All Mt. Tiburon Testing Labs reports

Mt. Tiburon Testing Labs

The ThinkPad X61 by Lenovo

By Ted Pollak

History and Design

The Lenovo Thinkpad X61 WAN Edition (Source: Lenovo)

The TrackPoint and cap selection. (Source: Lenovo)

Before and After: The X61 is so small it fits in a day planner. (Source: Jon Peddie Research)

The ThinkPad brand has a lot of history behind it, having been first introduced in 1992 by IBM and is recently celebrating its 15th anniversary under its new caretaker Lenovo Corporation, who purchased it from IBM in 2005. Its design inspired by a Japanese lunchbox, the first ThinkPad (Model 700) came with a 25 MHz 486 processor, 120 MB hard drive, weighed 6.5 lbs, and cost about $4,350.

A lot had changed since 1992 but the brand (which originally met resistance in IBM boardrooms because it went against the company’s numeric naming conventions) has maintained its cachet of standing for reliability, build quality, portability, usability, creative design, and subdued style.

The X Series are the smallest and lightest of the current ThinkPad lineup, known as subnotebooks or ultra-portables. However the X Series probably most closely represents what the original design criteria for ThinkPad was in the first place—a powerful, but highly portable platform that will satisfy the mobile computing requirements of business professionals.

There are some common design elements to all ThinkPads that have helped the brand earn its reputation. Probably the most recognized element is the TrackPoint mouse controller. Nestled between the g, h, and b keys this pointing device (also known as an isometric joystick) is a very accurate and efficient way of controlling the cursor. In fact, after working with both Apple and HP trackpads recently, I would argue that isometric joysticks are vastly superior to most trackpads. Multi-touch and gesture technologies indeed have promise to make trackpads more useful, but not at the expense of cursor control. A nice detail that Lenovo includes is a selection of TrackPoint caps which have distinctively different tactile feedback.

The size and weight of the X series ThinkPads are perfect for business people who want featherweight portability with respectable horsepower. The X61 (WAN antenna model) weighs in at about 3 pounds 7 ounces on a home scale and has a footprint about an inch wider than Business Week or Time magazine. In fact, because of its small size I was able to convert a beloved day planner to notebook case—and use the three rings for USB sticks and house/car keys. Should the ThinkPad be accidentally dropped an accelerometer can detect the sudden movement and shut down the hard drive in an instant to protect data.

Other widely recognized design elements of the ThinkPad are the Think­Light—which is simply a small led white light at the top of the LCD screen, and the high quality “soft touch” keyboard. The light is seldom used but does come in handy by increasing illumination on the keyboard or for other minor illumination purposes. Fiber optic keyboard lighting may provide better dark environment performance but needs to be analyzed in regards to battery wear, heat generation, higher replacement cost, or impairment of the spill protection system—the ThinkLight provides a simple solution without having to consider those issues.

The keyboard is considered by many to have the best feel of any laptop keyboard in the field and I would concur. I personally find keyboard quality to be so important it helped drive me to purchase a ThinkPad T23 back in 2001 and eight years later the machine is still running strong with all original components.

Processing Power

It’s fairly safe to assume any X Series ThinkPad will perform flawlessly for business productivity levels of processing. However, the little X61 and its Centrino Core 2 Duo 2 GHz processor, Intel integrated graphics with 358MB of video RAM, and 2 gigs of system memory performed impressively for some fairly high-level stuff in the multimedia space and gaming area.

Using a Pinnacle USB HD Stick and its included mini antenna, I was able to pull up crystal-clear high definition coverage of the Super Bowl with no hint of processor lag or pixelization. Just to be safe, I turned off the Energy Star plan in the Power Manager and commanded the X61 to run at full speed while running on battery. It was quite remarkable opening my day planner and within 3 minutes having HD Super Bowl tabletop at the local pub. (Much appreciated by those sitting around me as the sightlines to the televisions were crowded). Based on the battery usage during the time we watched, the system may have run the entire game on one charge. Lenovo, in a recent update to the power management system, has included a “video playback” preset which is nice, given many functions of the laptop could be shut down for this activity.

We won’t tell the boss but the ThinkPad is also a decent mobile gaming platform for what one could call “Executive Gaming.” These are games that do not need rapid control movement, where one could theoretically get away with playing them in a board meeting or similar situation. As mentioned before, the isometric joystick is an excellent pointing device and it really shines in games that require accurate and efficient cursor control like Tiger Woods PGA Tour by Electronic Arts. If one were to use an external mouse, the machine could handle some modern “fast move” games though at reduced performance vs. multimedia focused laptops and desktops.

So, for processing power, the ultraportable X61 can take you from managing a hedge fund, to watching HD TV and video, to the golf course, without even leaving your pool side cabana.

Security

Data and system security are paramount for many business people who carry customer data or trade secrets. Lenovo has carried on the IBM security tradition and even improved on it. The fingerprint reader works very well and actually increases convenience when turning on or waking up the system by eliminating the need to type in a password (not to mention that typed in passwords can either be snooped by someone visually or recorded if a key logger that gets past your spyware solution). But the Lenovo Password Manager really makes the $30 additional charge for the fingerprint reader worth the price of admission because the software will store your username and password for sensitive sites such as brokerage and banking (or any site for that matter). When these sites are revisited, all that is needed is a fingerprint swipe and the login information is entered for you.

The X61 includes a hard WiFi/Bluetooth radio capability switch on the front of the machine so that users can have extra assurance that no one is able to attack the computer when it’s being used in a questionable environment or a high-sensitivity situation. To round out the security solution, there is also an embedded chip and software isolated from the operating system called the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The TPM works in conjunction with the ThinkVantage Client Security Solution to manage encryption keys and processes. It’s reassuring to know that password and fingerprint data does not reside in the system memory or software of the OS.

UltraBase

The X61 can take you from work to HD TV (with Pinnacle HD Stick) to Gaming. (Source: Jon Peddie Research)

The UltraBase docking station is almost a necessity unless one owns or purchases an external optical drive for installing software. However once software is installed, it is very rare to need a drive on a business laptop. The lack of an internal optical drive reduces the size and weight of the X61 and the tradeoff is well worth it.

It would be nice if the docking station was included instead of being a relatively expensive accessory but it depends on how you look at it. The flipside is that the price of the laptop is less for those that don’t want or need a docking station. Most users, however, are going to want to purchase the docking station. It has some nice features and is actually small enough when attached to the X61 to fit into most laptop cases when one wants to have access to all the additional ports and optical drive. The UltraBase with DVD Writer weighs eight ounces making the combined X61 and base package four pounds three ounces. See Table 1 for a summary of ports on both the X61 and the UltraBase; and keep in mind that Lenovo has many submodels for each model of the X61—purchasers should check Lenovo’s website for the port configuration of their specific model of interest.

Table 1 Port and Slot Summary.

The attach/detach system is nice, allowing the user to eject from the base using either software or a hardware button on the dock. I seem to remember my T23 not needing any undocking procedure whatsoever but perhaps I have been unknowingly tempting fate by popping it off the base regardless of the power and processing state. There is a lockable alternative power button on the front of the base which is a big improvement from their previously chosen location for this feature.

Conclusion

The ThinkPad series of notebooks are “all class” dating back to the beginning. I have used numerous models and they are a pleasure to compute with. The Lenovo X61, in the time that I have spent with it, proves to me that the transfer of brand ownership from IBM to Lenovo has had no adverse effects on quality and has probably reduced the price of the machines for the consumer. In a way, this review is a validation of the ThinkPad brand in general because of the many common design elements ThinkPads share that exceed those of other brands. Thumbs Up for ThinkPad—TP

• Back to Top

• More Mt. Tiburon Testing Labs reports