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This page has three sections. A summary, the review, and the reasons which led me to choose this computer. If you are looking for the details of how to install GNU/Linux on this computer, and how much of it I got to work with GNU/Linux, please see my x61 Debian setup page.
After a few days, the x61 tablet seems to be a good laptop. It is notable not for what it is, but rather for what it isn't. Its only1 exceptional2 features are the tablet and the touchscreen. In terms of speed, it doesn't blow me away. In terms of size, it isn't tiny. But, unlike my old laptop, it:
To top it off, it hasn't yet given me any significant unpleasant surprises.
So, as long as it doesn't seriously break3, I think I will be happy with it.
In much of this review, I compare the x61 to other computers that I'm used to, particularly my old laptop.
Before this, my home computer was a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop, which had a 15" screen, a 900 Mhz Pentium III CPU, a 20 gb 4200 rpm hard drive, and 384 mb of memory. The computer was purchased in the year 2000.
At work, I currently use a Dell Precision 490 115 gb 15000 rpm hard drive, dual core 3 Ghz Xeon with 8 Gb of memory (purchased in the year 2007).
My Lenovo x61 tablet has a 100 gb 7200 rpm hard drive, a dual core 1.6 gHz CPU, and 3 Gb of memory.
So, compared to your typical 2007 home PC, my old home computer is a little slow, and my work computer is a little fast. The specs of the x61 are in the middle.
I've only been using the x61 for a few days now.
My old home computer (Inspiron 8000) didn't feel terribly slow for most tasks. However, there were some common tasks at which it was annoyingly slow:
And there were other things that you would want to be really fast but which took a little bit of time (such as logging in to Xfce, or starting Python or Octave or Aptitude).
And every now and then, the computer would practically freeze up because it was busy with something (like opening a new window in Firefox).
My work computer is the only computer I've ever used that is, by my lights, decently fast at every everyday task (none of the tasks in the "annoyingly slow" list are annoyingly slow; the tasks that you would want to be really fast are; and it doesn't freeze up when it's busy with one thing (because it has a dual core CPU)).
The x61 is not nearly as slow on the annoyingly slow tasks, but it still slow enough to be "annoying" on some of them (particularly loading a big email folder). Most of the things that you would want to be really fast are not nearly instantaneous like on my work computer, but are fast enough that you don't mind (with the exception of loading Octave). It has a dual core CPU, so it doesn't freeze up when it's busy with one thing.
In summary, I don't feel like I never have to wait for the x61, but at least it can open a webpage rapidly or open a new window in Firefox, frequent tasks which were annoyingly slow on my old computer. It's also significant that it doesn't usually freeze up when it's busy.
A humorous footnote: when I first got the computer and it booted up into Windows Vista, I was horrified to see that basic tasks like opening windows were as slow or slower than they had been under GNU/Linux on my old 900 mHz laptop! I even started checking the system stats to make sure there wasn't some mistake, like maybe I had accidentally received a slower hard drive than I had ordered. I was relieved to see that, once I installed GNU/Linux and xfce4, basic tasks were the same speed as my old computer, or in some cases faster. So, Vista seems to be noticeably slower than GNU/Linux.
It takes about 12 seconds from pressing the power button to get the the Grub bootloader.
Vista takes about 30 seconds to get from the Grub bootloader to the login screen, and about 1:30 to load all the preinstalled junk on the desktop after you login (so about 2 minutes total, although if I removed some of the preinstalled junk this would probably speed up). Vista takes about 45 seconds to shutdown.
Debian GNU/Linux with Xfce4 takes about 30 seconds to get from the Grub bootloader to the (text-mode) login screen, and about 40 seconds from the time I type "startx" until the Xfce desktop is loaded and has resumed my terminals and emacs windows. Debian GNU/Linux takes about 30 seconds to shutdown.
Debian GNU/Linux takes about 10 seconds to sleep (hit Fn-F4) and about 8 seconds to wake up. Debian GNU/Linux takes about 30 seconds to hibernate (run command "hibernate" as root) and about 30-40 seconds to resume from hibernation (the computer boots as normal, but then loads a memory image sometime after Debian starts booting).
I've had a 20 inch external monitor now for a few years, which obviates the need for a large screen on the laptop. Because of this, all other things being equal, I would prefer the laptop to be as small as possible (by which I mean, I'd choose a bigger laptop because it has more performance or features than a smaller one, but I won't choose a bigger one just because I want it to be bigger).
This 12.1" laptop passes the dinner table test, meaning that I can put the laptop next to me while eating dinner without me having to stretch to peer over the top of the laptop in order to be able to see my long-suffering girlfriend (unlike the 15" Dell Inspiron 8000, which was too tall to see over unless I sat up very straight like a prairie dog). It doesn't take up a huge amount of space at the table, but it does still take up "a little too much" -- you have to hog a little more than your fair share of table space in order to put the laptop next to your food. Ideally, a laptop would have the footprint of a pad of notebook paper.
One problem I had with my old 15" laptop was that, on airplanes, if the person in front of me puts their seat back, there wasn't room to open the laptop on the tray table. I haven't tried it yet but I expect that the 12.1" x61 tablet won't suffer from this problem4.
The shape is a little awkward. With the docking station attached, the shape is notably awkward -- this encourages you not to take the docking station (and therefore the optical drive) with you. Even without the docking station, the battery protrudes in the back a little bit, which makes the shape a little awkward to carry, and which makes the footprint larger.
With the docking station attached, the computer is fairly thick. The built-in keyboard is a little higher up off the table than even my old 15" Dell Inspiron 8000. So if you use the built-in keyboard and the docking station, make sure that you have a low table if you don't want to get RSI problems.
The keyboard is a little uncomfortable, at least coming from the 15" Dell Inspiron 8000. The keys feel like they are a little small, and the Fn key is where I am used to the Cntl key being (on the Inspiron 8000, the Cntl key is all the way on the left on the bottom row, and the Fn key is to the right of it -- on the x61, the Fn key is in the leftmost position), and the Cntl and Alt keys are the same size as normal keys on the left, and extra small on the right (bigger keyboards have extra large Cntl and Alt buttons on both sides). Of course, if you want a small computer, there's no getting around a small keyboard. The solution is just to use an external keyboard.
I don't care about laptop weight that much, so I haven't been paying much attention to that. It is certainly lighter than the Inspiron 8000, but it's not so light that it's like carrying a paper "notebook". Weightwise, I guess it feels like carrying a moderately heavy textbook.
In summary, although it wasn't something I needed or even expected, I was hoping that the switch from a 15" to a 12.1" laptop would give me a machine that was ridiculously small and convenient, which you would take everywhere just because it was so easy to do so; a machine that actually justified the usage of the term "notebook" rather than "laptop". This didn't quite pan out; the 12.1" x61 tablet is indeed much more convenient than my old 15" laptop, but it's not as convenient as, say, a thick 8.5 x 11 book. On the other hand, I'm not disappointed there; as I said, ultimate convenience would have been a nice bonus but it was not really expected (I am well aware that no computer today is capable of being as small as a book and simultaineously so fast and capable that you never notice a delay in any basic task -- still, that's the ideal, and in a decade we'll probably have it).
If you want a computer that is so small and convenient that you find that you take it everywhere, just because you can, I'd recommend the OQO. I have an OQO model 01+ (review and GNU/Linux tips here), and I just wear cargo pants all the time and take it in my pocket.
I tried reading in bed with the x61 in tablet configuration, but it was awkward. The most important flaw was that, if you are lying down with the x61 propped up on its side, the hand position that you have to use to either press the page-down button or to use the pen is uncomfortable. I get the feeling that over a lot of use, this motion would contribute to RSI. Second, the x61 is a little too big. Third, it's a little too heavy. Combined, these last two mean that it's uncomfortable to hold the x61 propped up on its side for a long period of time.
However, the tablet is more convenient if you sit up and put it in your lap or on a couch or table. (the OQO is no better than the x61, here; the OQO is so small that it isn't pleasant to read on it for extended periods of time either)
I haven't run out the battery yet to see how long it'll last. ACPI thinks it'll last about 4 hours when it's fully charged. So, if I bring my extra battery with me, I should get about 8 hours between the two of them (I'll have to shut down, or at least hibernate, to switch the batteries, but I don't care).
When the computer is in its docking station, I use an external mouse, although sometimes I use the tablet stylus too (without converting the computer into the 'tablet' configuration, in which the keyboard is hidden). When I take the computer into another room to use on the couch or at the dinner table, I used to (with the Inspiron 8000) bring an external mouse, but now I find that the tablet is sufficient.
When an external mouse isn't available, the tablet stylus is nicer to use than either a touchpad or a trackpoint.
I haven't gotten a chance yet to use the x61 much in the tablet configuration, because most of what I've been doing with it so far was setting up GNU/Linux, and most of that involved the keyboard. I'm looking forward to browsing the web on the couch or at the dinner table in tablet configuration in the future, however. And supposedly people use tablets to take notes and to annotate PDFs (the "xournal" program allows you to do these things in GNU/Linux), especially when you need to write down math symbols, which take a long time to type. Hopefully I'll update this page with my opinions about it after I have more experience.
In Windows, the touchscreen was disappointing because you had to press really hard to get it to register, and I couldn't find a configuration option to change this (admittedly, I haven't yet searched the web for help with that, though). In Debian GNU/Linux, the touchscreen is not supported yet, although I've heard that linuxwacom has it in CVS (although I've also heard that the support is not that good yet). So, as of now, the touchscreen is effectively unusable in either OS, although hopefully that will change, because I bet that a touchscreen would be better for avoiding RSI than a trackpad or a mouse or a trackpoint or a stylus.
The x61 is very quiet. I didn't used to think this would be important, but my old Inspirion 8000 had a very loud fan, and a rather loud hard drive. The fan was so loud that I had trouble carrying on a conversation with a person who was in an adjacent room, and even the hard drive made it a little harder to hear things. So, I found out that quiet is actually a very important feature for a laptop. The x61 is not so quiet that you don't hear anything at all, but it's quiet enough that the sound doesn't make it harder to hear other sounds.
The x61 does get about as warm as my old Inspiron 8000 did; hot enough that you're like, "woah, that's pretty hot" but not so hot that putting your hand on the wrong spot will cause pain (although the Safety and Warranty Guide says that "Extended contact with you body could cause ... even a skin burn"). The heat doesn't bother me at all, though.
I don't think the x61 looks very slick or stylish, but I don't care about that.
I'm not very good at noticing stuff like screen brightness, and I haven't used the tablet outside much yet (btw, i think the manual that comes with the computer advises you never to use the computer outside! although i'm not sure). Hopefully I'll update this webpage after I have more experience with that.
Although the computer's footprint is significantly larger than 8.5 x 11, a 12.1" screen is smaller than this; so your screen is smaller than a piece of paper. It is a bit cramped; you can barely fit anything on the screen, and when i switch from my external 20 inch screen onto the internal 12.1" screen, i find i have to make many of my windows smaller, because the individual windows (at sizes that seem good for a 20" screen) are already bigger than the entire 12.1" screen (at least in one dimension).
I have almost all of the most important features of the computer working under GNU/Linux. See my x61 Debian setup page for more.
The Lenovo x61 tablet is a 12.1" convertible tablet laptop (notebook). My system has a "multitouch" tablet screen (12.1MV+MT XGA TFT L7500LV), a misnomer which just indicates that it can work as a tablet with a stylus, but it is also a touchscreen. The hard drive is 100 gb, 7200 rpm. I ordered 1 gb memory (in 1 SODIMM) preinstalled, and then ordered another 2 gb from kingston, for a total of 3 gb memory at speed 667 Mhz (= PC2-5300). I got the "thinkpad x6 tablet ultrabase", basically a docking station that includes an optical drive (the x61 tablet does not have an optical drive in the main unit). My wireless card is the Intel 4965AGN. The CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6 GHz L7500.
The base system was about $2000 before taxes, but I also got the "WSP THINKPAD X60 ACCESSORY BUNDLE" (extra stylus and tablet sleeve) and an extra battery ("X60TBLT 8CELL" -- another main battery, rather than an extender battery or an ultrabase battery). The total with taxes, as of mid-august 2007, was around $2350.
For more details, see hardware confiration details of a Lenovo x61 tablet.
I bought the x61 tablet to be my main computer5, replacing my other laptop, which is now 7 years old. It will be used mainly for browsing the web and answering email, sometimes for programming, and rarely for games and graphics.
It will mostly sit on my deskwill often travel to the adjacent room, where I will use it at the dinner table or on the couch. Rarely, I will take it around town or to work. When I fly somewhere I will probably take it with me, although not necessarily.
Requirements:
Strong preferences (in descending order of importance):
Other preferences (in descending order of importance):
The x61 meets all the requirements, and all of the 'strong preferences' except that it does not have a CUDA-capable graphics card (this almost caused me not to buy it, but I decided that I'd have to wait another year if I insisted on that, which seemed like too long), and except that it is 12.1" rather than 126. As for the "other preferences", it's over $2000, the brand name is only semi-reliable (I don't trust Lenovo, but even if they're bad, I don't think they've had enough time yet to ruin IBM), the battery life is moderate, and there are no next-generation display connectors.
I almost bought the Dell XPS M1330 because I really wanted a CUDA-capable graphics card, but it was too big. Also, I wanted a tablet about as much as I wanted CUDA.
If I were buying another computer, I would move "fairly quiet" up to a requirement, because it's such a relief to be able to be able to carry on a normal conversation7 with someone in the next room when the computer is on.
Many of the requirements were satisfied by many computers. The "dealbreaking" criteria (criteria which were both important and hard to satisfy) turned out to be, in descending order of importance:
So, the things that almost prevented me from buying the x61 were the lack of a CUDA-capable graphics card, and a CPU clock speed which was less than 1.8 gHz. I got it anyway because I decided that I'd be waiting a long time if I held out for a tablet with CUDA which costs less than $2600, and because I figured that 1.6 is close enough to my target of 1.8, and that heck, processor technology has probably improved enough over the past 7 years that that's probably twice as fast anyway.
Why a tablet? Honestly, I'm not sure that I need it. But my reasons, in descending order of importance, were:
Finally, I've heard that there is not that much cost to getting a tablet over a non-tablet laptop. I've heard estimates of the tablet-ness adding on the order of $100 and some weight, and subtracting some battery life. I don't care about weight, and $100 and some battery life are worth it for such a huge feature. More seriously for me, no one makes a tablet with a CUDA-capable graphics card10
I didn't buy the x61 to take everywhere with me. I already have an OQO model 01+, which I strongly recommend if you want to take a computer with you everywhere that you go (the OQO fits in a large pocket).
Frankly, the above reasons are perhaps not convincing enough to justify spending over two thousand dollars on a great laptop (compared to a couple hundred for a slightly used laptop, $350 for Dell's lowest-priced desktop, or $550 for Dell's lowest-priced laptop). But if you are going to spend around two thousand dollars on a computer, then I think there are good reasons to get a tablet.
I looked around on the web and people seemed to think that, as of six months ago, that the x60 tablet was the best tablet if you were going to use it as your main computer. Since then, a few high-end tablets came out, but they were much more expensive and the reviews I read noted various annoyances. Many of the competitors didn't have a 7200 rpm hard drive, which I considered a must-have, or didn't have a fast dual core CPU.
The reviews I read about the x61 tablet were generally very happy with it. There were web pages describing how to get it running in GNU/Linux, and these pages said that all of the features that I considered important were compatible.
Footnotes:
1. At least for me. Some people like the fingerprint reader too.
2. in saying that the other features are not exceptional, i don't mean that they're not really good, just that they are not something unusual; literally, "exceptional". I tried to think of a better word but I couldn't.
3. I demand only that it doesn't have any major problems for 7 years
4. Now I think the fault really lies with the airlines, not with 15" laptops. I don't like it when people put their seats back on airplanes ((and putting the seat back doesn't help me sleep on the plane, in fact the only way I can ever sleep on the plane seems to be to sleep on a pillow on the tray table -- but if the person in front puts their seat back, that doesn't work -- so admitedly I derive no personal benefit from the ability to put my own seat back, and never do so, and who knows how I would feel about it if it actually helped me), and so I think the solution to this is for airlines to make the seats not go back. But since they aren't doing that, I suppose we have to just not use big laptops on planes.
5. i.e. a "desktop replacement"
6. not like I would really notice the difference, I just picked 12" somewhat arbitrarily
7. to the extent that i'm capable of, of course
8. Especially if you abuse firefox and keep 20-100 tabs open -- like I do.
9. Even though I'm not sure that I need it? People get lots of computing devices that they don't need. Examples: mp3 players, trendy cell phones, PDAs, graphics cards for the sole purpose of gaming. I'm not complaining, and I'm not saying that I don't do this too, I'm just pointing out that just because some innovation in computing isn't needed, this doesn't imply that it won't be a huge success.
10. for obvious reasons; right now CUDA is only in high-end Nvidia graphics cards, which are said to be large and powerhungry; conflicting with the need for tablets to be small and have good battery life
