Customer Reviews

Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet 7767 12.1" (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor L7500 (1.6GHz), 2 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, Vista Business)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is my first tablet PC. It is awesome. The active digitizer is a must for a tablet PC. It doesn't have a mouse pad, and the trackpoint takes some time to get used to. But once I am used to the trackpoint, I found it better and more accurate than a mouse. The ultra base adds quite a bit of thickness to the laptop. I wish the DVD drive was integrated. It's a minor issue. I found myself leaving the ultra base at home most of the time.
All in all, I like the X61 tablet. But, I wish I had got the tablet with Windows XP. I have wasted days, MANY DAYS, working on compatiblility issues with Vista. The Vista support knowledge base from Microsoft is hit or miss. You end googling all over the web and trying all kind of tips to try to get it work. It drives you absolutely mad. Besides, it's slow, quite a bit slower than XP. If I could do it again, I would custom configure this on Lenovo website and get the XP tablet edition. By the way, if you found your X61 extremely slow downloading files, it's probably because your router is not vista compatible. I had to buy a new wireless router. All those netsh command line update stuff won't work.

I bought this my first tablet PC after extensive research. I believe the Lenovo offers the best combination of tablet experience, durability, and portability.

What I like about my X61t:
*Long battery life - it can easily get 4 to 5 hours.
*Excellent pen feel - it feels almost like writing on paper.
*Very solid feel and construction.
*Quiet and doesn't overheat.
*Good screen quality for a tablet. As you expect for a tablet, it is not as bright and sharp as regular laptop screen but my son has HP tx2120 and the screen on it is horrible compared with X61t.
*Very easy and comfortable to hold in slate mode with extended battery.
*Windows Vista pen integration and support is outstanding compared to XP.
*Handwriting recognition in Vista is very good.
*Fingerprint reader for password management works great and saves a lot of typing in the slate mode.

Other comments
*The X61t doesn't have a DVD drive but when you think about it, when was it last time you really needed one? I certainly can't remember but some people may view this as a negative.
*It doesn't have a wide screen. But I think the standard screen works better than widescreen in the slate mode on screen this small anyway.
*ThinkVantage software. This is a mixed bag. While there are some parts that I like (fingerprint/password manager) there are others that are annoying and take up resources unnecessarily.
*X61t is not the coolest looking laptop on the market. Personally, I like the simple unassuming look but I can understand that for image-conscious people this may be a problem.

About Vista. Unlike others, I've had no problems with Vista on my X61. It runs reasonably fast with the 2GB installed. The start up is also relatively (for windows) fast but I keep it in sleep mode most of the time anyway and the wake up time from sleep is just a few seconds. I have two laptops which came with Vista (Ultimate and Business) and two desktops with XP Professional. If the laptops didn't come with Vista, I wouldn't upgrade from xp and I'm keeping xp on my desktops. So while I have no major issues with Vista on new system, I'm very cautious about upgrading existing system.

I have 4GB or RAM and the 1.83Ghz processor. It takes about 7 minutes between turning on the laptop and opening a window in firefox. Ridicolous. The hard drive goes on and on and on, both at booting time (for about 20 minutes) and at random times (therefore depleting the battery and slowing down the machine). The Lenovo software is pitiful, for example AccessConnection often crashes, and I have to reboot to simply connect to a wireless network (Vista is so much faster and seldomly crashes while connecting!). The default software for handwriting sometimes hangs (without saving changes), it randomly forgets to display certain menus, and sometimes does not see the pen. Wasn't that the purpose of the program.
Otherwise, nice and light and pretty fast, when it works. Strongly not recommended.

So I had a budget. I could spend up to 7K. I looked at Alienware, Dell, some exotic Japanese jobs... but my first instinct was for the X61. I'm a programmer and designer, and need to have good resolution and decent speed. I loaded a 8 GIG HCSD card for the boost.

I must say. This thing does the trick. Its fast enough, has a gorgeous screen, etc. I'm still getting used to the fact that I have a Wacom here. That was really the selling point. Jounal kicks it. And its really well built. It kindof looks like any other flimsy black business laptop, but when you get close, when you feel it, its solid.

I have it hooked up to a 750 WD book and some JBL travel speakers and I must say, it can do the multimedia. I loaded Starcraft on it (perfect for a tablet).

It gets sweeter: 1400x1050 is a decent res.

I spent 2K for mine. J&J in NYC. It came with the base with DVDRW DL.

Its not a desktop. Its not crazy powerful. Its not many things, but it allows me to work remotely, and that's what I need.

Get it if you can.

I ordered mine straight from Lenovo with student discount for about $1100 plus tax (free shipping).

Here's the specs:
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
Windows Vista Home Basic
12.1" XGA TFT, 2x3 Ultraconnect II antenna
Memory 2x1 GB
Trackpoint with Finger Reader
100GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Intel PRO/Wireless
8 cell High Capacity Battery
1 Year Depot Warranty

Window Vista is a great upgrade; however, you need at least 2gb Ram to have a stable performance. I would recommend you upgrade the ram yourself to save some money (newegg has great deals).

I've had the laptop for almost a month now and it has been great. The keyboard is very comfortable to type in. Even though the laptop is only 12.1", the screen ratio is 4:3 and the keyboard is normal size (not reduced like other laptops).

Positive:
- Performance
- Portability (light! under 3 lbs!)
- Durability
- Solid laptop (one of the best laptop out there)
- Battery life (5 hr or more with 8 cell battery)

Negative:
- Expensive for students (with the same specs i could get a HP for less price)
- Horrible customer service
- Cannot play game on it (it gets really hot and loud)
- Does not have an optical drive (with that price it should include one)
- Only has 3 USB ports

Conclusion:
- X61 is the lightest, most reliable in its class of light and thin
- Even though IBM is sold to Lenovo, thinkpad still owns up to its name.
- Great laptop. Period. Would recommend this to friends and family.
- If I could see the T-series before buying the X61, I would prefer the T61 (14" version) because it as optical drive and more comfortable to type in if you have big hands.

You will read a lot of good reviews about this product. If I had written one when I first got this machine, mine would have been good too. I have owned this tablet for about a year and a half now. I want to love it. In fact, I do love it, when it is working properly, but it breaks over and over and OVER. Here is a list of parts that I have had replaced on my X61, in a year and half of normal use:

-power cord
-battery
-plastic bezel around the screen
-plastic door that holds in the hard drive
-hinge (kind of critical for a tablet)
-hard drive
-motherboard

Bad engineering or just a lemon? Who knows. But the minute something breaks out of warranty, I will be replacing this with another brand.

Thinkpad X61 arrived with Vista. It was so slow I had to have the XP CDs shipped to "downgrade" my system. The wireless card did not work properly. The wireless driver would stop whenever the machine would go to sleep and I would have to reboot the system in order to have wireless access. After several calls I had to sent the machine back to Lenovo. It was returned with the hardware fixed and with Vista reinstalled. Luckily I had a Norton backup so I could recover my system.
A month later the original wifi problem came back, after performing an update recommended by Lenovo. So I am back where I started. Except, of course, that after years of procrastination I finally bought a Mac. Nice to see that at least one company does not count on their customers to debug their operating system. Not to mention the good taste. Unfortunately, no Mac tablet yet.

Bought this anticipating a laptop of good design. Also I was excited about the tablet feature, since it seemed to be the best tablet out there. Instead I received one of the worst pieces of engineering i ever owned. Some decisions are really anecdotal (see below). They make a good topic for a laugh in our coffee room. I owned it for ~ year now.

Pros:

- small
- battery life is great
- solid construction
- the tablet feature

Cons:

- small. The keyboard is too small for accurate typing. I hit about 10% of wrong keys. Because the screen is so small, it really hurts my eyes to work with it for more than ~3hours or so. I have to use external monitor and docking station at work (see below).

- The speakers. This is the funniest part. They put a single lousy speaker on the BOTTOM of the laptop. If it seats on the table you can hardly hear anything. If it is on your laps, you can hear even less. You will have to lift it and turn the bottom towards you to hear. If you watch a video, you will have to make a choice between the image and the sound. It might seem that with current state of the art you could find some tiny speakers and hide them somewhere in the keyboard of screen. I also understand that this is really a brand for professionals, who should be resistant to earthly attractions such as watching a youtube video. But in this case it just shows immaturity of the engineering team.

- This is just an interesting observation or a con, depends on how you see it. Theres no way to connect the sound card output to the recorder on the soundcard (input) on the level of software. This means that you cannot record sounds that are played on your soundcard. I spent some time on the forums investigating the issue. This is a task that allows you to rip music that is played by your soundcard or record videos. That IBM/lenovo disallow this means that they combat piracy. So, they disallow a feature on your computer to prevent you from violating some laws. You also cannot record legitimate sounds/videos because of this. Most computer manufacturers would allow you to rip the sound off the soundcard. You still can do it with this laptop if you buy a wire that goes from the headphone jack to the microphone jack, so it is sorta ridiculous. Essentially you are dealing with a company that works against you as a consumer by planting speed bumps into the design of their product.

- unreliable. 3 months into the ownership the motherboard had to be replaced by a friendly lenovo technician. The laptop wouldnt wake up.

- graphic is poor and slow. Dont think about games even on the lousiest resolution. This is the price that you pay for the tablet.

- Docking. When I dock my laptop it crashes 20% of the time. I read the manual several times. Blue screen FTW!

- No dvi port. No vga to dvi adapter. It costs $250 to buy from the thrd party.

- I paid $4000 for this laptop and accessories. It came loaded. It came with everything. I do not need mal/adware that sells me the stuff that I already own.

- Thinkvantage button. C'mmon ppl. This is just lame.

- If laptop goes on standby because of low battery and you charge it and bring it out later, it cannot reconnect to the internet. You have to reboot to use the wireless card. I confess that Im too lazy to call lenovo and resolve the issue.


Summary:

I own about 10 computers, including 4 laptops. I have toshiba tablet and 2 dell laptops. This is the worst piece of technology I have atm. Dont take me wrong, it is a nice computer. But given the competition out there and the degree of awareness of the customers' needs that are present in the designs of the competitors, I would never buy from this company again.

I owned X41, still produced by IBM.
Then I changed jobs, had to leave X41 (with which I was in love) with the previous employer, and got X61.
The only benefit is that X61 is faster (I payed $75 in 2007 to "downgrade" to Windows XP, Vista was horrible). The rest is very disappointing, perhaps due to change of the manufacturer. My major complaints are:

- horrible screen, which from time to time goes dark, and you need to adjust brightness manually to fix it. You also cannot see anything on the screen if you are sitting in abright room. Forget about taking it outside! Also, when i connect it to the TV and project the pictures there, I see how much better they would look if the screen was better.

- badly designed tablet pen. It's not precise, shaking, makes noises, and seems like it's going to fall apart. I ordered the second pen in the hopes that the first one was a lemon, but it was actually even worse! ADVICE: The pen from T41 actually fits into this model (and works well too), so you may want to eventually buy one for replacement (which I happily did).

- the lock which fixates the screen in closed (or tablet) position got broken almost immediately, and it took a lot of troubles to replace it (luckily, my employer has a great customer service).

- the overall design looks cheaper - the screen is thicker, with wider black panels, the keyboard is made of cheaper plastic, the power cord sometimes gets disconnected from the adaptor, etc.

- as some other reviewers pointed out, the speaker is very low (only one at the bottom panel), we almost always use external speakers or headphones when we want to stream music or video.

I will NOT buy Lenovo any more. My husband also got at work their latest laptop (not tablet), and it also looks very cheap. It's so sad that IBM gave it up to Lenovo....

My NEW lenovo has burnt out pixels. I sent it in to get it fixed and they said that they don't repair new laptops with burnt out pixels unless you have seven or more pixels that are burned out. That's right everybody, your NEW $2000 laptop can have a defective screen and they won't help you!!

They then wanted to charge me $850 to fix my burned out pixel. Not only does Lenovo lack integrity, but they may also try to turn your misfortune into more profit for themselves. Isn't it nice that they can't fix your new laptop that is under warranty, but they'll be happy to do it for you an additional $850!! If you don't get a computer that works you might just be screwed forever.

STAY AWAY FROM LENOVO AND IBM!

Also, keep in mind that they don't send recovery CDs with some models of their laptops. Once your warranty is up, and if you have data corruption or your operating system crashes, you may have to pay them big bucks to reload it(do you think that they might charge $850 for this too??).

It's your money -good luck pal!!