Lenovo Thinkpad X61s

Notebook Specifications
Notebook: Lenovo Thinkpad X61s (Thinkpad X Series)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo L7500
Graphics Adapter: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 128 MB
Display: 12.1 inch, 4:3, 1024x768 pixels
Weight: 1.7kg
The X61 is Lenovo's Santa Rosa update to their renowned ThinkPad X series of ultraportable laptops. The X series is synonymous with usability and toughness while on the go. There are two versions of the ThinkPad X61: the X61 and the X61s. The notebooks are almost the same, save for the CPUs. The X61 uses the full power Core 2 Duos while the X61s variant uses the low power versions of the Core 2 Duo. In general, the X61 will offer a bit better performance while the X61s will have better battery life. This review will focus on the low power X61s. The X61s has been a nice contrast to my R60. I like my R60 a lot, but at times it seems heavy to me. When I get my next notebook, I might go with something smaller like this X61. After having spent some time with the X61s, I can see why people have such enthusiasm for the X series and why it is often so well reviewed. If you are a person who needs a lot of mobility or just want a small notebook, the X61s makes a compelling argument.

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 is an integrated (onboard) graphic chip on a Mobile Intel 965GM chipset. It is the successor of GMA 950 and features a fully programmable pipeline (supports Aero Glass fully and DirectX 10 with newest drivers). The peformance of the X3100 is clearly better than the GMA 950, still demanding modern games won't run fluently.

Only older games can be played fluently with these graphics chips (if they were not too demanding). Shared memory graphic cores in this category got the advantage of less heat production and longer battery runtimes. For office, internet, image processing, and video editing tasks these graphics chips are still useable without any restrictions.
Intel Core 2 Duo: This is the Core Duo and Core Solo successor with a longer pipeline and 5-20% more speed without more power consumption. As an addition to the Core Duo design there exists a fourth decoder, an amplified SSE-unit and an additional arithmetical logical unit (ALU).

The Core 2 Duo for laptops is identical to the desktop Core 2 Duo processors but the notebook-processors work with lower voltages (0.95 to 1188 Volt) and a lower Frontside bus clock (1066 vs 667 MHz). The performance of equally clocked notebooks is 20-25% lower than Desktop PCs because of the lower Frontside bus clock and the slower hard disks.
12.1": This is the most common display format for subnotebooks and an average size for subnotebooks.
The advantage is, that the subnotebook can be small dimensioned and can be carried easily. Further the tiny display has the advantage, that it needs less power, which improves the battery runtime and in consequence the mobility. The disadvantage is that reading of texts is very exhausting vor the eyes. High resolutions can hardly be used.
1.7 kg: This sub-notebook weighs less than the average of all notebooks and represents a medium class of weight among the sub-notebooks. 11 inch displays are normal for this class of weight.