Lightweight notebook for heavy duty tasks
Written: Sep 12 '03
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Pros: Ultraportable, battery last long, robust.
Cons: Backlight dim, no keyboard jack, no serial port jack.
The Bottom Line: Lightweight, good for ladies or people who always on the move.
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| judhi's Full Review: Lenovo ThinkPad X22 2662 (26629EU) PC Notebook |
Let's go straight.
I always impressed by IBM innovative design of their Thinkpad series. This notebook has a built-in light that can help illuminating the keyboard when typing in the dark room. To activate the light, you just need to press the Fn and PgUp key which located at the most left-bottom and most right-top so you no need to guess where, very clever!
Some X22 models come with built-in WiFi card, but mine does not. So I use an Enterasys Roamabout WLAN card in the (only) PCMCIA slot. The other slot is a Compact Flash (CF) slot which works very well to tranfer pictures from some digital camera using CF storage. I have tried using CF WLAN card and works well too.
The Ethernet and modem are built-in. They are very helpful to stay connected anywhere without carrying extra gadgets.
There is an infrared port on our left hand side. This is good for data syncronization with my Palm m505 and for connection with my Sony Ericsson T610.
There are 2 independent USB ports, one behind and the other one on our right hand side. Strangely, some USB devices like digital camera can only work using the rear port. I found that the side port is the right place to snap in a snake style USB webcam for Netmeeting conference.
This notebook come with Windows 2000 Professional as default OS. But being a nerd (and to attract people) I installed RedHat Linux 9 and place a RedHat sticker logo next to the Windows emblem on my X22. I should say that RedHat Linux works VERY well with this machine. All pheriperal can be detected and used.
Battery can last for 2 to 2.5 hours for normal operation in a single charge. There are many ways to extend the battery life even longer like dimming the screen, shutdown the HDD, etc.
Now the not so good parts. This notebook need a docking station (IBM call it ultrabase) for DVD-ROM drive and Floppy. That's fine. But ridiculously, even the RS232 port and jack for external keyboard/mouse is only available on the ultrabase and not found on the main unit.
I often need serial connection to transfer data to my GPS, mobile phone, routers, firewalls, etc. but I don't want to carry around the ultrabase. So I bought a USB to Serial cable converter.
The screen is too dim as compared to other notebooks, but that does not really bothering me as I work indoor most of the time.
Sound quality through the internal speaker is not that good. Anyway it's good enough to give audible feedback when getting error message, incoming mail notification, playing game, etc.
I use this machine to do heavy duty job like writing proposal with a lot of diagram and pictures. Do some networking stuff like sniffing, scanning, etc. I also use it as photo editor, audio recorder, route planner, etc.
I have 20 over icons on the taskbar all running smoothly without any problem.
So far so good, very reliable and I am quite happy with it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1500
Operating System: Linux
Processor speed: 701-800
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
judhi
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Reviews written: 7
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