Notebooks
EDITORS' CHOICE
And Then There Was Light
February 20, 2001
IBM ThinkPad X20 34U
By Don Labriola
Pentium III/600, 128MB SDRAM, 20GB hard drive, 12.1-inch XGA TFT, 4MB ATI Rage Mobility M graphics, integrated 10/100 Ethernet
$2,500 direct
Armonk, NY; 800-426-4968,
www.pc.ibm.com Check Prices
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Like the HP OmniBook 500, the IBM ThinkPad X20 34U boasts excellent ergonomics and a fully equipped feature set. It lacks some of the costlier OmniBook's more exotic multimedia features (so if you do a lot of presentations on the road, the HP may be better for you), but the ThinkPad X20 is a standout nonetheless and should be at the top of your short list.
The ThinkPad X20 is about the size of a 1-inch-thick tablet of 8.5- by 11-inch paper. At 3.5 pounds, it's about average among the units tested. Its tough matte-black chassis is composed of lightweight titanium-reinforced composite that IBM claims is stronger than magnesium or ABS plastic. It can be configured with a 500-MHz Celeron or 600-MHz Pentium III processor, an internal Mini-PCI Ethernet NIC or modem, and a 10GB or 20GB hard drive, and it comes standard with dual USB ports and a CompactFlash slot.
At the top of the display is a special USB-like UltraPort connector that lets you attach IBM's 640-by-480 UltraPort camera ($99) or its UltraPort array microphone. The system can also be fitted with options like IBM's Bluetooth and 802.11b wireless-LAN PC Card interfaces and USB Fingerprint ID security device.
The ThinkPad X20's 12.1-inch TFT display is bright and easy to read. Its illuminated keyboard was relatively quiet and comfortable to use. The system's TrackPoint pointing device and three mouse-click/scrolling buttons were equally comfortable. Especially impressive was a special ThinkPad button that provided one-touch access to a collection of on-disk reference materials, Web-based support resources, interactive tutorials, and troubleshooting aids.
Most ThinkPad X20 owners will want to purchase IBM's UltraBase X2 Media Slice ($199), which adds serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports, stereo speakers, a floppy disk drive, and a swappable drive bay that accepts CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, LS-120, and Zip 250 drives—but not a second battery, as does the HP's. The UltraBase increased our evaluation unit's weight to 5.8 pounds— a figure approaching that of many all-in-one notebooks but still nearly a pound lighter than our OmniBook test unit.
The ThinkPad X20's array of expansion options also includes a stand-alone media bay, external 1GB Microdrive and floppy disk drives, a port replicator, and a full-blown docking station that adds two USB ports, a pair of Type II PC Card slots, and a half-length PCI slot. It ships with a generous software bundle that complements the usual collection of system utilities and diagnostics with a copy of Lotus SmartSuite.
But IBM cuts corners in other ways, omitting floppy disk and CD-ROM drives from the standard configuration, including only minimal printed documentation, and limiting the base unit to 4MB of SDRAM. Nonetheless, the ThinkPad X20 is a well-built and intelligently designed machine.
