X200 - did I make a good choice?

[Bibin]

After I managed to sell my absolutely useless MacBook Air locally I finally had enough money to buy an x200.

I hopped on eBay and found a sealed unused one for 600! The downside was that it only had 1GB of ram, but lucky me - I have 4GB lying around from my T500 still so I will use that.

Here are the specifications:


Intel Centrino 2 vPro Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz
12.1" WXGA (I don't think it's LED)
1GB DDR3 SDRAM
160GB HDD
Intel 5100 Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
6-cell battery

Does the 6-cell make it thicker?

Also, I purchased the Boe-hydis AFFS panel for 40 dollars in good condition! I'll need to remove the digitizer though.

I Almost got an X300, but frankly I can not see any advantage besides the touchpad and DVD drive (and even then, those are not really advantages for me). Anyone's thoughts?

[chongyixiong]

Wow, that's a pretty good deal you got there!

I'm *slightly* green with envy although I just got my X200 as well.

This is a truly portable machine but I do wish the hinges were more stiffer, not that it is any necessary but maybe I was used to stiffer hinges (came from a Z61t).
This baby is light, powerful and ultimately, one of the better built Thinkpads all around!

Pros:
- light
- powerful, full-fledge Intel Core2Duo processor
- I can't hear anything from the fan, it's pretty quiet
- nice keyboard
- despite what people have been saying, I think my screen's quite alright and slightly bluish unlike others who reported it to be yellowish
- i hate touchpads, get a mouse instead, love the trackpoint!
- does not run hot at all
- Around 3-4 hours on battery with youtubing, surfing, playing flash games and half brightness on a 6-cell. Amazing.

Cons:
- wish the steel hinges were stiffer (my personal opinion)
- Ctrl-Fn cannot be swapped unless with a modified BIOS
- camera quality could be improved
- slight (very) flex on the upper left corner of the keyboard

I know that I did not regret it and I know that you won't regret it!
Is that a glossy or matte panel? $40 is freaking cheap!

PS: Here's a shoutout to Brad on the forums who gave me a pretty good deal on one of these machines, send him a PM if you are looking for one like I did!

[Harryc]

$600 is a nice deal for that laptop. I paid $550 for mine, but it was used and had an LCD flaw, which I did not care about since I bought it to do the AFFS mod. Also $40 for that LCD panel is a steal if it's in nice condition. I paid $160 for a brand new Boe Hydis matte LCD.

Product: ThinkPad X200 7454-2GU
Original description: P8600(2.4GHz)
2GB RAM (now 4GB RAM)
160GB 5400rpm HD (Now a 64GB SSD with the 160GB Drive in a 2nd HDD Adapter)
12.1in 1280x800 LCD (Now a Boe Hydis AFFS - Matte)
Intel 4500MHD
Intel 802.11agn wireless
Bluetooth, Modem
1Gb Ethernet
Secure chip
Fingerprint reader
4c Li-Ion (6 cell upgrade planned)
WinXP Pro (Now Windows 7 Pro 64bit & Opensuse 11.3 64bit)
X200 Ultrabase

[Bibin]

My Boe-Hydis is glossy, sad to say, but at least it's going to be a great panel. I'll pay that price for viewing angles and contrast. Besides, I bet I can sell the OEM LCD for more than I bought the new one for

Harry, where did you fit the second HDD inside the X200 physically? I might install 2 SSDs if it's feasable.

[ZaZ]

Mine's glossy too. It's a little annoying now and again, but on the whole, it's a great screen. They had a X200 on buy.com the other day for $600 with a three year warranty, but once you've upgraded the screen, the warranty is suspect. A worthy trade-off in my opinion. Other than that, I doubt it you'd notice much of a difference in day to day usage between it and a X201. Why pay twice as much for the X201? Harry might have the dock, which accommodates a second drive with the modular adapter, or maybe he put it in a case.

[Harryc]

Harry, where did you fit the second HDD inside the X200 physically? I might install 2 SSDs if it's feasable.

It's in a second hard drive adapter in an X200 Ultrabase.