer x200s as compared to the x61s?

Thanks!

Pau

[csv96]

I have both the X301 and the X200s. Both are great laptops. I wrote several posts about both units here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=70853

Bottomline, if you can afford $2700+, I would go for the X301. If you want to save a bit, a fully loaded X200s goes for about $1800 which is a better deal in my opinion.

I had the X61s before too. The X200s is the direct descendant of the X61s but with better features. I haven't noticed any issues with heat or noise. The WXGA+ LED screen is nice too (though some of this board will disagree because they're use to the old 15" FlexView screens).

[dr_st]

My personal opinion is that WXGA+ is too high a resolution on 12" to be considered comfortable for regular use with applications that don't scale text properly. But that's kinda on a side topic. I do wish that Lenovo would offer regular WXGA as an option on the X200s. Just as I wish they would offer regular hard drives as an option on the X301 (and looks like they are starting to do so).

[martin255]

pau, since you had the same Fujitsu as I did, you may be interested in these pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/m.lafrechoux/ThinkpadX200s

I took them mostly to compare the quality of the X200s screen with the Fujitsu and with my desktop monitor, but it should give an idea of the difference in size. Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures, I only had an iPhone at hand.

[pau]

Salut Martin,

thanks a lot. The pictures do help.

Could you please tell me what the main differences are for you between the FJS and the x200s? It is exactly the same FJS I had, except for the shiny cover in the lid.

If you could give me your general impression about the main differences between the two, I would be very thankful. How do the fans compare? And the heat? Is the x200s notably faster?

Thanks again

[martin255]

Kein Problem Pau!

- The Pentium M of my T75 was beginning to show its old age. It's nice to have a dual core CPU to keep all the programs responsive (for example to keep working while unraring a big file). I can't really comment on power since I don't use software requiring heavy processing power, but the SL9400 is more than good enough for me.
- The X200s is noticeably lighter than the T75/P7010, even with a relatively high capacity battery.
- The Fujitsu was noisy. When the fan began turning, it would stay on for a long time and be really loud. Since I bought a SSD and installed TPFanControl, the X200s is silent. It does not make a peep.
- The T75 got really hot. The X200s does not.
- The keyboard of the X200s is leagues beyond the Fujitsu. I am even considering using a Lenovo keyboard for my desktop.
- The X200s lacks a Compact Flash reader but it's easy to find an ExpressCard CF reader if you need one.
- The fingerprint reader of the X200s is more useful as it can be used before the OS loads.
- Both screens have roughly the same DPI. The Fujitsu had better viewing angles, but the X200s is brighter.
- I stoped using the touchpad of the T75 about a year ago after the left button began having problems, so I had bought a decent mouse (VX Nano). I decided to try to get used to the Trackpoint of the X200s before using the mouse - my VX Nano has been collecting dust since then.
- The best improvement is that the X200s is very solidly built. The hinges of my Fujitsu had to be repaired, then glued to avoid breaking. The X200s does not flex or creak.
- I don't mind the lack of an optical drive in the X200s.

Overall, there are only two things I miss from the Fujitsu: it was smaller and the screen had better viewing angles. That's about it, I hope it can help you choose.

[pau]

So...

I asked in my institute for an x200s and they had by chance an x300, which they offered to me. I borrowed it for some hours and I also compared it to my old T41.

The x300 is looking very nice; it's very similar to the T41 (thin) but when putting the one over the other one, it feels as if it was the same laptop but with a stripe of some 4 cm chopped off. It is extremely light, but the battery was showing a life of 3.2 hours with 92% of it full...

The x300 is really silent. I thought the T41 was silent too, but in comparison it's very loud

I gave it back! and told them to buy an x200s and here I am... waiting

I am sure that more than one will say I am nuts for giving it back but, really, I want something small and with a looooong battery life

I will comment on the x200s when I get it