X60 or X61 [PIC]

[Eudoxus]

I consider buying a second-hand X61s or X60s for portable use as my T61 seems too have for that. I looked on e-buy and and noticed that X61 being a newer model is a bit more expensive than X60. How do you think, is difference in price worth to pay? What are the main advantages of X61 (except of being a bit faster)?

[ZaZ]

The X60 runs cooler and is less noisy. That's worth more in my opinion than any performance increase the X61 would give you. They best reason to get the X61 is if you want to use more than 3GB of memory. 3GB is the limit for the X60.

[Eudoxus]

Thanks!
What about materials used, construction of case, screen etc. Are there any considerable differences between those machines in this regard? As far as I can see form pictures they look identical.
Another thing - what are the main differences between s and non-s models except that they use different CPUs?

[Cunha]

Materials and construction are basically identical.

X6Xs versus X6X non S difference is mainly just the processor.

My X61s almost never has the fan on and when it is on, it is not loud. Some X61's i have heard are loud. They can be significantly faster and use newer chipsets. Basically the X61's are better but if you do have an X60 you can pretend yours is better for the reasons above.

If you want max battery life from what i hear an X60s pulls more than an X61s and it only makes sense, having a slower processor. It just depends what you want to do with the machine.

[paul*robertson]

My X61 is very quiet. The reason i bought it over an X60 is because i wanted Vista business. X60's used tend to come with XP. The second reason is you can often find X61's on ebay with warranty left, X60 harder in that respect.
As for quality, both share many parts like the keyboard, do i'd expect not much difference.

[dr_st]

Unlike with the T and R series, where there were major changes in chassis design between the 60 and 61 series, the X60 and X61 series are mostly the same in that aspect (with respective differences between regular, s, and Tablet variants).

As you can see from my sig, I have one X61 (actually my wife is using it). Her major complaint about it is not the noise, but how hot the right palmrest gets. I don't have any first-hand experience with X60 series or with the slim X61s versions, so I don't know if it differs between the different models, but I have seen it reported on all models of the series, so I wouldn't count on it being much different on an X60.

[Eudoxus]

A unit reviewed in X61s notebookreview is said to has a brighter screen (180 nits instead of standard 150). Do you know, whether this applies to all X61s or just to selected models?

And how is Windows 7 on X60? Can it run aero without hiccups?

[QuickBen]

I run Windows 7 on my X60s with 1.5GB RAM. Works great.

[dr_st]

A unit reviewed in X61s notebookreview is said to has a brighter screen (180 nits instead of standard 150). Do you know, whether this applies to all X61s or just to selected models?

Only those that are marketed with "Ultralight" screen.

[Eudoxus]

Thanks everybody for your input. Now I am going to look around the e-buy and the marketplace of this forum for some X6*s machine. Well, I have definitely no objections to a X200s...

[paul*robertson]

Regarding the palmrest, before i got mine i read a lot of comments. Mine does get warm, but i wouldn't say it was uncomfortable.
As for looking on ebay, use this link to check the warranty status. Most sellers should give you the serial number off the bottom.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... rtWarranty

You'll have to change the dropdown to USA if you are from the states.

Re running windows 7. Should be a breeze, mine runs Vista no problems.

[Cunha]

My right palmrest doesn't really get hot at all.

And to clarify things, the X61s's or X60s's are not thinner than normal X60's or X61's.

They have a thinner measurement on the thinkpad website only because of the fact that lenovo considers the 4 cell "slim" battery their standard, versus the 4 cell enhanced.

Only some X6xs's have the ultralight display and it is my opinion that it is hardly worth searching for. It is cool that it is lighter but at the same time I hear the display itself doesn't look quite as nice.

GL with your search.

[v00]

The main reason I bought X61s over X60/X61 was its being lighter. It was the thinnest and lightest Thinkpad before X200s, I believe. It has smaller footprint than X200s (and more screen area, being 4:3).

[Cunha]

v00 - How do you think they reduced the weight on the X61s in comparison to the X60s? I am interested in knowing whether those weight differences can be measured or if they are a result of some number fudge by Lenovo or counting the ultralight screen as standard on the X61s and not on the X60s or something like that.

Later chipset is reason enough for me. Unlimited ram, also being the last generation 4:3 ultra portable.

I would take either though. X60s should be able to get more max battery life.

[v00]

Not sure about X61s versus X60s. Before I bought an X61s, I did a lot of research comparing it with similar models. Light weight was the most important factor for me. After my research I decided on X61s (without ultralight screen), because I've read that it is a little lighter than X61, and has longer battery life due to a slightly lower voltage. So light weight + longer battery life, that's exactly what an ultraportable is meant to be, for me.

Btw my X61s doesn't run hot at all, just barely lukewarm.

[Cunha]

Same here, not even close to hot. I think the issue with heat was with some X61 but not X61s at all. Not even sure if it involved all the normal X61 or not.

[EOMtp]

How do you think they reduced the weight on the X61s in comparison to the X60s?

They did not reduce the weight -- those machines are of identical construction from identical materials (setting aside, of course, the rev. level of the silicone!).

[Cunha]

That's what I figured.

[Eudoxus]

So finally I got a good deal on X61s (model number in my signature). I bought it on an e-buy auction from a seller in Germany. It was advertised as "like a new" and fortunately it turned out to be so. The machine is really like new and is barely used if at all. The only mark of any usage is the fact that slim battery has run about 20 cycles. Everything else is in absolutely pristine condition. It is still in warranty for almost 2 years. It has sweet NMB keyboard and runs like charm. (I have just installed Windows 7 on it and so far cannot comment about heat or noise issues mentioned in the comments above)
The only thing that I do not like at all bout this overall sweet machine is screen. This is really something awful. Till now I thought that the screen on my T61 is a crap. But in comparison to the panel on my X61s it seems almost perfect. The panel on X61s is the one manufactured by Samsung. It is too grainy and due to the poor contrast (I guess that this is the reason) colors look washed out and poor.

Upd: It is surprisingly lightweight and make me feel that my T61 (14") is really bulky machine.

[Cunha]

If it is that bad it could be possible that you have the ultralight display.

I was also surprised how embarassingly large the T61 4:3 I have felt in comparison. It was a tossup between another T61 4:3 for travel and an X61s, but when you feel both there is really no option, the X61 is so much lighter.

[Eudoxus]

No it should not be ultralight LCD. At least according to parts lookup page this is Samsung and that rules out the possibility. Picture quality is very subjective thing. A year ago when I bought my T61 I was really annoyed by its LCD panel. The "problem" was that my T61 replaced R61 with 15.4 WSXGA+ panel which as far as I can tell is currently among the best panels on ThinkPads. Now the screen of T61 looks more or less acceptable and in comparison to that of X61s it is even good. The same goes for X61s. Yesterday after some 2 or 3 hours of use it started to look acceptable. Anyway, as I bought this laptop for mainly office use (mostly word documents and powerpoint presentations) I really do not care if the screen is a bit crappy. As far as I can read it is OK for me.

[gzifcak]

i've never used an x60, x61 or x61s, but my x60s is almost silent, never gets warm, and handles my pro audio demands very well. i'd be hesitant to switch to any of the others, just because it seems like they might tax the hardware just a bit more than the x60s. the x60s is more than capable of handling whatever i demand, short of professional video applications. i could see myself keeping this computer (as my only one) for a very long time. my strategy is just to keep it as is (tweaked xp + certain apps) and never update anything without a clear reason to do so. for day to day tasks like word processing, media playback and web surfing, i couldn't ask for better performance.

[Eudoxus]

I don't think there is a very big difference between X60s and X61s. X61s may be a bit more power hungry but it is still too not enough to make a difference. As far as I am concerned my X61s is quiet and cool. And it got even more quiet after I replaced the stock Seagate Momentus 5400.4 HDD with my T61 stock Fujitsu. Fujitsu is the most silend HDD I have ever owned. I wonder if it is just mine specimen but it is really silent drive.

[Ashley_Pomeroy]

It's an old thread, but these two machines are now hovering at about £100 on eBay in the UK, and I actually have both of them. I needed a pair of cheap but decently fast laptops for my music - one playing, one cueing - and the X60/X61 are basically the cheapest bestest dual-core machines on the used market. Last year The Register did an article on "five amazing computers for under £100", and back then they recommended the X40:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/26 ... page3.html

But they ended with "if you spring for an extra 20 quid, there are plenty of second-hand X60 models around, which is probably the better bet given their serial ATA, faster memory and (most likely) dual-core CPU", and a year later the X60 has dropped in price a bit. Here in the UK the S models are about £20 more, the tablets about £40 more, but a lot of them either don't have the operating system or they have cosmetic defects. I ended up with an X60 and an X61, which I have sitting to the left of me (points). They're both noticeably zippier than my Asus Eee and cheaper as well, I'm surprised they're not more popular. I feel for the people who paid $1,800 or so when they were new, all of six years ago.

On a physical level the differences are very minor. The X61's labels are embossed, the X60's are painted on:


The X60 is an IBM Thinkpad, the X61 is just a Thinkpad, and the screen catch is slightly different:


The X60 has the fingerprint reader beneath the mouse buttons, in line with the middle of the case, on the X61 it's to the right of the mouse buttons. Also, the kink in the X61's wristrest just to the right of the "Thinkpad X Series" logo has vents cut in it, the X60 doesn't have these:


On the bottom my X61 has an extra air vent underneath the left palmrest:


Other that that the differences seem to be down to the individual specification rather than different case designs, e.g. my X60 has the 3G antenna on the side of the monitor, my X61 doesn't (it has a slot for a SIM card inside the memory compartment, but there doesn't seem to be a 3G card), and the X60 has an infrared port, although I'm not sure if this was dropped entirely for the X61 or an option:


EDIT: According to the service manual the X61 and X61s were never fitted with the infrared port.

They use the same batteries, same hard drives, appear to weigh the same, fit perfectly in a Crumpler Gimp bag with the 8-cell battery (they're a bit loose with the 4-cell). The X61's screen is much dimmer and yellower, but the machine on the whole was in poorer condition so I'm not sure if that's a common thing. The X61 definitely runs hotter, with the fan on more often. Oddly though the right palmrest never gets particularly warm, whereas on the X60 it's alarming at times. Build quality seems to be identical. The area of plastic around the volume buttons is equally springy in both machines.

Mine are running XP Pro. I used HyperPi to compare the performance. The X60 has the original 32-bit-only Core Duo; mine runs at 1.82ghz and has 3gb of memory, which is I believe the maximum the hardware supports. The X61 has a 64-bit-capable Core 2 Duo; mine runs at 2.0ghz and has 2gb memory. The results are:

HyperPi, 2m, High Priority, Minimal Services, XP Pro SP3:

X60, 3gb, 1.83ghz = 1.36.976
X61, 2gb, 1.99ghz = 1.08.953

If my maths are correct this means that the X61 would be about 15% faster than the X60 if it was running at the same clock speed, purely when it comes to calculating pi to 2m digits with HyperPi.

On the whole I love 'em both. Little things - having a proper physical switch to turn off the wireless; and the fingerprint reader, which I used once and will never use again, but it's nice to have it. And the Thinklight, which seems silly at first (the screen lights up the keyboard) but again it's nice to have, and it might be useful on an long-distance flight, for example. Or in the cramped cabin of an icebreaker. Shame they didn't put it in the middle of the bezel and make it brighter, or add a second one to light up the right side of the keyboard. Ironically the music application I use actually does benefit from a widescreen display, seen here running on an X60 with a second monitor:



Although the taller aspect ratio is otherwise addictive. Dead handy for reading things, doing work, you know?

[marttt]

Thanks for that excellent illustrated review, Ashley!

I'm on my way to purchasing my first Thinkpad and somewhat undecided between a X60, X60s and X61. So, here's a kind of naive question: at an age of 4-5 years, how noisy can these machines actually be? As I read here, the X61 has the fan on more often -- but does it actually get annyoing? Has anyone of you actually re-sold a used X60(s)/X61 because of this (or regretted the buy)?

Some background: I'm planning to use the machine mostly for writing/browsing, but also for some audio editing. I will probably also migrate to Linux, replacing WinXP with the lightweight CrunchBang distro.

(BTW -- I'm really wowed by this board! Very friendly atmosphere and thoroughgoing discussions. Cheers, guys!)

[paul*robertson]

I have an X61, and it's neither noisy, nor gets hot. I did do a few tweaks to cool down the palmrest, but also over time i think you just get used to it. Lovely machine.

[Raceboy]

The difference between regular X60 and X61 is noticeable but not dramatic what concerns noise and heat but it is huge when you compare either of them to their respective s models.

[marttt]

The difference between regular X60 and X61 is noticeable but not dramatic what concerns noise and heat but it is huge when you compare either of them to their respective s models.

Yeah, that's also the impression one gets after looking around on this board. I am, however, "glad" to hear this as I just ordered a decent x60s from Ebay for £99,99. )

I'll probably share my emotions in a couple of weeks. Thanks guys!

[Ashley_Pomeroy]

One thing I didn't notice - the X61 also has some extra vents over the right palmrest (edit: no, hang on, I did - but I didn't photograph the vents):


This is a bit like pointing out minor differences between early Transformer toys. Since writing the above I've stuck a Samsung 840 SSD in both machines (e.g. the same drive, I installed it in the X60 and then took it out and put it in the X61) and worked out how to do MIDI sync between the two with an Ethernet cable. It seems that the built-in network cards can't set up an ad-hoc wi-fi network under Windows 8 at least. Shame.