Which Windows 7 is right for you
- Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Solid HW, SW Needs some refinement"
Pros: Solid Thinkpad Industrial Design, MS OneNote works well, Nice screen
Cons: No touchpad/Ultranav, Vista Needs Optimization
Summary: I think it is not easy to rate this machine without breaking the review up into three distinct sections: Hardware, Software, Service.
HARDWARE: When getting a Thinkpad, you need to remember what the tradeoffs are. You are buying a solid mechanical chassis at the expense of performance specs and price. For example, my T40's lid has been opened and closed over the years thousands of times and the hinge is still tight and the display doesn't flop around. The lettering on the keys has not worn off and it never skipped a beat even after my bag with the T40 in it fell off a barstool onto a concrete floor. The plastic on the corner cracked a bit, but it was fine. From the contruction I can see so far on the X60 tablet, it looks like they have stayed true to the Thinkpad design approach. Time will tell of course, but the rotating hinge appears solid and the overall construction looks quite good.
Tech specs are decent, but not stellar. I got the Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM, but the video performance suffers somewhat since the graphics processor shares its memory with the main system memory as opposed to having dedicated VRAM like the T series graphics processor has. Normally, I wouldn't mind as much since I have another machine for playing games, but Vista does require quite a bit of video processing.
The Ultrabase works fine, but the two small hooks at the front that help hold the X60 in seem rather flimsy and I bent one slightly when I removed the X60 too quickly.
SOFTWARE: If there are any performance problems with the system, I would attribute it more towards Vista than the system itself.
First of all, Vista looks great no doubt about it. Nice shadow effects, fadeout closing windows, semi-transparent effects, desktop gadgets, the whole nine yards.
The best analogy I can think of for Vista is that it's like getting a really hot looking sports car, but finding out after your first drive that it doesn't go very fast even though you have a huge V8 under the hood because the car is so heavy.
Vista is heavy. As a precaution, I got 2GB of RAM and it still doesn't seem to be enough. When I cold boot the system, from power on to when the hard drive stops thrashing is literally 10 minutes. I'm not kidding, I timed it with my watch. Getting to the login is fairly quick and the fingerprint scanner is a really cool, but during the next 8 minutes after you login, the HD is thrashing and slows down everything until its done. Luckily I spent the extra $$$ on a single 2GB SODIMM so I still have an open memory slot. 3GB better be enough.
Vista still hasn't quite gotten the kinks worked out of the system wakeup from suspend. When I'm at my desk, I use the Ultrabase to drive an external keyboard and large screen monitor. When I resume from suspend especially if I've undocked the system, the display settings sometimes get screwed up and I have to set it right manually.
Finally, the X60 came bundled with Symantec security software. When I first connected the X60 to my network, it would not see any of the WinXP machines I had on my network no matter what I did. I suspected it was the Symantec software, but it provided no obvious way of disabling the security so I could test it. So, I took the leap and blew away the Symantec software and *poof* I could suddenly see all my other computers.
SERVICE: When I ordered the system from Lenovo, the LCD was on backorder so it took longer than usual to process my order. When I called Customer Service, they picked up quickly and were very professional and explained the situation.
When the system was ready, Lenovo sent it by UPS Express without me even asking for it, and it got to me from China in two days free of charge. That gets brownie points from me.
BOTTOM LINE: The HW and Service definitely gets my vote. However, if you can get it with WinXP Tablet instead of Vista, I would go that route if I could do it all over again.
Vista is certainly very visually appealing, but it puts too much demand on the system resources and many applications don't fully support all the bells and whistles yet.Updated
After using this machine for just over a month now, I can say that I definitely like the hardware aspect of this system. It is at least 2 lbs lighter than my T40 and with the 8 cell battery, I can get 3.5-4 hours of use. The WSXGA screen is very nice and the tablet/pen and MS OneNote work great.
A lot of the supporting software is another matter... I posted my findings on one of CNET's forums, but the long and short is that the ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery utility that comes activated by default uses up a TON of HD space. I'm not talking 5-6GB, it was using up over *30GB* on my HD for backup files. Also, Vista's file indexing system appeared to be slowing the boot/login process.
So, I stick by my rating and it's a good solid machine, but here's what I recommend:
1) Turn off Windows file indexing
2) Leave Windows System Restor ON (will use 4-8GB)
3) DISABLE ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery and delete the R&R Backup files because they use up way too much space. Just get a NAS drive and file sync your work onto it for a backup.
