Docking station

[nebpehtira]

I've been offered an X60 by a family member to replace my current X40. I have a docking station for the X40, which I don't want to loose the use of. Is it compatible with the X60 as well?

Also, the X60 has the 1.8Ghz duo CPU and 2gb RAM, compared to a 1.4Ghz on my X40 model with 1.5Gb RAM. Both use XP pro. When doing CPU intensive work (image processing and video processing), how much of a performance boost can I realistically expect?

All help appreciated

[Harryc]

The X4 Ultrabase will not work with an X60, you need an X6 Ultrabase.

[dr_st]

No, unfortunately the docks are not compatible.

I would expect the performance gain to be between 15% and 100-120%, depending on how CPU-intensive the application is, and how efficient it is at utilizing multiple cores.

[tim S]

I found a very real performance increase betweeen the X40, the X41 and and X60, the S version in my case. No doubt the funky 1.8" 4200 rpm drives have a lot to do with it; but way faster boot times and the general all around snap is obvious.
The docks are not interchangeable but the CD/DVD is, so you might find and empty dock (on eBay) cheaply.
If you use the dock as a dock then that's what you need, otherwise the Addonics CD/DVD, or any other USB player, work just as well.
The only negative is heat build up, more with the X60 with it's full blown processor, but noticable especially on the palm rest, even on the X60s.
Tim S

[nebpehtira]

Thanks for the heads up on the docking station. Will keep my eyes open for an X6 base, or perhaps just a decent USB hub and external DVD-RW. I use PowerDirector 7 and Photoshop CS-3 for image and video work fairly frequently, but mostly use Acrobat for reading, printing and storing large PDF files a lot, and these are areas where I'd hope to pick up some swifter performance, and maybe be able to play a few games too

[PhilD]

Thanks for the heads up on the docking station. Will keep my eyes open for an X6 base...

open your eyes: http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/ca51j0457.html