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Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Review

Posted by John Pastor • March 9, 2008 • Printer-friendly • Feed • Share

Lenovo ThinkPad X61

Lenovo recently sent me a review unit of the ThinkPad X61, one of their ultraportable notebooks in the ThinkPad lineup. It's thin, light, and has the ThinkPad features we've come to love, but is it missing anything?

Inside the X61 we received is a fast Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 processor running at 2.0GHz and 2GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory. It also has a gorgeous 12.1" XGA 4:3 aspect ratio display and a 160GB 5400RPM hard drive. The X61 has support for 802.11a/b/g wireless networking in our model, and other models are available with 802.11n. Our model included an 8-cell battery and Windows Vista Business. There is no optical drive inside the X61, but if you need one you can add on the UltraBase which includes a combo drive.

The X6 UltraBase also allows you to utilize more connections such as USB, ethernet, and VGA video-out and allows you to dock your notebook when at your desk for the ultimate in portability. Like most ThinkPads, the X61 has a built-in fingerprint reader, but unlike most ThinkPads, it only includes a pointing stick. Trackpad users may want to purchase a small notebook mouse.

Lenovo ThinkPad X61

In terms of performance and in our benchmarking, the ThinkPad X61 performed beyond our expectations after reviewing the HP Compaq 2510p earlier this month. The X61 received a score of 2398 PCMarks in PCMark Vantage testing, and a score of 3800 in CINEBENCH using both cores. A 1.85 speedup over the single core test. We were also impressed with the battery life of the 8-cell battery inside the X61. We received around 4 1/2 hours of battery life.

A slight caveat we had was that the display was non-widescreen (4:3 aspect ratio), and only had a 1024x768 resolution. In this widescreen world we live in today, the X61's screen felt outdated. If you want to play DVDs on the X61, be ready to shell out the cash for the $199 X6 UltraBase add-on.

Overall, the ThinkPad X61 is an excellent notebook for the road warrior looking for an ultra-portable notebook with a slew of ports and extra features.

Pros

  • Excellent battery life.
  • Docking station adds extra connectivity.
  • Fairly lightweight design.
  • Doesn't use slower ULV processor.
  • Lots of wireless connectivity options (WWAN, WiFi).

Cons

  • No optical drive built-in.
  • No trackpad.
  • 4:3 aspect ratio display felt outdated.

Final Verdict
4.5 out of 5 stars.



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