Current mood:	awake
Entry tags:	laptop, t43, tech, thinkpad, toy, x200

New computing toy - Lenovo X200

The 5 year old IBM Thinkpad T43 that I have been using at work was showing its age: overheating, poor response on disk operations (saving a small file in vi seems to be taking increasingly long times), it doesn't boot sometimes and I have to power cycle it. However, I was putting up with it because the newer T series laptops from Lenovo don't come anywhere close to the quality of the T43. But the final nail in the coffin was a crack in the LCD.

So I got myself a Lenovo X200 about a week ago and I am liking it so far. The weight, battery life, performance and the form factor are a big win. What I don't like about it is:

• The laptop is not evenly thick (it is fat near the batteries and somehow feels bulky to hold it there).
• The lock for the lid is in the base and not in the lid itself (which is a bit awkward when I try to open it).
• The docking station has a rather cheap piece of plastic near the 2nd battery charger (I won't be using it, so that isn't a problem).
• There is no DVI out in the X200 UltraBase docking station (my biggest pain point so far).
• The edge of the lid around the LCD panel is fairly thick and looks a bit ugly (but it is good to hold the laptop by).
• I would've liked it if the screen was a wee bit bigger with better resolution (the T43 was 14.0" @ 1400x1050 and this X200 is 12.1" @ 1280x800).

I guess these complaints are just a hangover from my T43 years and and I am nit-picking.

The machine has been running Debian testing since the day it fell into my hands. Installation and configuration have been a breeze. I hope it will serve me as well as the T43 did.