I recently got my hands on a 2nd hand Thinkpad x61s for $250 bucks, which might seem a lot for such an old machine. (about 5 years since it came out) But it's a great little PC and it's worth every cent. Sadly, the deal was to let my mum have the machine. But it is so nice that I actually want to bring it to school instead.
Which might be a little problematic to answer to my dad. We'll see about that.
Model: X61s 7669-88UOperating System: Vista Business 32 Bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz L7500 4MB L2 Cache 800MHz FSB
Chipset: Intel i965M
Memory: 2GB DDR2 PC5300 2 Slots, 0 Open 4GB Max
Hard Drive: 100GB 7k100 Hitachi 7200RPM (HTS721010G9SA00)
Screen: 12” XGA UltraLight 1024x768 180 nits
Graphics Card: Intel X3100
Wireless: ThinkPad B/G
Inputs: 88 Key Keyboard, PointStick with UltraNav Buttons
Buttons: Power, ThinkVantage, Power Up and Down, Mute, and WiFi/Bluetooth On/Off Switch
Ports:Three USB Ports – One Left Side, Two Right Side
Four Pin FireWire
Ethernet and Modem
VGA Out
Headphone and Microphone Jacks
Slots:SD Card Reader
Express Card Slot
Dock Connector
UltraBase
Modular Hitachi-LG GSA-U10N 8x DVD+/-R/-RAM
Four USB Ports – Two Left Side, Two Rear
Modem and Ethernet Ports
Headphone and Microphone Jacks
Parallel and Serial Ports
VGA Out
Two Front Speakers
Security Lock
Battery : Eight Cell
Dimensions With Eight Cell Battery:Width – 10.5”
Depth – 9.4”
Height – 0.8”(Front) / 1.4”(Rear)
Weight: 3.3 Lbs
Oh yes, it's a 4:3 ratio screen. It has been years since I've played with one. I also switched out the hard drive for my VAIO's old 500GB hard drive.
I've installed 3 operating systems on it, Windows 7 Ultimate, Ubuntu and Backtrack. With the other 2 being Linux distributions. I won't go in too much about the Linux since I haven't explored too much yet and that is for a post another day. This laptop is, however, really splendid with Windows 7. With just normal web surfing and chatting, the battery could last over 6hours. Sure, modern day ultrabooks could do that, and they have so much more power underneath, but I really don't need all that power.
What I need is a decent laptop, that is light, doesn't generate a lot of heat, doesn't make a lot of noise, and has a good battery life. This pretty much fulfills all of the criteria. The only gripe I have is the location of the fn and ctrl keys
I hate this, I use the ctrl key
very often and hitting it wrongly all the time makes me wanna tear my hair out. Oh wait, this laptop doesn't have a touchpad either, so I have to use the red
nipple joystick pointing device.
It does have a very nifty trick up it's sleeves. A reading light. No kidding.
 |
| Left: No light | Right: Lights! |
Why don't every single laptop include this?! It's freaking ingenius. Of course, keyboard backlighting is way cooler and useful, but still, it's a laptop with a lamp!
Well, I've been tweaking Windows 7 on it extensively, Making sure that no resources will be wasted, getting it as fast as I possibly can. Sure, it isn't anywhere near a Core i series laptop, but it's fast enough for most of the daily activities. Speaking of which, I managed to get the boot times to [inserts boot timing], which is pretty good for something like this.
I'm going to keep experimenting with it, writing random posts as I discover new things. Let's see how things go, shall we?
Labels: awesome, computers, fun, geek, historical, lenovo, lordofgeeks, rant, thinkpad x61s
