Lenovo ThinkPad X61s August 8th, 2007 | by Josh Norem
Full Review
Features and Design Under the Hood Ports and Connectors The front of the notebook sports two holes that slide into the optional dock unit, which costs $199 USD and is a must-have, in our opinion. The rear of the unit has no ports at all due to the massive 8-cell battery that was shipped with the system. You can also opt for a 4-cell battery, but anyone considering an ultra-portable notebook should always get the biggest battery available. The optional docking station includes four more USB ports, an 8X DVD-R/RW/24X CD-R/RW drive, legacy parallel and serial ports, Ethernet/dial-up ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and a power jack. When everything is connected properly, you can charge the X61s’s battery through the docking station, though it should be noted that the docking station itself does not carry a battery. However, you can remove the optical drive from the docking station and insert an add-on battery ($119USD), or you can buy another battery that (they claim) is good for another 2.6 hours and attaches underneath the X61s via the docking station equipment ($179USD).
Lenovo is a company that needs no introduction when it comes to business notebooks. The company’s ThinkPad brand, which it acquired from IBM, has always been equated with rock-solid stability and features that businesses rely on to stay up and running. The X61s is the smallest notebook the company offers and is called the “thinnest and lightest” on the company’s webpage. It’s so small, it does not even come with an optical drive, which is a tradeoff most thin-and-light notebooks must make in order to shed pounds and maximize portability.
The X61s is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo L7500, which offers two CPU cores running at 1.60GHz. This model is using the new Intel “Santa Rosa” chipset, which ups the front side bus speed from previous chipsets from 667MHz to 800MHz and offers dynamic FSB down-clocking to increase battery life.
This model was outfitted with 2GB of RAM, which does wonders for Vista performance and allows the OS to be responsive, snappy, and much faster than when running on just 1GB or less. Its maximum capacity is 4GB, so adding more RAM is always an option, though it’s unlikely 2GB will be insufficient at any time in the near future.
The X61s doesn’t have very many expansion ports due to its thin stature. The right side features two USB 2.0 ports, a mini-1394 port, the AC jack, and an RJ-11 jack for dial-up (shudder). 
The right side of the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (without docking station)
The left side boasts an Express Card slot, an SD card reader, an RJ-45 Ethernet port, one more USB port, and a VGA port for using an external display.
The left side of the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (without docking station)
The Lenovo Thinkpad X61s with optional 8-cell battery installed
The right side of the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (with docking station)
The left side of the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (with docking station)
by O on November 8, 2009:
“Tried to purchase an x61s directly from lenovo, but they sent me the wrong computer (wrong specs). Customer service somehow decided that it was my fault I received the wrong computer, not theirs, so it's now up to me to pay for shipping to send it back. The...” More...