Maybe I should replace my trusty old X60s with a new X220. The audio went out. Any good or bad experience with the X220?

It's as good as any ThinkPad I've used. On the plus side compared to your X60s, it's got a much better screen and can have two drives with the mSATA SSD, but it'll be a bit heavier.

+1. Further, the battery life is at a minimum double that of the X60s for a similarly-sized battery.

For the audio you can just use an expresscard or usb solution for audio. So you do not need to buy a new computer just for that. Your x60s has the vertical size of around a T520 so take that into consideration. www.displaywars.com can display you the different monitor sizes.

16 hours out of 8 cells??

I have a X220 that replaced my X41 (I still use my X41 for some applications) and I recommend that you buy that one that have IPS screen. Much better colour reproduction and viewing angle then a TN panel or a LCD. The battery life is very good! I can use my computer a whole day 16 h without charging it. Builtin 3G modem is also a good option good to have for travellers like me for example.

When I use the trackpoint the touchpad is automaticly disabled.

X220 docking bay does not have any serial or parallel ports, those kind of things are quite rare today to find on any computer.

The only bad thing on my X220 is that it weight about 1,5 kg and it is on inch wider compared to my old X41 but I got used to it now, and of course. No real parallel or serialports that I mention above. Every thing else is very positive with my X220, the screen is fanastic, the keyboard, trackpoint also and it is very fast with 8 GB ram that I recommend everyone to buy and core i7.

The widescreen X-series Thinkpads are wider than the old 4:3 models, but not shorter (due to much thicker bezels around the LCD). It has disadvantages (footprint) and advantages (full-size keyboard for instance).

The 1366x768 in 16:9 format of the X220 is a bit disappointing compared to 1280x800 or 1440x900 that was available in X200/X201 series, but still better than 1024x768 in the X4x/X6x.

Weight-wise, with a similarly configured battery, the X220 will be almost exactly the same weight as an X60 series machine, but more than an X40/X60s series machines which were slimmer and lighter. The tradition of slim and light versions of X series continued with the X200/X201, but it seems like Lenovo discarded it in the X220. I guess the differences were deemed not significant enough.

My wife used X61 for some time but did not like it being too thick in the back and heavy so I bought her X60s with prismatic 4cell battery (actually two batteries, both new) and she loves it and now demands IPS panel for it

dr_st eloquently summarized the pros and cons of the X220. Over on NotebookReview, I had the exact same discussion with ZaZ over the past few days. While some people swear by it (mainly for its IPS screen and relatively low price), those of us who care a lot about weight, size and screen resolution find it a letdown, especially if we compare it with the last several generations of X-Series Thinkpads. That's why I have never recommended the X220 to anyone, and IMO the X201s with 1440x900 remains the best ultraportable Thinkpad of all time.

To be fair to Lenovo, Dell's and HP's "ultraportable" business laptops recently got heavier and bulkier as well. I was very happy with my HP nc2400, but each subsequent model has gotten heavier and heavier and so I haven't been tempted to buy another HP ultraportable. Dell's current Latitude E6220 is a whopping 0.97 lbs heavier than its predecessor, the E4200. Of all the 12-inchers on the market right now, the Panasonic Let's Note CF-NX1 is the only one that's interesting: 2.34 lbs, 12.1" 1600x900, good build quality, i7 2640m. Too bad in 2012, I can no longer justify shelling out almost $4K for a laptop. Back in 1992, perhaps.

Thinking ahead, when i come to upgrade my X61, are there any models that are widescreen, and trackpoint only.

(ultraportables that is)

Disable the touchpad in the BIOS, and any model becomes trackpoint only.

True, but the touchpadless X series are more aesthetically pleasing.

I have an inbuilt hatred of touchpads, and, if possible, i'd prefer not to have one.

Perhaps, although the new buttonless, flush with the palmrest touchpads are not intrusive at all.

I don't use touchpads, and I disable them on all my laptops, but actually caring about them being there physically is being too picky in my book. To each his own, of course, but you will be forever limiting yourself to old models, since I doubt they will be releasing touchpadless systems anymore.

I think the latest X-series model without a touchpad is X200(s). Some X201 machines may come without one, but I'm not sure.
The X220 does have a touchpad, but there are no buttons below it, and IMO the design is pretty low key and "stealthy". So, if you can train yourself to see that as "just a patch on the palm rest with different texture" instead of a touchpad...

X201 touchpad was optional (mine is trackpoint-only).