I'm dazed by the X200 but I got some Q's for the owners

I don't use the optical drive 99% of the time. But if there's that 1% chance, what do you, X200 owners and experienced notebook people, suggest?

Also, with no built-in HD outputs, how can I, if at all, connect it to a TV through something else?

I know Lenovo offers the Ultra Base but I want to consider cheaper and different alternatives.

Thanks.

 

You can get an external USB optical drive on ebay for $40
You can also get a VGA to HDMI/DVI cable adapter to connect to your TV for $10

 

VGA to HDMI/DVI adapters aren't great...but thats an option if your TV doesn't have an VGA input. Really using the ultrabase's displayport is ideal :\.

 

I was wondering the same thing. How can I make sure the external USB optical drive would be compatible for booting? I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to run a recovery disc - is the Ultra Base a sure bet for compatibility?

 

you cannot simply get a wire that goes from vga to hdmi as it is going from a analog signal to digital, you will need a converter box for that, which is roughly $50-300 and only the the higher cost ones will allow you to scale the signal, meaning you won't have to change the resolutions on your computer to allow it to be compatible with your HDTV

 

you can easily install windows through an external dvd drive, or make recovery disks, etc

don't be worried about that!

 

Oh sweet. Now I consider the X200 as the ultimate ultraportable. But yeah, check out eBay for cheap alternatives.

 

You just set the x200 to boot off usb.

 

i would urge you to reconsider and get the ultrabase... one of the best things i bought for the x200.

 

I have to agree. Optical is handy at the desk. Digital output to my 24" is great etc. For me a notebook without a dock was out of the question.

 

Sigh... I was looking for a Lenovo notebook that was portable enough (13.3" or lower) at a low cost but if the ultra base is the best option for a X200, then I may be better off considering the SL300 instead.

 

The ultrabase is only necessary if you intend to dock it regularly. VGA is perfectly adequate on my 20" (1680x1050) LCD. Optical drives are rarely if ever needed, and a $50 external DVD±RW works just fine. The main benefit of the base is that you can just drop your laptop in the base and Voila! all your accessories are instantly connected. When you are done, just grab and go.

What, if anything, does the SL300 give you that the x200 doesn't have? The HDMI and firewire are potentially nice, but unless you work with DV, they are not really necessary. It is better to go with the lighter x200 most of the time, and just use an external DVD±RW at your desk the handful of times that you need it. The x200 is also far more rigid, and will survive abuse better than the SL300 (although the SL is still better than almost any non-Thinkpad you can buy).

 

A weird keyboard layout! ;-)

 

any good links for the optical drive? I've never seen one for 40, even no name brands from china show up as 60 with shipping.

 

I don't know about $40, but this is a Samsung (good brand, I have a very reliable internal SATA drive from them) that is very fast, supports dual layer, lightscribe, ±RW, and is only $50 shipped to anywhere in the US.

I would recommend avoiding a VGA to DVI/HDMI converter cable. VGA is analog and DVI/HDMI are digital. No simple cable could do a decent job at this. You would need a high quality box with a good ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) for that to work effectively. VGA is plenty good for monitors/projectors and most LCD TVs support it (plasmas usually don't, but oh well).

 

you also get the digital video output... which makes a huge difference... in my opinion worth it a lot

having the docking station really helps with the wear and tear of the ports... especially the VGA cable.. those vga pins... oh man..

 

I'm not an x200 user and I have a normal 14"inch laptop, but since January this year I accidentally left a defective CD in my cd drive for 30 minutes and when I came back it refused to read any optical media anymore. So no CD drive for almost the whole year

IMO CDs are a thing of the past; I never missed having one. Couple of reasons;

1. I haven't reformat my PC and in the rare instances that I need to boot into a CD my office has an external USB dvd drive. But some bootable programs can already be booted from external drives or even from the network but for simplicity; an external cd drive is the choice.
2. Installers are mostly downloaded in MSI and EXE files so they fit in flash based storage medias. If it is in a CD, then it's either I use use another computer in the network to share their cd drive or I make an image of that cd and mount it on a local cd emulator.
3. What if I need share some data to a friend? I have WIFI, LAN to share a folder or ask that friend for a Flash Disk; these are dirt cheap nowadays and faster to write into.

CD/DVDs now for me has been replaced by higher capacity flash and HD drives which utilizes USB2 ports. There are also lots of ways to move data around instead of burning them. Most softwares you just install it once; patches are downloaded from the net so you will only really need an optical drive on those rare first installations.

 

I agree. When I bought my T40 back in 2003, CD/DVD drives were necessary. I bought a 256MB USB drive to go with it for $50. A state of the art (as of 2003) 1GB USB drive would have cost $200. Further, hard drives were small (36GB on my T40), and DVD+R provided a very effective storage medium.

However, it is now possible to get a 8GB SDHC card (or USB drive) for <$25. This is fully the size of a dual layer DVD, is easily rewritable, smaller, more durable, and more power efficient than a DVD. The widespread use of MSI installers, net apps, and the crater that fell through the NAND flash market allowed me to ditch the optical drive and opt for the very light and effective x200 over the heavier but not much faster T400, or the slower, pricier, and less expandable x300(1). I did salvage a DVD±RW drive from a POS Acer Laptop and bought a slim enclosure, but I only used it the first day to install a few apps and I haven't touched it since.

 

how do we do that in the bios? whats the name of the option?

 

It's usually enabled by default in most newer BIOS systems. All you need to do to verify is adjust the boot order (put USB above SATA hard drive). Alternatively, I think you can press the Blue Thinkvantage button to bring up a temporary boot menu (this may actually be preferred as it prevents accidental boots from USB keys you have plugged in).

 

Indeed. 7 rows forever. I want my page up/down, print screen, and pause. I hate having to use an fn modifer to take a screenshot on my work HP (Compaq nc4400). It should also be noted that the SL series does not have the Thinklight, this is only a big problem because they screwed up the layout (I can type on my x200 in pitch black without the light, because it is the same layout [except for the win/context key] as my old T40, and every other Thinkpad).