Summary

Lenovo is known for making some of the best business notebooks money can buy, and the ThinkPad X61s continues this proud tradition. This sub-4lb. notebook is packed to the gills with next-gen technology and offers surprisingly blazing performance, impressive battery life and loads of useful features. Though its thin-and-light stature is not for everyone, and the optional dock is required for full functionality, the X61s is a road warrior's dream come true.

Full Review

Features and Design

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.

Under the Hood

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. 

Ports and Connectors

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 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 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 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 Lenovo Thinkpad X61s with optional 8-cell battery installed

 

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).

 

The right side of the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (with docking station)

 

The left side of the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (with docking station)

 

The Big Screen

The X61s ships with a 12.1” display, and unlike most notebooks these days with a fancy widescreen aspect ratio, this one is kicking it old school with a 4:3 ratio and a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768. The screen looks decent, but we’ve gotten so used to widescreen, glossy displays that the X61s’s seems a little small and, well, kind of bland. There is no integrated webcam, but Bluetooth support is an option that is available.

Onboard Video

The X61s sports the ubiquitous Intel onboard graphics, care of the 965 Express chipset. While desktop replacement notebooks need high-powered graphics cards for gaming, thin-and-lights such as the X61s need just a basic onboard solution, and we had no issues with Intel’s onboard chip. We were able to play casual games like Chuzzle, but didn’t even bother with hardcore 3D games, as we know from past experience that Intel onboard is not capable of running anything but the most lightweight 3D applications.

Battery Life

With any thin-and-light notebook, battery life is paramount, and the X61s offers multiple battery configurations to satisfy even the most hardcore road warrior. According to Lenovo, its 4-cell prismatic battery is good for 3.1 hours, the 4-cell cylindrical unit offers 4 hours, and an 8-cell double-wide model offers 8 hours of battery life. If you buy the extra battery that locks onto the X61s’s tummy, you can supposedly get around 12 hours of battery life.

Spec sheet aside, we tested the X61s in the “real world” and found that when performing rudimentary office tasks such as e-mail, web surfing, and listening to music, its 8-cell battery was able to squeeze out 3 hours and 50 minutes of battery life at half brightness, which is decent, but not even close to the battery’s reported 8-hour life. Perhaps if we just turned it on, but didn’t use it for anything, we could achieve the reported battery life.

What is most likely is that Lenovo is taking something called Battery Stretch into account, which can be enabled when the battery gets low. It puts the notebook into ultra-low power usage mode, dimming the display, shutting off the wireless radio, and so forth. We enabled it when our battery got down to 10 percent, and it claimed we’d be able to work for another 49 minutes on just that amount of juice, which is impressive. However, not being able to access the internet, hear audio, or use an optical drive makes this mode impractical for work scenarios. It would be useful in an emergency, though.

Battery Stretch Screesnshot

 

OS Situation

These days, when buying a new notebook, you can usually get any OS you want, as long as it’s Vista. Though Vista is offered with the X61s — in all flavors — you can also opt for Windows XP Professional, which is fantastic and something we wish all integrators would offer. After all, not everyone wants to deal with Vista’s hassles. 

Touchpad, Or Lack Thereof

Due to its diminutive size, the X61s lacks a touchpad. Instead, it offers the iconic red “nubbin” (a.k.a. TrackPoint) that you use to move the mouse cursor. For some people, this might be a deal breaker, as a touchpad is generally considered to be the best interface for user control of the cursor, aside from a mouse. However, the nubbin is fairly accurate, and though it took some getting used to, by the end of our evaluation period, we were comfortable with it. It’s perfectly spaced in relation to the left and right click keys and makes using the apparatus much easier.

Lenovo Thinkpad X61s keyboard

 

Biometric Security

Corporate security is a big deal, and the ThinkPad includes a biometric fingerprint scanner that you can use to log into the computer, if you choose. When the Vista welcome screen appears, it gives you the option of using a traditional password or swiping your pre-selected finger across the scanner. Once you swipe your finger, it compares it to the original scan and then tells you if it’s successful or “too short,” for instance, meaning your swipe was too short. All in all, it works exactly as one would expect, and we never had any difficulty registering fingerprints or logging into Vista.

X61s fingerprint scanner

Storage

The X61s includes a 120GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive, which is quite spacious and reasonably zippy. Though everyone loves to complain about 5400rpm drives being slow, we’ve never had an issue with them. And on this system, with its 2GB of RAM and dual-core CPU, the OS and applications are very responsive and open almost instantaneously.

Since notebooks are always moving around — and that’s bad for hard drives, with their read/write heads floating nanometers above the platters — Lenovo has instituted a safeguard system that we’ve praised before. Basically, the notebook has a gyroscopic sensor inside of it that senses movement of the system. It attempts to predict sudden movements, and will spin the drive down in order to prevent a head crash. You can actually see it in action, in real time, thanks to the built-in software utility that shows a 3D rendering of the notebook, mimicking its motion as you tilt it and move it. And if you tilt it too fast, you can hear the hard drive click on and off.

ThinkVantage Protection System Screenshot

Wireless

The X61s includes a built-in wireless Ethernet card that runs at both B and G speeds. Lenovo offers an N speed card as well, but it was not included in this unit, so we have no way to test its functionality (and yes, we do have an N router on hand!). It also includes Bluetooth functionality as well, which is appreciated.

Extras

Since this notebook is targeted at Small Business users, Lenovo includes a rather large suite of software tools designed to improve the computing experience, improve uptime, and assist in data recovery. The tools are collectively named ThinkVantage and have been a ThinkPad mainstay for many years.

You can access these tools via a physical button on the notebook labeled “ThinkVantage” or via a desktop shortcut. When you use either of these options, a menu pops up on the left side of the screen and presents myriad options, such as back up your data, defrag your hard drive, download system updates, find wireless networks, get help, and so forth. Most of the utilities are very helpful, with a few exceptions.

 

ThinkVantage Productivity Center Screenshot

 

First off, this notebook comes with a 90-day trial of Norton Internet Security, which is a program we absolutely loathe due to its ineffectiveness and its inherent ability to consume system resources while simultaneously wreaking havoc with network settings and connectivity. So, we uninstalled it, and installed the free version of AVG Anti-Virus. The only problem is there’s a tab in ThinkVantage that runs a virus scan, and apparently it hooks into Norton, because once we uninstalled Norton, the tab disappeared. We’d appreciate it if this software would work with protection suites other than Norton.

There’s also a built-in backup utility, which is handy, but has a few problems as well. When you start the utility, there is only one option, and that’s to “back up my data.” When you run it, it backs up the entire hard drive, which is a waste of space; if the drive fails, having your old installation of Windows won’t do you much good. And, it creates another problem: when you want to restore files, you have to navigate the root directory to find your files, which can be confusing for the average user. There’s also no way to tell what data is in what backup set. You can search for files, but you have to use commands like “*.mp3” to find music, and once again, the average user will not know how to do that.

The updating utilities and task scheduler are very useful, however, because you can set them to defrag the drive and clean up the disc when the machine is idle. We also liked the networking options.

Use and Testing

Setting the system up was fairly easy; we plugged in the battery, attached the AC power adapter, and hit the lights. The first time Vista boots, it goes through an excruciatingly long “detection” phase where it’s doing who knows what, but after the initial boot, things are much faster. By our watch, it required 1:10 to fully boot to Windows, which is reasonably quick and very tolerable.

Once we were up and running, we were amazed at how fast and responsive the X61s was. As we stated before, its 2GB RAM allotment has a lot to do with this, but this system is also running a fast dual-core CPU and the new “Santa Rosa” chipset, which has the fastest FSB speed ever available on an Intel notebook.

We used it like a typical road warrior, taking it with us everywhere we went, connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots, typing e-mails, surfing the net, etc. Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Even putting the system back in the dock — or removing it — takes less than 20 seconds and is easy to do (once you’ve read the instructions).

The cooling fan on the CPU comes on a lot, but that’s not surprising, given how small this notebook is and how cramped it must be inside the chassis. It’s not a loud fan, but you can hear it. Overall, we’d say it was on about 50 percent of the time we were using the notebook, which is decent.


Conclusion

Thin-and-light notebooks have always been about compromise, due to their small size, but Lenovo has done a commendable job of getting around those compromises by offering the docking station and extra batteries. This is a notebook that does not compromise on performance one iota, as it’s very fast, which is surprising to see (and feel) on a notebook of this size. Though we think the keyboard feels a bit cramped and the included software could use some tweaking, the overall package is very good. It’s a shame there are not more pre-sale configuration options. Lenovo told us it sells pre-configured SKUs, and that’s that, which is a pity since its competition offers much more choice when configuring a notebook to purchase. That said, the configuration options it did choose were great, and offered all the power and storage we could ask for in a notebook of this size.

If your notebook rarely leaves your desk, this is not the notebook for you. But if you’re on the go a lot and need a thin-and-light that packs the power of a desktop replacement, the X61s is a very solid offering that might break your bank, but certainly won’t break your back.

 

Pros:

• Very portable and lightweight
• Great performance
• Slick features

Cons:

• Keyboard feels cramped
• No touchpad
• Battery life lower than claimed

Specs

CPU and Memory Processor Brand Intel
Processor Class Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed 1.6 GHz
Mobile Technology Intel Centrino Duo
Installed Memory 2 GB
Maximum Memory 3 GB
Memory Technology DDR II SDRAM
Cache Size 4 MB

Storage Hard Drive Capacity 100 GB
Included Drives DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
CD Write Speed 24 X
CD Rewrite Speed 16 X
CD Read Speed 24 X
DVD Read Speed 8 X
DVD Write Speed 8x (DVD±R), 2x (DVD-R DL), 2.4x (DVD+R DL)

Display and Graphics Display Type TFT active matrix
Graphics Processor Intel GMA X3100
Resolution 1024 x 768 pixels

Battery Battery Life 9 hour(s)
Battery Type Lithium ion

Communications and Networking Bluetooth Yes
Modem Speed 56 Kbps
Network Support Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g

Software Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate

Connectors Interface Provided VGA, Phone line, Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T

Warranty Warranty Information 3 years warranty
Base Warranty 3 years warranty

General Product Info Input Devices Keyboard, TrackPoint
Included Sound Card Sound card
Chassis Color Black
Weight 3.3 lbs

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