Dell Latitude X1 review

Tonight, I finally ordered my laptop. I had been considering the IBM X41 and the Apple Powerbook 15 inch (yes, I know, two completely different categories, but I was willing to haul around the extra size with the Apple for the operating system and screen). However, being a college student, I am very price conscious. So, I delayed the purchase for quite a while. The Dell Latitude X1 had always been in the back of my mind, but the price was similar to the X41, and in my opinion, the X41 was better, for that price. Yesterday evening, however, I looked on Dell's Outlet site, and found that Latitudes were between $400 and $500 off. That brought the X1 into my sweet spot price range, and eliminated the IBM and the Apple from the competition, because both were around $1800 with 3 year warranties. I ordered the X1 for $1,311.22,after tax and shipping, and it included:

Windows XP Pro

1.1GHz ULV Pentium M 733

12.1 inch WXGA display

512MB RAM

60GB hard drive

USB floppy drive

USB CD-RW/DVD drive

Intel 2200 802.11b/g wireless

Bluetooth

3 cell battery

6 cell second battery

Nylon Carrying Case

3-year next-day on-site warranty

3-year CompleteCare accidental damage protection

Although it is refurbished, everything that is included really makes this computer a great value. There is also a good chance that this computer isn't used at all, or barely, because someone may have ordered it and cancelled the order at the last minute, or returned it within Dell's 21-day return period. I will post a full review once the notebook arrives and I get to put it through its paces for a few days.

 

Good luck! Will be waiting for your review! Here in Germany the price for this unit also dropped suddenly from 1800 to 1200 Euro making it an attractive purchase.
At the same time the clone Samsung Q30 costs more than 4000 euro! Crazy!

There are several good reviews of x1 on this site.
I also found those ones:
http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_Latitude_X1/4505-3121_7-31320873-2.html?tag=glance
http://laptopmag.com/Review/Dell-Latitude-X1.htm
http://www.cnet.com.au/mobilecomputing/notebooks/0,39029096,40054522,00.htm

Some interesting benchmarks with X1 (in Norwegian)
http://www.hardware.no/artikkel/14525/4


A Carrying Case for Dell Latitude X1 Notebook
http://www.thepouch.com/latitude-x1.html

 

I received an X1 from the Dell Outlet on Friday. The configuration was essentially the same as livestrong211's minus a battery, for about $1200. It appeared to be in perfect condition, with no signs of use other than a "refurbished" sticker on the bottom. I've had no problems with it. I upgraded the memory to the full 1.25GB with a 1GB chip from Newegg for just over $100. Swapping the memory was quick and easy.

I'm still getting used to it, but it seems like a very good machine so far. It's not perfect - the screen is a step back from the really bright ones I've been getting used to - but for a machine of its size it seems pretty good. It was a complete impulse buy, but I'm not regretting it.

 

grandall,

you had to remove the keyboard in order to install more RAM, right?
Is it easy to replace the keyboard if I want to do so?
If installing more RAM doesn't void the warranty, then I can also replace the keyboard without voiding the warranty, right?

 

Yes, the keyboard has to come off, but it's trivially simple. There are seven small screws on the bottom of the machine with the letter "K" next to them. Remove the screws, open the screen, and the keyboard is free and lifts off. It doesn't have to be detached from its cable to get at the memory slot, it just folds over. There's one more screw on a lid covering the memory, and then you're in. Put everything back, attach screws, and it boots up. It should take less than five minutes.

I'm expecting that this all doesn't void the warranty, although I didn't see anything that explicitly states that. The instructions for the memory replacement didn't come with the computer, I just followed along on the online service manual on the Internet. I can't see why there would be any warranty problems (assuming you don't do anything silly like somehow put in the wrong type of memory or snap something in half).

 

Thank you very much for this comment which, I guess, every potential buyer of x1 will appreciate.

What is the case of X1 made of? It is magnesium like Samsung Q30 or a cheaper plastic?

Do you plan to try undervolting programs like RMClock or Centrino HArdware Control
on it to make it heating less and saving some battery power?

Do you plan to install mobilemeter to see how hot it really gets at heavy load (like prime95 test)?

 

I'm not sure exactly what it's made out of. I've read elsewhere that it's supposed to be magnesium. Whatever it is, it feels fairly sturdy, and it's obviously very light-weight. I really don't have any problems with the construction.

I was thinking about playing around with one of the undervolting programs, but it's not at the top of my list. The bottom of the machine does get rather warm, particularly since there's no fan. I'm not sure how well the ULV processors undervolt, since they start out at low voltage to begin with. If I get a chance I'll give it a try and/or test mobilemeter, but it probably won't be before the weekend.

Anyway, I'm not sure I could give it a fair test for heat this week, since my apartment doesn't want to cool down below 80 degrees. I'm starting out hot even without the computer in my lap.

 

The case is plastic and the screen isn't the same as the one used in the Samsung Q30, which explains why the x1 is much cheaper.

 

I really really like the X1, I would have probably gotten if it had an integrated optical drive , a feature I just wasn't willing to sacrifice.

 

hehe, this is exactly the reason I like x1. I don't need the drive often and in many respects it is more comfortable to use lighter laptop.
After I learned that the case is plastic, I'd actually prefer 1.4kg Acer Travelmate 3000 (3002)
which I'd underclock to 1.2GHz when I don't need a power (then it should work fanless).
Unfortunately, it is unreasonable expensive here (1600 euro) vs. the US (1300$) while
Dell X1 is reasonably priced at the moment (at least in Germany - 1250 euro).

 

So, I found finally that X1 is made of magnesium alloy indeed. Great!
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/latit/LAT_X1_emea.pdf
"durability with magnesium alloy display cover and base".

 

Weird, it feels like plastic to me.

 

Here there is a new review of X1:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,122039,00.asp

I find this one important to know:
"The X1 is fully upgradable, even if the process is not documented in the users' manual (a hard-to-search Acrobat document without hyperlinks). One memory slot and the unit's 4200-rpm hard drive--60GB in our test machine--are within easy reach under the keyboard. Just remove seven small screws on the bottom of the laptop, pop a couple of keyboard latches and extract a few more screws beneath to free the hard drive and a metal plate over the DIMM slot."

 

"Samsung currently makes Dell’s high-end ultralight 12.1-inch Latitude X1 model, but the US vendor has awarded Quanta Computer the contracts for the Latitude X1’s follow-up models"
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050810A1001.html


btw: Dell™ Latitude™ X1 Service Manual
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/LatX1/en/sm/index.htm

 

Great link to the service manual, thanks.

I bought an X1 on Dell Outlet in May, everything's great with it, I love it .

I use RMClock for voltage and clock multiplier manipulation, and setFSB (Acer 1694 download) for fsb (obviously), and I8kFanGUI to monitor temps (there are no fans of course).

I run:
0.7v @ 600 Mhz (6x100, the minimum voltage available in RMClock) - more than adequate for Word, browsing, DVD watching etc, normal temp = 49C

0.892v @ 1100 Mhz (any combination of clock and fsb)

0.908v @ 1342Mhz. Super Pi 2million places = 2M 14s - pretty impressive scaling of the CPU with fsb I reckon.

Max stable fsb (any multiplier) = 122fsb (suggests to me that memory or chipset is bottleneck) for a max speed of 11x122 = 1.342Ghz, but on full load e.g. UT2k4, temp is as high as 78C.

BTW, the screen backing feels metallic and sturdy, and I get no rippling if I try to twist the screen. Lighting is stronger at the bottom and slight light bleed is noticable with a black background, but it's a minor thing.

Someone mentioned the lack of integrated drive - it only adds 400g, plus I like the fact I don't have to carry as I don't need it most of the time.

 

fenara,

thanks for the post. Finally I got answers to the questions I have been asking on several forums!

So, it can be overclocked to 1.3MHz. Not bad, though I hoped it can reach 1.5.
Good news that setFSB works on X1!

There are 5 speedsteps between 600MHz and 1.1GHz, as expected, right?

Did you try to work on the laptop for like 6-8 hours in office applications and browsing. Does it overheat?

I still worry about the display quality. What is your impression, in particular about the brightness, the contrast, and the vertical viewing angles?

Do you know if it is posssible to upgrade 1.1GHz chip to 1.3GHz ULV (comming soon) in this model?

The undervolting capabilty of ULV chip doesn't look impressive at all. For comparison, I am able to undervolt my
2GHz PM755 chip to 0.780V at 1.1GHz! Do you know if ULV chips can be just replaced with PM, so that the latter
would work in underclocked and undervolted regime even more effectively than ULVs (sounds crazy but this is what your undervolting result suggests), are there pin compatibility issues?

-----------------------

Added: Let me just add a link to a very nice review of X1 published yesterday:
http://homeoffice.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=34176
"Dell Latitude X1 is Just Right"

 

I think that the CPU could go much further - 122fsb is the max even at the lowest multiplier, so I think it's the memory holding it back - all the memory's rated at 400Mhz, 22% extra isn't too bad!

There are 5 multipliers between 600 and 1100Mhz, but I've noticed that when running on battery, the fsb is also dynamically throttled. In RMClock you can set whether to throttle the fsb, and if so by how much, but I find it ruins performance for no temperature benefit.

To be honest, I only overclock it playing games - UT2K4 @1100Mhz = c.23fps, but it @1340Mhz it's c.28+fps @1280x768 with all details on low, which makes it playable. HL2 is too jerky but older FPS games e.g. Jedi Knight2 run well @1024.

I've only had an overheat after 2+hrs of UT2k4 @ 11x122fsb - can't argue! The base gets REALLY hot on full speed though, as there are no fans in this thing and the base is one big heatsink - although the keyboard and palmrest seem well shielded and don't transmit the heat themselves, you can feel the heat from all around the sides of the case! Definitely do NOT use it on the lap on full throttle - it's fine on battery though.

I've no idea about the CPU technical questions, but if you install more powerful CPU's you'd need to be really careful of heat issues. I must say it'd be tempting though...

The screen is good, but not exceptional - it's got a standard matt finish (no gloss, I'd actually prefer gloss e.g. Samsung Q30), it's very sharp, no dead pixels, no ripples when twisting or touching the screen surround & back, brightness and contrast seem even, although as with any TFT I've seen, if you really concentrate you can see it's marginally brighter in the very centre. The default brightness and contrast seem well set to me, but adjustment is easy within the Intel graphics properties.

Horizontal and vertical viewing angles are excellent for text, but contrast reduces very quickly away from the ideal angle, paticularly vertically - DVD's are therefore terrible when viewed off-centre vertically, but look fine if 2 people are watching together e.g. in adjacent plane or train seats (this I know from experience) - you won't notice much lack of contrast with internet & office work, although I do subconsciously adjust it to the optimum vertical angle. DVD's also benefit from a slight contrast boost, but the contrast is fine on default otherwise. The only other (minor) gripe is slight light bleed on the bottom edge which is noticable on a black background (e.g. watching DVD's), but you won't see it in normal use.

BTW, other impressions / info -
- very light all round - main unit = 1005g, mains adapter = 160g, std battery = 165g, extended = 315g, external DVD = 410g - these are hot off the scales
- very flexible setup with external dvd & extra battery
- subjectively feels very fast, even @600Mhz - in general it feels noticably much faster than a Sony S2XP that I had for a couple of months (1.8Ghz Dothan, 512MB RAM) - it had a shockingly slow HD, the HD in the X1 is noticably faster e.g. loading UT2k4 levels - and the S2 had the worst bloatware I've ever seen (>360MB RAM of total crap on first boot). Was nice having Radeon 9700 though!
- X1 has hardly any bloatware - only Dell Quickset, WiFI config app (these 2 are useful), and Norton Internet Security trial were running on first boot.
- running a long dvd through the external drive non-stop lasted just over 1hr on the small battery, just over 2hrs on the extended one.
- with light use (internet browsing, Excel, Word) with WiFi on, after c.15-20mins the small (standard) battery went down by 10%, so you could expect 2.5 hrs, and probably 5.5+hrs use from the extended battery - I had as many power-saving features as poss on though.
- you can hot-swap batteries in hibernate mode - this is great - not tried hot-swapping in other modes
- really excellent keyboard - firm and positive action, with good travel - I've tried a Dell D610 and the keyboard's shocking, like a sponge, the X1 is nothing like that!
- it's a bit of a pain losing a USB port when the DVD is plugged in as there are only 2 on the machine, I had to buy a USB hub
- I personally find the mouse glide pad sketchy and too small, I have it on maximum sensitivity and maximum pointer speed

This has turned into a bit of an X1 brain dump, apologies for rambling...

 

Fenara, thanks for all the information! That was very useful and answered a lot of questions that I had after reading all the reviews.

I'm surprised you found the speed comparable to a 1.8ghz dothan, but then again, I think CPUs are overpowered these days. I'm sure the lack of bloatware was also helpful. The bottleneck on laptops are the slow hard drives! When I played around with some compaq systems at Best Buy, systems with a Turion and Sempron felt the same, speed wise, despite the class and price difference. Apps were a bit slow to load, but I think that's because of the slow 4200 rpm hard drive.

Did you find improved battery life after undervolting? Or temperatures? I'm mainly worried about the short battery life of the standard battery and the temperatures due to the fanless design.

Also, did you try watching movies (DVD or divx) off the hard drive? I assume performance would be fine (divx/xvid). I'm wondering because the external optical drive means copying a DVD or divx movies to the hard drive and watching them from there would be more convenient (especially when traveling). I believe battery life would also improve (1hr is dismal), since the optical drive needs so much power. Do you know how long the standard battery can last playing a Divx?

And ivar, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to upgrade the CPU on the X1. According to what I read on intel's website, the ULV processors come in the FCBGA (flip chip ball grid array) package instead of FCPGA (flip chip pin grid array). FCPGA chips can be pulled out and replaced (normal dothans), but I believe the ball grid ones are surface mount chips designed for ultraportables (surface mounting saves space compared to having a socket). So, my guess is that the processor is soldered onto the motherboard and therefore cannot be upgraded (which is a shame). Please correct me if anyone knows otherwise.

 

Necrosis, I agree, most "normal" tasks just need much CPU power, so a slow HD can often be the culprit for what one perceives as slow performance, but that means I'm even happier the X1 feels doesn't feel slow, given the HD is the lowest nominal speed available (4200rpm).

Binning bloatware & streamlining XP setup makes a big difference, but the S2XP still felt slow to me even after I disabled as many processes & services as poss, uninstalled all the crap, and disabled virtual memory. There was still a noticable pause just pressing Start and navigating the menu, and as I say, UT2K4 took ages to load levels - I'd always find myself entering new levels well after everyone else, at least a minute or 2 late - I'm always there at the start of hostilities with the X1.

In my X1 I have 1.25GB RAM and virtual memory disabled, so this helps it feel responsive - but frankly, I think 1.25GB RAM is overkill for this laptop and I'd say 768MB would be plenty - I got lucky with this one with the full spec appearing on Dell Outlet at the right mo at a great price.

The X1 is also running on a newer and faster chipset, so I suppose there are several factors adding up in its favour for performance.

I went looking for voltage & clock manipulators as soon as I got it, so I've never run on battery with default voltage and clocks, so can't compare to standard battery life. I travel a lot (I appreciate the low weight & separate components) but mostly use it plugged in so I can't comment much further than in my previous post.

I'm sure that watching DVD's from the HD should always be better than using an external drive. I've not yet copied DVD's to the HD or converted to DivX, that's my next step - in fact, can you recommend a good (and ideally free) DVD to DivX converter? I agree that battery life will improve running from HD as you say. Given 1hr using external drive and 2.5+hrs on "light use" browsing with WiFi on, I'd guess at c.1.5 hrs of film playback running from the HD.

FYI, 3DMark 2001SE @ 1340Mhz = 3200 - but in use it feels much faster than this suggests - I've found it copes fine with any games pre-2003 and a few post-2003 too, running @ 1280 or 1024x768. HL2 and MoH acific Assault are too choppy to be enjoyable though, even on minimum detail and after tweaking.

 

Interesting enough, my earlier concerns about the display brightness and contrast (based on the data from a German review) are refuted by another recent German review:
http://www.vnunet.de/tests/portables/article20050812031.aspx

According to this review, the display brightness is 219 cd/sqm (vs. 170 cd/sqm in the previous review) and the contrast and the viewing angles are evaluated as "very good". The noise level under the full load is 24 dB(A) i.e. hardly heard.

 

It seems that the screens are hit and miss. fenara seems to be happy with his screen. Myself, I'm disappointed.

The vertical viewing angle on my screen is terrible. It's so small that if I move my head slightly while working, the entire screen goes dim. Horizontal viewing angle is slightly better than vertical, but it's still pretty bad. Brightness and contrast are bad as well, and I have to set the screen on highest brightness or second highest to get a decent picture. I also have quite a bit of light leakage from the bottom of the LCD.

 

It sounds more like a defect screen, because others don't report so negative experience. Did you try to complain to Dell and to exchange the unit?

 

I haven't.

The screen, although low in quality, is still viewable. So I don't know if my complaint would hold any water, even if my screen seems below average.

 

Coolin, sorry to hear about your screen problems, I'd say contact Dell and give it a try - nothing to lose, and you might get a better screen in the bargain.

How about replacing the screen with one for a Samsung Q30? Those screens look great (from a brief look in a shop), a notch above the X1. No idea where you get them from or how much they are, but ivar linked to the installation guide in an earlier post.

To answer an earlier question about battery life watching DivX from the HD, I watched a film full screen with DivX 6 player, using the standard (small) battery, on full brightness but no sound, with all non-screen power saving on full.

In 31min the battery dropped by 25%, for a total of >2h of battery watching a DivX from the HD, and the video was smooth.

I also found that with the laptop inside a sleeve case, it fit fine inside a small, light 10Litre backpack I normally use for sports - not that the laptop will be coming with me up the slopes, but it shows how easy this thing is to travel with!

 

German Dell got crazy. They are systematically increasing price for
Latitude X1 since the middle of August. Some of these increases are masked under "free RAM extension" offers so that you are actually forced to buy more RAM. The result is that since the beginning of August the price for the lowest available configuration has risen for more than 250 Euro (almost 20%) i.e. far beyond reasonable limits. Looks like our red-green market tactics: more taxes, more control, higher prices, more lies, more cooperation with Russians and ... less development. The infection already hit Dell as well.

 

Another fresh X1 user's review:
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=55485

Yet another older review:
http://cnet.boston.com/Dell_Latitude_X1/4505-3121_7-31320873-2.html

 

Ivar, have you bought an X1 yet? I still love mine, and still use it as my main PC (while I'm travelling). It's marvellous as a PC travel companion.

Just bought an i9300 to replace my desktop, will be home working soon. Got a decent UK outlet deal on it - it's not as well built as the X1, but not bad at all either. Geforce 6800 is impressive. Am getting used to the WUXGA+ screen, may invest in a 20" monitor though and use a "normal" keyboard when working full-time on it. It's bloody fast thought (2.26ghz, superPi 1m26s without XP optimisations, 3DM05 c.4350 with oc'd 6800 & stock drivers, UT2k4 is super-smooth with all details maxed @ 1920x1200). The CPU only overclocks marginally (2300ghz using setFSB for Acer 1694) before freezing, but it's no big loss given how fast it already is.

It's a very different, and complimentary beast for the X1.

 

Just another small X1 update, I recently bought an Akasa aluminium laptop cooler base with 2 (quiet) fans (suitable up to 15.4" laptop) -
http://www.akasa.co.uk/akasa_english/spec_page/notebook_cooler/spec_ak_nbc_01.htm

You need to push the X1 up c.2.5cm to have the fans blowing square onto the base, but I find this sloping & set back position perfect to type on & to use the screen, and with the fans running it takes the temps down by >10C, and >15C when it's under load (encoding, gaming). That's a bloody decent heatsink in the X1, just need to get the air flowing around it.

Also, the base is ridged and has rubber tops in places, all of which really help anchor it in place during use - IMO it's definitely a worthwhile purchase for E35/£23-ish, if you want to set it up on a desktop.

The grey of the base also perfectly matches the X1 colour, which was a nice unexpected extra.

I've not tested it with any other bases, but it's worth a look if you have an X1 IMO.

 

Hi fenara,
Thanks for the information.

Unfortunately, I haven't bought X1 yet. While I was "thinking" etc. the prices for X1 in Germany went too high. I am actually considering to purchase the new Samsung Q30+ in Eastern Europe during my next visit there. To my surprise I found there offers which are almost 2 times cheaper than in Germany, and only slightly higher than the current X1 price here. So far I stay with my modest uniwill 223ii0 which I actually don't like.

 

I just bought an X1 on Tuesday, it should be at my office tomorrow morning. Got a $2500 laptop for $1380 off the Dell Outlet.

 

Well - you should wait till the 15th of november. Samsung will start offering the q30+ in Germany then. Be sure that there should be one version for around 2.000 euros - and you can get better deals at retailers for sure.

 

There is a fresh review of Latitude X1 published in German.
I post the link because it containts the results of a number of benchmarks presented in self-explanatory pictures. The cpmparison with other ultraportables in made whose specs can be found in the article.

http://www.de.tomshardware.com/mobile/20051111/index.html

Concerning the discussion on the display quality, the article points a non-uniform distribution of the brightness of x1 screen:

It also measures the screen brightness to be only 119 cd/m² (vs. 149 cd/m² of sony vaio T ) and the contrast 98:1. In another German review the brightness of screen was measured as 170cd/m².
However, if I take the brightness of Sony screen as the etalon (and it is commonly praised as very light, and that would mean about 200 cd/m²) then I assume that the measurements contain some systematic error lowerning the results for about 50 cd/m². Then the results are consistent with the previously reported numbers. I am not sure though.

Edit: I just found that this article is actually a translation from the English! 17 pages!
http://www.mobilityguru.com/2005/10/24/how_does_dell/
See also "Reader Feedback On Dell's Latitude X1"
http://www.mobilityguru.com/2005/10/26/a_reader_speaks_about_the_dell_latitude_x1/

 

After coming to my own conclusion that there is currently no such thing as a notebook that perfectly meets my needs I'm wondering whether the X1 is a close enough approximation. One thing I'm worried about is performance. The unit abaxter reviewed in March had 512MB and took 2m 40s to run the 2 million digit Super Pi benchmark.

Is anyone out there with more RAM in their X1 (or Q30) willing to try running this benchmark? The processor and hard drive can't easily be upgraded but I'm wondering whether this sort of performance is heavily bound by available memory. If so then perhaps maxing out the memory would be enough.

Thanks,

Songdog

 

I don't think there will be any difference. I was running this test for 2M digits pi on my current laptop (not x1) and observed the RAM usage using a software. It was less than 512MB all the time!

Only if you run 5M or 10M test (don't remember) you need slightly more than 512M.

2m40s is not bad, it's just 20% slower than an average centrino laptop would do. you are not going to run extensive calculations on this laptop, won't you?

if dell x1 is your first approximation (as it is mine!), then samsung q30plus would be even better approximation!

 

Thanks for your reply, ivar. Yes, the Q30plus would be great but I don't want to pay the premium to import one and I won't be overseas soon enough to by my own.

I'm going to be doing software and web development on the computer, so I'll be running a webserver, an IDE, lots of browser windows, etc.. I imagine it would be fast enough. I'm still also considering a few other machines, in particular a couple of Sony Vaios: the TX650 and the S580 (and their siblings). The TX is nearly as light as the X1 plus includes an optical drive but has a smaller screen. The S580 has a larger screen and keyboard but is a little heavier (though still below my cutoff). I've also looked at the Acer TM3002, several Asus machines, two MSI models, and Dell's Inspiron 700m and Latitude D410. Analysis/paralysis, indeed. Amusingly enough one thing I especially like about the Dell is it's relatively normal (though slightly sub-sized) keyboard layout. Most of the others force PgUp/PgDown/Home/End to share duties with other keys, which is annoying when editing lots and lots of text. But all of these other machines are faster than the X1, and most of them are cheaper.

 

dell latitude x1 bought in the US from dell.com outlet is cheaper!

someone has succeded to overclock dell x1! the info is somewhere on this forum (maybe by fenara?).
.

 

For the record I have 1.2 gigs of ram and my best for 2M digits was 2:31. So not much difference.

Most of the time though, it's running at 600mhz; gets a bit too warm at 1.1ghz. At 600mhz, it's about 50 celsius according to mobile meter; can get to around 70 at 1.1.

 

Can someone comment if these two products are capable to compensate X1's lack of PCMCIA slot?

1. USB 2.0 PCMCIA Type II Card Reader/Writer
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=109293

2. Memory CF - PCMCIA Card Adaptor
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=PCMCIA

 

I think the first one might work, but the product description is awful! This bit makes no sense at all, "It can read and write PCMCIA Type II Cards (PC Cards) which are stored on the Flash memory cards and hard drive devices...". Maybe you can email the vendor to be sure?

The 2nd definitely not, it's just a CF adapter - and there's a CF slot in the X1 anyway.

With reference to a previous comment, I can overclock my X1 to 1342Mhz = 11 x 122FSB, using SetFSB for Acer 1694. Super Pi 2M digits is 2M 12s at this speed, and at full load (vid encoding etc) temp is 78C with no external cooling (Adding an external fan or desktop cooler greatly reduces this).

 

Wow! Dell.com now offers X1 with 80GB HDD! Interesting, which company started to produce 1.8" 80GB HDDs?

Imho, the price difference of 50$ between 60GB and 80GB makes the latter a rather attractive option. No such option is available in Europe yet.

 

Now all we need is 5400 or 7200 RPM Harddrives.

 

The thread looks abandoned (I know, dell xps and d420 are out, though, imho X1 is still unique in its class).

Which sleeves do you use for X1?

2m superpi on X1 with 80GB HDD and 1280M RAM runs 2m 33s.

Core Solo D420 seems to be able to run it 30 sec. faster.

 

I found this sleeve which seems to be suitable X1's size (11.26" x 8.5" x 0.98"), not perfect though.

Vasola Notebook Zipper Case B5 12" X 9 1/4" X 1"
http://www.semsons.com/vasnotcasb5.html

By the way, the same site offers CF to PCMCIA adapter which may be needed for some X1 users:
http://www.semsons.com/comflastopcc.html

There exists also a USB to PCMCIA adaptor U132:
http://www.elandigitalsystems.com/usb/u132.php