I’ve got a 4 year old IBM ThinkPad X31 which served me very well. But it’s time now for a new notebook. I want something as small as my X31. It should be affordable but ideally have a better display. Yesterday, Lenovo announced the new ThinkPad X300. Hot!
It’s interesting to compare the X300 to the X61 and the MacBook Air. I’ve looked at the Sony VAIO TZ, too. It’s really cool but too expensive for my taste.
| Comparison | Lenovo X61 (7673-J5G) |
Lenovo X300 | Apple MacBook Air |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | 2.4GHz (T8300, 45nm Penryn, 35W) |
1.2GHz LV (SL7100, 65nm, 12W) |
1.6GHz LV (65nm Merom, 20W) |
| Display | 12.1″ 1024×768 | 13.3″ 1440×900, LED | 13.3″ 1280×800, LED |
| Display connector | VGA | VGA | DVI |
| Hard drive | 160 GB HD (5400rpm) | 64 GB SSD | 80 GB HD (4200rpm) or 64 GB SSD |
| Battery | replaceable | replaceable | fixed |
| DVD drive | no | yes, drive bay can serve as additional battery slot | no |
| Networking | Gigabit LAN, WLAN abg, BT, Modem | Gigabit LAN, WLAN agn, BT, (WWAN/WiMax), (WUSB) | WLAN abgn, BT |
| Peripherals | 3 USB, 1 Firewire, 1 PC Card | 3 USB | 1 USB |
| Mouse | TrackPoint | TrackPoint & TouchPad | TouchPad |
| Webcam | no | yes | yes |
| Dimensions: | 26.8×21.1×3.50mm | 31.8×23.1×2.34mm | 32.5×22.7×1.94mm |
| Weight | 1.41kg | 1.13-1.34kg | 1.36kg |
| Price | ~ CHF 2400 | ~ CHF 3800 | ~ CHF 2450 ~ CHF 4500 (SSD & 1.8GHz) |
| Availability | April 2008? | March 2008 | now |
At the moment, there’s no way around the insanely expensive SSD in the X300. IMO, the CPU could also be a little faster, but it seems to be a trade-off with battery life as the primary battery is smaller than the Air’s fixed battery.
What does this mean for me now? The Air? Eeek, no! I just can’t do without a decent keyboard and a TrackPoint. And I simply can’t stand OSX’s window manager. Windows XP is still the least of all evils. And yeah, I’m a ThinkPad fan, so it’s either the X61(s) or the X300. If Lenovo just offered an X300 with a normal 5400rpm hard drive… But then, the SSD compensates a lot of the performance difference to the Air and with that lost, there’s no fun anymore. That means I’ll probably wait for the X61 with the T8300 CPU. After all, I prefer „small“ to „thin“.
BTW, after a long wait and ultimately finding out that the X61 with the T8300 is only built on order (Lenovo, you’re not clear enough about that!), I finally got my X61. It doesn’t feel as robust and well built as my old X31 but makes a good first impression. Now I only have to find out why only 5% of the Internet requests make it through the wireless connection. And I really have to consider downgrading to WinXP as Vista eats up memory and is unbelievably slow.