Eric Mack On-Line

Yesterday was mostly a shake-down day for me as I had quickly moved everything from my brand new T60p wide-screen onto the X61. On the tablet side, I did not have an opportunity to use the X61 in tablet mode much so no comments there. Once I get my applications stabilized, I'll switch to slate mode. On the software side, I mentioned that concurrent with the move to the Lenovo X61 Tablet PC, I also took the plunge and moved to Windows Vista Ultimate. I did this for two reasons: First, I wanted to experience the X61 Tablet PC with the latest tablet supported OS, and second, because I wanted to experience Vista. In hindsight, I'm not sure about the Vista decision. It seems that I spent too much time getting my core apps, Palm installer, to work. No points to Palm for Visa compatibility. I'm sure I'll have more to say later.

Now back to the X61. It continues the excellent tradition of well designed machines. Much has already been written about X61 and I would have to agree. It's small, light, has a great ThinkPad keyboard (but will slightly smaller keys) and it appears to be very fast. I say "appears" because, in all fairness, I moved 100 GB of apps and data on to it and I need to allow my search tools and disk optimizer to catch up before I state an opinion on performance. I do miss the built-in light on the screen, but as soon as I get the system tuned the way I want it I expect to spend a lot more time in slate mode  anyway. The connectors all seem to be in the right place. I should point out that I really like the position of the fingerprint reader. It makes login fast an easy.

Nice work, Lenovo!

I still have much to do to get ready for my trip. The X61 will be the only computer I take with me so I'm sure I'll have more to say, soon.