Thinking of purchasing an x61, A few questions

[kcirbmab]

1) How hard do you have to touch the screen to get it to recognize your touch? Im using someones tx1000z right now and it seems difficult to use. Its very hard to write using the writing software because I have to press down so hard and I need to use my finger nail instead of the base of the finger to press anything. Is this one similar or is it more/less sensitive (Id like to be able to just gently poke the screen to get it to respond)?
1b) Also, is there any pressure sensitivity? If so, is it pretty much the same as a Wacom tablet?

2) XP and Ubuntu: Ive heard from my friend that some of the new laptops are not able to have alternate OSes installed. Is this true? Id really like to try out Ubuntu on the machine.
2b) Its not entirely related to the x61, but Ubuntu is able to fully use the tablet capability, right? I assume it does, but Id like to be sure.

3) How long does the battery last on the 4cell battery? Ive only seen results for the 8cell (Im probably going to get the 8cell, but Id like to know how the 4cell performs)

[g2tl]

1 It's fat-finger compatible
1b No

2 Your friend is wrong
2b Not sure about the touch, but the pen works

3 I have an 8cell battery. In "reading mode," where the brightness is at the lowest, wireless off, cpu locked at 800MHz, disk spindown in 1min, with no pen usage (touch doesn't seem to affect the battery as much), the thinkpad power manager showed 4 hours left at 58% mark . When using the pen with the same setting, I get an hour or so less.
With a lot of inking, switching around, wireless on, with brightness turned up a little, it lasts around 5 hours.
I think the 4cell battery is actually a bit less than half the capacity, so you can do the math there

[Maria_Andretti]

For #1b, you'd have no levels of sensitivity with the touch mode, but you would when you used the pen; the tablet 'switches' to pen mode when the tip is nearby.

And yeah, the battery for 'normal' usage (w/wifi & decent screen brightness) is about 5 hours for the 8 cell. You can start ramping down various items to do better, but it'd be hard to get worse than that.

[pibach]

Strange
I have never been able to squeeze out more of my SXGA+, x61t, 8 cell than 4 hours in my usage scenarios which is Office/Web. It eats 15-20 Watt, which is too much for a Low Voltage CPU. The Santa Rosa and C2D drivers seem to be premature. Especially WLAN usage results in a lot of heat and battery drain. Same with the graphics. Hopefully updates will improve that. With the smaller battery you will not get more than 90min. In idle mode with display and WLAN is switched off (just did this test to see max runtime) it still consumes 10 Watt in power saver mode. When loaded, the runtime is cut down significantly, mine does not run longer than 2,5 h then. I have tweaked around heavily with Vista and power schemes (dissabled Sidebar and Aero, etc), does not help much. Screen becomes uncomfortable if lower than 50% brightness, which is comfortable in complete darkness. Otherwise need 80-100%.
@g2tl: do you run XP? Special Santa Rosa drivers?
And what about Linux runtime?

[kcirbmab]

OK, stupidity on my part. I misread the price of the x61t as a price for the x61, so I was off by about $500. This puts the x61t a little out of my price range. Now Im considering getting an x41 off of eBay.

Could someone tell me what the touch screen is like on the x41?

[g2tl]

Strange
I have never been able to squeeze out more of my SXGA+, x61t, 8 cell than 4 hours in my usage scenarios which is Office/Web. It eats 15-20 Watt, which is too much for a Low Voltage CPU. The Santa Rosa and C2D drivers seem to be premature. Especially WLAN usage results in a lot of heat and battery drain. Same with the graphics. Hopefully updates will improve that. With the smaller battery you will not get more than 90min. In idle mode with display and WLAN is switched off (just did this test to see max runtime) it still consumes 10 Watt in power saver mode. When loaded, the runtime is cut down significantly, mine does not run longer than 2,5 h then. I have tweaked around heavily with Vista and power schemes (dissabled Sidebar and Aero, etc), does not help much. Screen becomes uncomfortable if lower than 50% brightness, which is comfortable in complete darkness. Otherwise need 80-100%.
@g2tl: do you run XP? Special Santa Rosa drivers?
And what about Linux runtime?

Nothing special on win vista. I applied all the available patches. Mine consumes b/w 8 and 9 in idle mode, sometimes as low as 7 point something. Since I'm just reading black and white texts, low brightness works fine for me in most cases. That's with aero on, but no transparencies. If I set it around 50% brightness, I'd get around 10 to 11 watts. With wifi on, as I'm typing this, I see 9.87 at the lowest brightness. Which is still pretty good. I don't know if turbo memory helps or not, but I have it.

[SimsHsia]

Could someone tell me what the touch screen is like on the x41?

Have you considered the Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet? The X60t model came out after the X41t and before the current X61t. Since the IBM ThinkPad X41 Tablet (yes, it's "IBM" not "Lenovo", the X41t came out before Lenovo bought the ThinkPad/ThinkCentre name) does not come with dual digitizers (e.g. Wacom active and touchscreen passive digitizers) it comes with just a Wacom active digitizer. In other words, one can only use the pen to interact with the screen, fingers, a PDA stylus, or any other object will not work with the X41 Tablet since it doesn't come with a passive (touchscreen) digitizer.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet, however, was the first ThinkPad X-Series Tablet PC that offered and came with this dual digitizer option for both a Wacom active and touchscreen passive digitizers. I'd recommend you check out whether the X60t is within your price range. Just remember to look out for the MultiTouch/MultiView (MT/MV) models of it, MultiTouch means it has both of these active and passive digitizers.

By the way, since I don't see any mention of your budget, could you copy/paste and answer the Tablet PC FAQ/Questionnaire - it's in my signature, below, next to Resources.

Thanks!

[kcirbmab]

My budget is...undefined. Im extremely indecisive when it comes to purchasing things. So far, this week, my budget has went from $200, to $1000, back to $400, back to $1000, etc.

I guess my budget is $800 MAX. I think Ive narrowed it down to either a used x31 on eBay for $300 if I decide not to go with a tablet, or maybe an x41/60 depending on the price.

Ps. What are the differences between the x60 and x61t?

[SimsHsia]

Hi kcirbmab,

It may prove difficult to find a X60t or X61t at that budget, but there are a few, from what I see on eBay that is $100 above, and $100+ below, your budget of $800. On top of that, those three models are just active digitizer models. The X41t should be, at no problem, within your budget if you search for good deals.

Now, I'm not sure of whether or not you're looking for a Tablet PC with just an active digitzer (T4220, T2010, X60t/X61t), both active and passive (X60t/X61t + MT/MV), or just passive (like the tx1000z). If you're looking for just an active digitizer Tablet PC, I'd suggest you look at the older X41t, if you please. If you're looking for something a little newer, may I suggest the Fujitsu-owned eBay store? They have a couple old and current Tablet PCs that are either refurbished or brand new at a reasonable and affordable price that are within your budget.

If you're looking for both an active and passive digitizer Tablet PC, this is where it gets a little difficult. You could search around eBay for other Tablet PCs that have these dual digitizers - Gateway C-120X and TabletKiosk Sahara i440D, to name a few.

For just passive touchscreen digitizer Tablet PC, the tx1000z is one option, but there are many others like the Fujitsu P1510/P1510D, P1610, TabletKiosk Sahara i440T, i215T, and so forth.

Ps. What are the differences between the x60 and x61t?

Not much, I'd have to say. The differences between them are the mobile platforms (X60 is the previous Napa platform, the X61 is the current Santa Rosa platform ~ newer integrated graphics, NAND support, Wireless-N draft support). Price-wise, if you don't see the need for much power, the X60 should do just fine. The X60t is generally cheaper than the current X61t.

Both can come with regular XGA, SXGA+ (the X61t, last time I saw, it does not have this option for the time-being due to high demand), and XGA MultiTouch/MultiView (dual digitizers). Both come with Intel Core 2 Duo Low Voltage processors (surprisingly, I thought the X60t came only with Intel Core Duo LV processors, seems that Lenovo updated the X60t line to come with C2D processors).

[pibach]

Nothing special on win vista. I applied all the available patches. Mine consumes b/w 8 and 9 in idle mode, sometimes as low as 7 point something. Since I'm just reading black and white texts, low brightness works fine for me in most cases. That's with aero on, but no transparencies. If I set it around 50% brightness, I'd get around 10 to 11 watts. With wifi on, as I'm typing this, I see 9.87 at the lowest brightness. Which is still pretty good. I don't know if turbo memory helps or not, but I have it.

Strangely mine seems to consume a lot more. As l am writing this in laptop mode, i.e., no digitizer drain, at lowest brightness, power saver mode with CPU forced to 10% speed max and WiFi off no load on it, it still says 10,7 Watt (measured with Notebook Hardware Control). I can't get below this.

As soon as I start scrolling, i.e., put some light load on the CPU, it jumps to 14W. WLAN eats another Watt and more, depending on the wireless bandwidth utilization.

What could cause this difference?
Have the SXGA+ Superview, Samsung 250JI HDD which should be one of the most battery friendly. And 3 Gigs of Kensington RAM and the Intel abg WLAN adapter. I run Vista with all the latest patches, disabled sidebar, aero and indexing, uninstalled all of the ThinkVantage tools but installed all Lenovo driver updates.

Or maybe I have some motherboard failure?