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X20 Review |
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| <-Back | Ed. note: I apologize for not posting this review earlier. My only excuse is lack of organized time. | |
| First of all, I would like to thank Bill for making this
conference available for the latest ThinkPad to arrive on the scene. I promised that I would post a short review once he
allocated space on this forum for it. So here goes. I ordered my X20 sight unseen, and only based on specs and some short blurbs I read here and there. I love my 570, and tried the 240 for a short time. The 570 is an awesome portable with no spindles. The 240 is an ultra-portable, with no spindles as well. The main difference between the two is size. The 240 has a 10.4" screen, with a SVGA screen, where the 570 has a 13.3" XGA screen, hence their respective sizes. IBM felt that a cross between the two would be a great way to capture the best of both laptops, in one ultra-portable. Welcome the new X20. As an avid ThinkPad fan, I was anxious to get my hands on this machine. I ordered what was available, which was the Win 98 model, without the mini-pci combo card. It seems that out of the 8 models in this line, only the units that come with the IBM combo card are not showing up in stock anywhere. Two of the models in the X20 line come with SVGA screens, with celeron 500Mhz processors and a 10Gb hard drive and 64Mb ram. The remaining six models come with an awesome super bright 12.1" XGA 1024x768 active matrix TFT, 600Mhz PIII, and a 20Gb hard drive and 128Mb Ram. The main difference in the models is the OS (Win 98 or Win 2000) or inclusion of the combo card. Prices range from $2199 to $3099. I got the X20 2662-31U which comes with Win 98. Overall, I am extremely pleased with this machine. The size (11.8x9x1.2"), and weight (3.5lbs), of this machine is incredibly convenient. Pretty light, and pretty compact. The only conventional port on this is the VGA, and a USB. The serial and parallel port are available only if you buy the X2 Ultrabase slice, which incidentally, is the only way you get a floppy drive, since one is not included with the ThinkPad X20. (I'll expand on the X2 Ultrabase later) Physically, this machine is sleek, thin, and very sexy. A mini A20p if you will. The 12.1" screen is super-bright, very sharp and vivid, typical of screens found on most ThinkPad's. Set at 1024x768, it gives you plenty of room to see what you need to. A nice roomy 20gb hard drive, and 128Mb Ram (expandable to 320Mb with one 256Mb Dimm) and a speedy Intel 600Mhz Speed-step processor, and a 56K V.90 modem which I replaced with the 3com Mini-PCI Combo ethernet card without incident, although I noticed a longer boot time after I installed it. The keyboard is full size, tactile, and very good. The wrist rests are the same as those on the 600 and 770 (painted soft black), and not like the A20p (hard plastic). The X20 comes with only one Type II PCMCIA/PC Card slot (not sure if it is cardbuss, but I can't imagine it not being so) and a compact flash slot, which is perfect for the IBM microdrive without the PC Card adapter. Video Ram is 4Mb, and can support resolutions of up to 1600x1200 externally of course. I found this notebook to be an excellent machine to go mobile with. I use a wireless network at home, connected with a gateway router, to surf the internet anywhere in my home, and it is a perfect walk around companion. Battery life is rated at about 4 hours, but I only got about 2.5 with the display set at high brightness. There are audio in and out jacks on the X20 as well. To expand this unit, you can use the X2 ultrabase media slice, which, adds serial, parallel, and mouse ports. It also comes with an unremovable disk drive. The ultrabase allows for one ultrabay 2000 drive to fit in the left side. The X20 docks nicely to the slice. Alone, the X2 weighs about 1.5lbs. In addition, the X20 can dock directly to either the port replicator or docking station that is available for the A20/T20 series, without the need for the X2 slice. Overall, this machine gets a two thumbs up rating from this ThinkPad aficionado. As you can see, I don't have any complaints...yet. I've only had it a few days, but so far, it's been a pleasant experience. I think IBM has another winner on it's hands. I've always admired the sexy Sony 505 series notebooks, but could never get used to using a touchpad. IBM finally answered with this 505 killer machine. If I had one complaint, I would say a faster processor would have been in order, but I guess that would have meant a shorter battery life. I highly recommend this machine to anyone who needs a top notch notebook, without the bulk and weight of a full fledged desktop replacement laptop. Feel free to ask any questions, and I will do my best to answer them. Hassen Fawaz |