Honey I Shrunk the ThinkPad! – The X61 Ultraportable

IBM had an illustrious history of producing small form factor, light weight laptops with the ThinkPad 220 and 230 Sub-notebooks which were produced for the Asia Pacific market in 1993/94, through the innovative ‘Butterfly’ 701 to the stunning 560/570 all the way back in May ’96.

The real breakthrough in a long and illustrious line of Ultraportable came in September 2000 when IBM introduced the ThinkPad X Series. First off the blocks was the X20 which offered an unbeatable combination of light weight, flexibility and power.

The ThinkPad X Series has seen several incredible incarnations, each one building on the success of the other and Lenovo continue with that tradition with today’s X61

ThinkPad X61

The X61 uses Intel’s Santa Rosa mobile processor and it’s still the same light, stylish ultraportable as the previous model. It lacks an integrated optical drive but gives superb battery life and goes to the top of the list for the roadie who wants light weight, but real power.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X61 is certainly aimed at the power business user and the X61 is a laptop geared to individuals who will accept no compromises in terms of build quality and usability. Like its larger siblings, the ThinkPad T Series, it shares all of the same features, including a full-size keyboard.

Honey I Shrunk the ThinkPad!

The X61 looks really does look as if Lenovo took a ThinkPad T61 and shrunk it down when they designed the X61. Although it is much smaller than its T Series counterparts, it is every bit as fast. All your really losing is weight and bulk and that’s great when you’re negotiating Airport Security!

This is the only ThinkPad we have seen recently that doesn’t require you to remove the wrist rest to upgrade the memory.

Both memory and the Hard Drive can be accessed via panels on the underside, which is great for the serial up-grader.

Everything about the X61 “full-size” keyboard is amazing. It’s just like using a keyboard on a T60 and T61 with only the outer keys being slightly smaller. Once you get used to the apparent ‘closeness’ of the screen, it’s really superb to type on and the feel is same legendary ThinkPad. The only thing you may miss is the UltraNav. All you get with the X Series is the little red TrackPoint, but it’s so intuitive to use, within ½ hour, you’ll wonder what you missed!

The Silver Screen

The screen is well protected and is pleasant to watch from most angles, although it will wash out quickly in bright sunshine. The only real negative are the speakers which lack any real tone, so if you’re a ‘hotel room’ movie buff you’ll have to wear headphones. Once you get the X61 on the X6 UltraBase however the difference in sound quality is staggering, but it’s hardly likely the you’ll be taking the UltraBase in your luggage. The X6 Ultrabase is a recommended accessories however, if you’re using the X61 as a lifestyle machine in a boat, an RV, or maybe a small apartment or holiday home

More juice on the Loose

If you want some real juice then get the extended-life 8 cell battery which will give you over 6 hours of work which is quite amazing. You’ll also find that compared to the ThinkPad T61, the X Series machines recharge really quickly, about 40% faster in fact.

The power adapter is one of Lenovo’s new 8 oz in light weight models which are really great when your packing the machine into an overnight bag or an ‘overhead locker’ legal bag.

Conclusion.

The ThinkPad is the current best of crop amongst the plethora of Ultraportables out there right now, and apart from the Lenovo X300, nothing comes close. That opinion is borne out by all the awards this remarkable little machine has won. It’s the famed ThinkPad keyboard, the incredible build quality and stunning feel good factor it engenders when you use it. You know that you’ve made the right decision to buy as soon as it comes out of the box!

The X61 really impresses with its raw computing power in such a tiny package. With the 7200 hard drive and Santa Rosa CPU it gives fast access times and loads of ‘grunt’, without the ‘hump’.

The power to weight to dollar ratio is just unbeatable!