Thursday, April 5, 2012

Tinkering with the Thinkpad X1

As the new year passed into February,I had the opportunity to use the thinnest  ThinkPad which ever was produced.While it was released in the later half of 2011,I was still enthusiastic about the arrival of the X1 at  my home. So what would make me go gaga about this baby? There are many,but it would take me a month before I could really decide about its usage in my day-to-day life. Because unlike the other hardcore ThinkPad fans/users out there, I was oblivious of  the ThinkPad ecosystem. My first ThinkPad  was an X200T,it was very light with an awesome keyboard.Since then I had the same kind of intuition on the whole range and especially on the X series systems.



For starters,I always liked the Chiclet keyboard although all of ThinkPad's keyboard designs are legendary. My friend used to have a sony vio with an island style keyboard and I  always kind of envied him.I no longer do that though :).Laptops which are light in  weight are always a welcome relief,not to mention they are easy to carry around. This is also one of the many reasons of my fondness towards the X series. I used an X220T for some time and it had the same good feel as the X200T. But I was certain that the X1 had something special,and not until a friend of mine would  mention about the inclusion of the latest version   of Dolby Home theater.So I wondered would this mean that this is more than just a business class notebook?that Lenovo was trying to bridge the gap between entertainment and portability without compromising on performance(The X1 notebooks come with full voltage i3,i5 and i7 processors unlike the other tablet offerings).



While the durability and build is as good as any of the ThinkPads,performance wise I see no compromise. The X1 which I  had the following configuration

Memory : - 8 gigabytes

HDD :- 160 GB SSD

CPU : Intel i5 with vPro technology and

a special 3 year base warranty.

I could see the raw power of the notebook both during the boot times of  Windows 7 and while executing various SQL queries in Oracle. The screen is bright and comes fitted with Corning ®  Gorilla ® glass.And Unlike the Macbook air which sacrifices the inclusion of ports,the X1 has a reasonable number of ports.(USB2.0,USB 3.0,HDMI,Headphone,eSata and Ethernet)



The little red nub is still there and so is the spill resistant keyboard.The keys make a pleasant clicking noise,and with the back-light thrown in this must be one of the best keyboards out there. The only issue I find with the notebook is the glossy screen -- Continuously staring at it might strain your eyes.Something which Lenovo can look into and can offer  a Mattie screen option.The built in battery lasted almost 4 and half hours for me,you might get more juice for your laptop if you were to opt for the optional slice battery.



Last week while I was on the X1 using my Facebook,when my mom came over to me and was curiously looking at it.she was  particularly interested in the thin design and asked me if she could use it for some time! She even wanted to be on facebook now!.For now I am satisfied with the notebook -- Great Audio and Video experience,near instant app initialization being some of the few.Its sexy sleek and speedy.I would call this the SR-71 of all the notebooks  in its class!

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