A friend of mine just bought a refurbished Thinkpad X41, which I am trying it out as we speak.
The first impression I have on the unit is that it is really tiny with the 12 inch screen. However, as what my friend has already told me, the laptop is relatively slow and the boot up time to Windows XP takes about 20 seconds.
Furthermore, due to the size of the laptop, the keyboard feels a little crammed even though I am used to the keyboard layout on my T42 laptop.
The specification of the system is as following:
| Product: ThinkPad X41 2526-WEY [change] |
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| Operating system: Windows XP [change] |
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| Original description: Based on 2526-CTO: P M 758(1.5GHz)LV, 512MB RAM, 40GB 4200rpm HDD, 12.1in 1024×768 LCD, Intel 900, DVD, 802.11abg wireless(MPCI), Modem(CDC), 1Gb Ethernet(LOM), Secure Chip, Fingerprint reader, 8 cell Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro |
As the specifications have shown, the model uses a Low-voltage 1.5GHz processor, which is a definite plus in extending the battery life. I’ve played the unit for about an hour now with less than 15% battery loss. The RAM is a little too small, however, my friend has obviously added in another 512MB RAM to make it to 1GB. The hard drive has a disappointing size of 40GB, and the hidden IBM Recovery Partition has simply compounded the problem by taking away another precious 5GB.
The graphics chipset is Intel 900, which is insufficient to run the Windows Vista, however, the ultraportable is built with the business users in mind and the laptop is obvious more than enough to cater the normal operating usage of the business users.
Finally, the price. My friend bought is on EBay and it costed her 700. Obviously, judging from the price today, half of that would give me a decent EEEPC to play around. However, EEEPC is still quite insufficient in even serving the relatively more CPU-demanding applications such as running Access queries.
Overall, the unit has definitely impressed me with it tiny size and therefore, portability. However, the unit is barely enough to serve for basic daily usage and not for hard-core gamers or professionals demanding high computing power.