Good Things: the Lenovo ThinkPad X301 | Hacker News Reader

Good Things: the Lenovo ThinkPad X301

al3x.net

37 pointstwampss23 comments

I've always liked Thinkpads, though recently they've become a bit pricey compared to Dell machines.

At the moment, I'm toting 3.6 pounds of happiness across South America, in the form of an old ebay'd Thinkpad X60. It was top of the line a few years back, with its 1.8ghz core duo. Now it's $350 off ebay, plus $100 total for a 320gb 7200rpm drive and 3GB ram to bring it up to the speed of the dev laptop that I was using just one year ago.

It took some getting used to to run the IDE in 1024x768 (12.1"), but at compile time the thing simply flies. And I know for a fact that my 17" Dell would have been monched a dozen times over on buses by now, assuming my back survived lugging the thing around for this long.

Give the X301 a few years to drop in price, and I'll pick one up as my next "disposable road machine."

I have an x200 which I recommend highly. It was quite a bit less expensive than the x300 when I bought it and more powerful. You don't get an optical drive or a trackpad, but that suits me perfectly. It's a full powered laptop with a great keyboard but is only 12.1" and 3lb.

not to mention that the X200 (X301 too) has got an excellent keyboard and is built like a tank

the only thing I don't like about mine is the poor quality of the screen (low maximum brightness and contrast). for a laptop that's intended to be used on the go, under different lighting conditions, it's a little unfortunate.

I've been using an x60s as my only machine for 3.5 years now. Been pretty happy with it, although the fan had to be replaced and I think my system board is having issues (I get the dreaded ThinkPad beeps sometimes). I've only got 1.5GB RAM though (max on the x60s is 2GB). Perhaps I'll follow your route and eBay myself an upgrade?

Try reseating your RAM modules, if you haven't already. My X301 would beep itself to death every once in a while, and the problem was solved by unseating and then reseating the RAM modules.

I hate tiny touchpads. I wish more PC makers would adopt the larger MacBook size pad. I've noticed HP & Asus among others are moving in that direction on some models. The multi-touch gestures you can do with a larger touchpad can be useful too. The author mentions the MBA getting too hot under a heavy load; Anyone using an MBA should spend the $10 to get CoolBook. It allows you to change the stock voltage of the CPU on MBA Rev A/B/C. The default voltage settings on the 9400M based MBAs are way too high it seems. I was able to knock my voltage down to the lowest setting with 100% stability and a nice jump in battery life and decrease in heat. My MBA barely even gets warm under an extended load.

I just got the HP Probook 5310m (http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/thinandlight/5310m...) yesterday. It's .9inch thin, 3.7lbs and has a more powerful Intel Core 2 Duo 2.3ghz for under $800 (http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/HP_ProBook_5310m/FM997...).

It's thin and light like the ThinkPad x301 but more powerful, and costs less. I recommend checking it out, I couldn't be happier.

Too bad the good things rarely make the news. Even on Hacker News. A top story here seems to be as likely to be a huge controversy as something most here would agree was "good". Not to say there aren't "good" things here, just not as numerous as one might like.

So, a 3rd party says the battery lasts 4 hours, while Lenovo claims 10 hours? Holy crap, that's an excessive difference.

My MacBook Pro actually did better than the claimed battery life, though UT2k4 at 75% brightness took it from rated-for-6 hours to lasting somewhere between 4 and 5 hours. I could regularly watch 2 DVDs straight through at max brightness, and have an hour of use afterward if I dropped it a bit. Can't speak for the Air, but Apple thus far has met or exceeded every battery claim they've made (for my machines).

So, a 3rd party says the battery lasts 4 hours, while Lenovo claims 10 hours? Holy crap, that's an excessive difference.

Well, under his real-life workload. There are probably people that can get to 10 hours, if they only type some documents, don't view any flash/movies, etc.

So, a 3rd party says the battery lasts 4 hours, while Lenovo claims 10 hours?

There are two different batteries available (I think this is true for all X models). One is about double the size of the other and the 10 hours quote on the Lenovo page is "up to", so is the larger battery. My guess is that the original poster has the other one (which is more compact).

[Disclaimer: another X60 user here]

There are several different ways you can do batteries in these things. You can have the normal battery or the fattery. You can also add a battery in the ultrabay spot. Fattery + ultrabay battery would get pretty close to 10 hours.

For those specs, I'd much rather spend half as much on an Asus UL30Vt (http://bit.ly/c9AxMn), though I'm really waiting for the UL30Jt (http://zedomax.com/blog/2010/01/08/asus-ul30jt-hands-on-revi...).

Has anyone tried one of the new ThinkPad T410s laptops? At 14", 1.8kg and with a Core i5 CPU it seems quite a beast. I can't find any reviews that don't sound like rehashed press releases. (real battery life and noise would be interesting)

I have a T400s. Highly recommend! T410s seems to have some cosmetic but nice updates: http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=349&utm_source=fe...

Upd: I don't care much about battery life, it works fine for me. It comes in stock with 6-cell battery which doesn't stick out of the body unlike in previous models. It is very quiet -- previously I've been constantly annoyed by R61 being too noisy. And new T400s has 5400 rpm drive which makes it even less noisy. Overall it is a great laptop, can't think of any disadvantages.

Cool, thanks; I've been tempted by the T400s before, the T410s might just do it for me. I know there's a 9-cell battery available, and you can replace the DVD drive with an additional battery pack, but all that probably drives up the weight. What I'm wondering about is whether the upgrade from Core2 Duo to Core i5 has had a negative impact in terms of battery life and noise.

I'm always surprised when people complain about the weight of a laptop. Even some of my 17" behemoths never bothered me.

It makes me think a better carrying case or a different kind might be more effective than anything else.

Weight matters more if you tend to walk or bike around a lot. Carrying a 6+ lb. mobile workstation from your desk to your car and visa versa isn't much of a burden, but schlepping it around on your back for an hour or more on a regular basis can cause serious back and shoulder pain.

Ergonomics are important when you're either sitting in front of a computer or carrying it on your back for 90% of your waking hours.

For me I normally don't care at all how big, bulky or heavy a laptop is until I am traveling/vacationing.

I like to travel light, so it's nice if my laptop is so light and small that rather than needing a whole bag of its own, it can slip comfortably into a bag I was going to bring with me anyway. Being a cheapskate with high tech standards, my solution was the Asus AS1410 (dual core model). For about $100 more than a netbook, you get a laptop with decent specs that's almost netbook sized, but has a keyboard that doesn't hurt to type on, and a much higher resolution display.

Every day I bike with a 4.5 pound MacBook... which (incidentally) weighs the same as my bike lock. That's 9 pounds right there -- with the right bag, you don't even notice it.

But airports... oh my god. What's perfect on a bike is a nightmare when you're walking, standing, and waiting.

I have a 17" unibody MacBook Pro and while I'm usually fine lugging it around, I've recently grown tired of it. 7 months since I bought it and it's finally starting to bug me - it's only 6.5lbs or so plus an additional 4-5lbs of misc things in my bag, but I haul on my back to and from meetings/my office/coffee shops etc. I barely ever leave it behind.

What I'm noticing lately is that most times I haul it with to a meeting or to get some quick work done, I'm not doing much more than browsing, writing emails/notes and chatting with clients. I've been planning on picking up a netbook, probably tomorrow actually, after I spend another hour in best buy writing a test essay on each keyboard while looking for the best one. I've noticed netbooks becoming much more common as a meeting laptop - in the past month I've seen 2 or 3 and kind of fallen in love with them.

They do what you need them to, the battery can last all day and it's super light so I usually just pick it up and hand it to someone rather than sliding my big MBP around.

I'm really looking forward to turning my MacBook Pro into a desktop replacement - though I wish I had known this before I bought it, I would've just picked up a desktop instead. Would've saved a few hundred bucks.

I use a Toshiba Portege when travelling, which weighs about 1.2Kg, or a little less than 2.5 pounds (for comparison, the MacBook Air weighs 20% more). Weight makes all the difference in the world - a very small backpack with this in it feels almost empty. You can have it casually slung over one shoulder all day while walking around.

And it still has a DVD drive.

Let me put it in different terms. I have a X61. I am glad I don't have a behemoth; when I'm carrying textbooks and notebooks and more for my classes, (backpack weights easy 30-40lbs and I motorcycle w/ it no problem. Obviously weight of my laptop isn't a big issue) I don't have much room left in my backpack for a big machine..

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