First impression with the X61 Tablet

Finally it's in my hands. Spent a few hours to set it up, not as I have dreaded. In the past, I have do a fresh installation of windows from scratch for every single one of the computer I got. This time, I want to give them a chance to "prove" themselves after so many years: they can make a computer that do not needs much TLC. Now it's more or less okay to run with the exception of a few minor incompatibility issues with Vista that I need to find a solution later. Here are some initial impressions:

Size:
The build is solid, may be too much. It's much heavier thank the old X31. Part of the reason is the large hard drive and cooling for the core duo CPU. Being a tablet, a lot of functionalities have been integrated into the LCD package, e.g. power, scrolling, screen orientation switching, etc. Hence, the edge of the screen is significantly wider than X31 and X41.

Another thing is that the battery sticks out in the back (as seen in the top of the figure) like some extended life batteries in other notebooks.


Tablet:
The rotation of the LCD is steady, functioning as expected. Handwritten recognition works exceptionally well for regular words, but not so much for intentionally miss spelled words or anything not in its vocabulary.

Temperature:
It is COOOOOOL. All three of the Dell Latitude series laptops I used before are very hot including the fairly recent D420. Even comparing to the X31, it is considerablely cooler. Nice feature when using it in hot weather on my lap with just shorts. There is heat coming from the bottom, but more distributed than the Dells that concentrated in a very small area. This should mostly attribute to the excellent design by Lenovo/IBM engineers and Intel for their new generation of low voltage dual core Centrino processors.

Program/Vista:
Again, Lenovo/IBM packed a lot of utilities in the pre-installed Vista Ultimate. Some are very useful such as the Diskeeper, Power Management, Access Connections, etc. It also contains a lot of programs I have no idea of preloaded when windows starting up. I have no prior hands-on experiences with Vista, may be need to wait for a few weeks before commenting too much on it.

Who's your favorite Heroes Character?

Just spent the whole weekend finished the first season of Heroes. It's a fairly good show. The question is whether add it to my already full watching list or wait till the DVD out so I can watch all of them at once just like what I did now.
In season one, my favorite hero is Noah Bennet, AKA Horn-rimmed glasses (HRG). What broke my heart was, though, when it turned out that Hiro cannot save Charlie, the sweatiest girl from the past.

A new Lenovo/IBM X61 Tablet

My old X31 served me well for the past three years. Unfortunately two months after its warranty expired, its case started a small crack. At the same time, it runs slower and slower even with the added 1GB or RAM (1.5GB total now). So, with some recent deals going at Lenovo, I decided to take a look. Well, let's just say I can't resist the temptation and picked an X61 tablet, which I had an eye on for awhile. Here's the specs:

7764CTO
12.1" MultiView + MultiTouch WVA XGA TFT
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo L7500 LV (1.6GHz, 4MB L2, 800MHz FSB),
2x3 UltraConnecII antenna
2x1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory
Intel Turbo Memory 1GB
100GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD ROM 8Max, Ultrabay Slim
Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 4965AGN (supporting Centrino Pro)
ThinkPad X6 TableUltraBase,
ThinkPad X60 Table8 Cell Li-Ion Battery
Bluetooth w/ antenna

All these for about 1.5 grand, $300 more than what I paid for the X31 on Ebay, but still seems a good deal. The down side is that it needs more than two weeks to deliver.

Just waiting...

In the mean time, here is a list of reviews:
TabletPCReview
TabletPC2
Gottabemobile

Dexter: Season II

Now it's official. It's not TV, it's SHOW TIME.

Another excellent show from Show Time. With Weeds and Californication, it's the first time that I'm following three shows in one season, ever. Not to mention they are all from the same network. I'm grateful that there's only one new episode per week.