Big ugly box goes on for hours

WERE WE BUYING a notebook all about style, the Lenovo Thinkpad X60 wouldn't even reach the qualifying stages of the beauty contest. But for those who want power and performance over looks, it is top of its class.

The black and bland chassis may look plain, but it houses a reliable, solid workhorse PC, writes Rob Jones

The Thinkpad X60 is a Core Duo Centrino notebook, and our review unit came with an eight-cell long-life battery to complement the standard four-cell version.

When this bigger battery is used, it juts out from the back of the notebook but the total weight is still just 1.6kg, making it extremely easy to carry around.

In our office usability battery tests, the Thinkpad X60 managed a remarkable seven hours and 32 minutes, 10 hours in the reader test and just over five and a half hours when playing a DVD.

These are by far the best battery life results we've ever seen and make the X60 a machine that can be used all day without its AC power adapter.

It uses the Intel 945GM chipset with the dual-core T2400 1.83GHz CPU, which gives the notebook a decent amount of grunt. It's by no means a gamer's machine, but scored 190 in our Sysmark 2004 SE tests, which is plenty for the business user this targets.

That power is let down slightly by its meagre 512MB of Ram, especially as the machine pinches up to 128MB of this for its graphic chicanery.

We also found the branding a little confusing. Better known under the IBM name, but now owned by Lenovo, it's still labelled an IBM Thinkpad on the lid and inner chassis, yet branded Lenovo on the AC power block and software.

That plays no part in the usability of the notebook, of course. While the chassis is smaller than standard Thinkpads, Lenovo has still managed to include a full keyboard that is extremely easy to type on.

The 12.1in display may be small, but it is clear and bright, so you'll have no problems reading the screen. And, while some Thinkpads include both a scroll pad and the mouse nipple in between the keys, the X60 has sacrificed the pad to accommodate the smaller size.

Using the nipple is down to personal taste - some people like the feel of Montgomery's tubercles on their fingertips, others loathe it. But it wasn't hard to move the mouse around the screen.

The box comes with a biometric fingerprint scanner, plus the usual range of Lenovo software, accessed via the Thinkvantage key. Here we have backup, wireless and PC support utilities along with automatic updates, security and hard-disk protection. Optional extras for the Lenovo Thinkpad X60 include a desktop docking station (at £129) and a slimline DVD drive/CD writer (at £121), which slots into the dock, not the notebook.

There's an SD card slot in the chassis and you can attach three USB devices - there are also ports for mini Firewire, Ethernet and VGA, and a PC Card slot.

Lenovo has changed the AC power connector, so if you have an old, spare Thinkpad mains block, it won't fit in this model.

If you wanted to level a criticism at the Thinkpad, it would be the lack of internal optical media, but how often is this really needed on the road?

Overall this is a great notebook that with great attery life.

With the dock and optical drive it costs £1,610, but without these two extras the price drops to just £1,360, which includes the eight-cell battery. ?

L'INQ
Jones's organ