ThinkPad X30 lets you work longer

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

Despite its vulnerability to theft, bang and drop, a notebook gives us the very much-desired flexibility to work any place and any time. We may sacrifice the comfort of a full-sized keyboard and a mouse when working with a notebook, but oftentimes we do not have to sacrifice the speed, the large and sharp LCD display, the ability to burn a CD-R and connectivity.

The problem is that, in many cases, we still need to find a place to work near a power outlet. When a notebook is still new, it can give us three to four hours to work without having to be tethered to the wall or to a power strip. As time goes by, however, the notebook's battery will age and lose its ability to store power, and we have a shorter and shorter window of opportunity to work in a truly mobile fashion.

For some time, Crusoe, the processor made by Transmeta, promised to give us many more hours battery life than the much more familiar Pentium Mobile processors. Some notebook vendors once even played around with the idea of designing a subnotebook that would run Windows CE (the precursor of PocketPC), with the hope that the notebook would have an extended battery life. None of them has really hit the store shelves, though.

So, when I heard that IBM had come up with a Mobile Pentium III notebook that would work for more than eight hours on its batteries, I got very excited. The good news is that, courtesy of IBM Indonesia, I was given almost two weeks to play around with this notebook. The bad news is that those were also two of the busiest weeks in my life, so I did not get the chance to really run down the batteries. Luckily, my daughter stayed home last weekend, and she spent hours chatting on the notebook. It was clear to us that the batteries indeed had seemingly inexhaustible supply of power.

* Two better than one

Known as ThinkPad X30, my demo unit was quite a capable notebook. In addition to the regular battery, I could attach an additional, larger battery underneath the notebook. This second battery could also serve as a raiser for the notebook, making the keyboard more comfortable to use. IBM also supplied me with the Ultrabay, which was actually a port replicator.

The notebook intelligently drew power from either or both batteries-the standard Li Ion or the extended life battery. When the standard battery on the demo unit had only around 10 percent of juice left, I pulled it out without turning off the notebook- because the larger battery was attached to it. I then placed the battery on the Ultrabay and plugged the AC adaptor. After one hour or so, I put the battery back in the notebook, and, as you can see in the accompanying screen shot, IBM's Battery Information utility told me that I still had two and a half hours of total battery life. Not bad.

ThinkPad X30 is an ultraportable notebook. At 3.9 pounds, it felt very lightweight, although it was certainly not the most featherlike notebooks on the market. It had a 12.1-inch LCD screen, which was sufficient for displaying ordinary Word documents or Powerpoint slides. The keyboard was unmistakably the great IBM keyboard. The processor's native clock speed was 1.2 GHz, which should give us more horsepower than we would need to run almost any program meant for work on the road. When running on its battery power, however, the processor would operate at a lower and lower speed to conserve battery life. However, even at around 500 MHz it was still a potent machine . IBM stuffed 256 MB of memory into this notebook, eight megabytes of which were shared with its Intel graphics subsystem.

Although it was an ultraportable notebook, it was by no means lacking of features when compared with its bigger brothers. It had a built-in V90 modem, a 10/100 Ethernet port, two USB ports, a slot for CompactFlash memory card and another for Type II PC Card, an infrared port, a parallel port, a VGA port-even the ThinkLight lamp. It did not have any built-in drive for removable media such as the diskette and CD-ROM, though. You would have to buy your own USB-based external drives.

The most impressive thing about this notebook was that it had a very sturdy feel, especially the Titanium cover that protected the LCD screen. It was as black as any ThinkPad has always been. Its monaural speaker produced acceptable sound, although you would not want to play Kathleen Battle and Christopher Parkening CD on this notebook.

* Worth the price

Honestly speaking, this notebook is not cheap. ThinkPad X30 with the Pentium III M 1.2 GHz will cost you around US$2,500. My demo unit came with Windows XP Professional already installed on its 40 GB hard disk. To really benefit from its long battery life, you will have to buy an extra battery ($169) or an extended-life battery ($199). Add to that the external CD-ROM and diskette drives, and you will soon see that the ThinkPad X30 may not exactly be meant for just anybody.

Still, if you take into consideration the fact that this thin and light notebook already has Wi-Fi wireless networking and Bluetooth capabilities, an advanced security chip and a FireWire port for digital video camera as well as other consumer electronics devices, the investment is actually worth it. The price of ThinkPad X30 with slower processors starts at $1,999.

Unfortunately, this notebook is not equipped with UltraNav, the touchpad and TrackPoint combo that we found in ThinkPad T30. In addition, the video performance is average by today's standard. If you insist on a very bright and beautiful display, this notebook is not for you. But, if you want a notebook that is very well-built and powerful enough for most of your tasks while on the road, plus a flexible battery configuration that will allow you to sit down in a one-day seminar without having to pull out your AC adaptor and extension cord, this notebook will definitely make you a very happy notebook owner.