Date: NINE ELEVEN 2024
It is 2024 and the ThinkPad X60 is old enough fuck. Despite it being such a dated platform, a lot of people (including me) still have an affinity towards the laptops from this line. The X60 and X61 are the last subnotebook ThinkPads to use a 4:3 aspect ratio LCD panel, the last ones to still have IBM branding (but by this time Lenovo was simply using their logo under license), and many people still present them as "good enough" for light personal computing usage, such as a glorified typewriter or browsing the web.
It is my intention to give a brief overview and my perspective on these laptops, with some considerations that don't often get mentioned, so people who may still want one of these laptops can make an educated decision on if they want one or not.
So here's a quick rundown of the specs, which, sure, anyone can look up, but I'll talk about them for the sake of completeness, and add in my own thoughts...
For the X60, the processor is an Intel Core Duo (although some SKUs of the X60 came with a Core 2 Duo) at up to 2 gigahertz. The "Core Duo" (lacking the "2") is a 32-bit processor, and one of the first dual-core CPUs for laptops, I believe. The X61 uses the Core 2 Duo exclusively, up to 2.5 giggyhurts in some cases. The chipset in the X60 limits RAM to 4GB, even with a 64-bit CPU. The Core 2 Duos offer a noticeable improvement in speed, with random internet benchmarks and my personal experience showing the Core 2 Duo being 50% better than it's predecessor hertz-for-hertz. But, being so old, all of these processors are definitely showing their age, lacking the "snappiness" a user who always uses something somewhat modern would expect. Still, I believe these processors are usable for non-professional, everyday browsing tasks. If you want to upgrade CPUs, the motherboards are easy to swap, but the cost of the motherboards has gone up recently with dwindling supply. Although, you can find some for around $40 still.
Both of these use integrated Intel graphics. For the X60, it is an Intel GMA 950. For the X61, it is an Intel GMA X3100. The difference between the both of this is not insignificant but also not great. For the 950, it is definitely less preformant than the X3100, but there is nothing you could really do on any system that would show you that difference, other than maybe watching videos. The X60 can handle H.264 videos at to 1080p if the bitrate isn't over, say, 8000kbps, but searching for it I am pretty sure both of these integrated graphics do NOT support H.264 decoding... But in a media player that supports hardware acceleration, enabling it makes things much smoother with H.264 videos on both chipsets. So, I have no clue why it works better like that, and I'm not a guru with all of those video formats like some people. But either way, I think they are good for H.264, while H.265 vids run terribly on both, and forget about AV1. But I guess the good side about late adoption is that most things you can pirate are still in H.264 anyway!
One thing that can also trip you up is graphics API support. In Linux, the GMA 950 is limited at OpenGL 1.4, but the X3100 has support for OpenGL 2.1. These are both pretty old, so depending on what program you use, say a game or something, it may throw up errors or prevent you from running certain software, but the X3100 can get away with a little more in that aspect. Despite that, you're not going to be running a modern version of creative softwares on it like Blender or Godot, but anyone interested in this laptop would probably assume going in that they are not going to be doing high-end creative things on an 18-year-old laptop, right.
Taking the specs into consideration, with these laptops you're pretty much going to be watching videos in H.264, or playing games with the maximum graphical fidelity of Quake III, or browsing the web and working in a text editor or word processor... Which, sure, is fine by me. I'm a simple boy. Just to see if I could, I tried to run Skyrim on an X60 (running Windows 7)... and it worked, after tweaking and troubleshooting, with severe caveats, and at silky smooth 4 frames per second. Sure, it's not anything anyone would think about doing in the first place, but I like doing those experiments!
A very important aspect of the X60 and X61 is the display. Most of these have 12.1" 1024x768 XGA TN panels that look like cancer. Also, most webpages today are broken and unreadable on a resolution like this. (Mainly due to so many of them adding too much empty space on the left, for no reason, completely defeating the purpose of the widescreen monitor it'd likely be viewed on. I hate modern web design.) The PC tablet variations of the X60 and X61 have IPS/AFFS panels, with slightly better color and good viewing angles. The drawback of these tablets is that they're thicker, heavier, and have a plastic shield on the front for a stylus pen. These bezel-shield-things give more glare to an otherwise nice screen, and even gets dust underneath over time. I personally ripped out this plastic shield on one of mine, forgoing the use of the tablet pen (because I don't really feel like I'd be using it) for the sake of clarity. These tablets, though, do come in an uncommon variant - one with a 1400x1050 SXGA+ panel. This is pretty awesome to use, especially on the size of the screen, and I use the X61 Tablet with this high-res panel most of the time. But...
One aspect of danger with the Tablets is the X61 Tablet, specifically with the 1400x1050 screen. The plastic shield in this one was glued on with strong adhesive to the LCD itself, and over time it can bubble up underneath and basically ruin it. The X60 Tablet SXGA+ is just the plastic shield with nothing between it and the screen, so I swapped the motherboard to an X61 Tablet one for an upgrade, and basically have a Cadillac X61. Some people have been trying their best to restore the X61 Tablet screens to make them suitable for swaps, but it's difficult and laborious. But the panels can be had in some ways, apparently. And at the time of writing, there's a bit of a secondhand market for them.
You can manage to get a IPS panel made for the Tablet versions into a normal X60/X61, but not before at least doing some research. They require a different cable. And, they have a Wacom digitizer on them require that to be removed to fit, which is difficult to do without breaking the screen. Even then, they have issues fitting snugly in the non-tablet variant chassis. But, I gave it a try. I purchased a panel and custom cable from a specific AliExpress store and it worked well. There is a very slight feeling that it is being squished in there if you look at the bezel from a certain angle, but I'm happy with it. There's also another dumb thing about the SXGA+ screens – they run at 50Hz refresh rate. There is a trick you can do though, which involves bending a pin on the panel's EEPROM chip and flashing an EDID to the panel which allows it to run at 60Hz. It's actually very easy, but it's just an annoying step. In regards to a number of these things with the SXGA+ display, I made a YouTube video going over it, which I think adequately covers a few notable questions about the swap.
Overall, maybe 1024x768 can be fine, but you'll have big blocky UIs everywhere and most websites will be squashed. If you like to code in an IDE all day, it's probably fine at that resolution. Also, in general, 4:3 aspect ratio is also nice for watching old TV shows and playing old vidya like Doom, which I do often on these. So, that's why I still like to keep these around, really.
As for the digitizer/pen input on the X60/X61 Tablet variations, this is nothing to be excited about. The Wacom digitizer on these laptops is very low resolution compared to even entry-level offerings of that day (say, an Intuos 2). On one hand, if you weren't a discerning professional, don't think you'd hardly notice or care, and it may be a convenient novelty to use sometimes. On the other, considering the awkwardness of doing anything with the stylus on a laptop screen, and the lack of screen real-estate, I don't think this is going to be any kind of alternative to a dedicated pen tablet. (Well, I dunno, it may be fine. You just won't be running any moderately heavy art programs on it.) Basically, you're not going to build your professional digital artist empire with this tablet screen.
One thing to note is the SATA interface. Not special that it has one, but they are both limited to SATA 1.5Gbps. This is easily enough to bottleneck a SATA SSD, or even a really good spinny HDD. Yet, on the X61, it is actually a SATA 3Gbps interface - it is just disabled with the stock BIOS. So, you can install a nice modded BIOS called Middleton's BIOS and get that SATA 3Gbps speed, as well as use any WiFi card you want. (Oh yeah, the old "whitelisted WiFi card" trope. Honestly, there's no downside to the modded BIOSes on these.)
For other odds and ends, you have the "classic" ThinkPad keyboard layout and a TrackPoint, with no option for a trackpad on these models. There is a fingerprint reader, which works well enough. The keyboard palm rest is a semi-gritty ABS plastic surface that feels nice. I have a CardBus card that provides me with two extra USB 2.0 slots, which is useful. It also has an SD card slot, and some models have IR receiver... interesting, but I don't know what I could use IR for. Also a four-pin IEEE 1394 (FireWire) port if you need that. Of couse, with many TinkPads of the time, you can dock to add an UltraBay and more ports, including a DB-25 and DE-9 if you have a 40-year-old printer or joystick that you want to use for some reason. What else can is there really to explain about these laptops... Hmm, people say they're "sturdy" and I suppose I agree, I've thrown my laptops around a bit and they're still chugging.
Oh, the battery. Battery life is tolerable. I have the 9-cell battery and I can last at least four hours browsing. I also have the UltraBay battery which I can put in the dock and that gives it an extra hour, maybe. The 9-cell is still miraculously at near-peak capacity, but the UltraBay one is about 70%... Battery supply for these seem to have dwindled as well, and now they are getting expensive even for off-brand manufactured ones. Maybe I can swap the cells, but I'm not confident in my abilities to not fuck it up.
I am glad you internally asked that as you read the header. For one, these laptops are just grazing what I consider "barely usable" in 2024, and I have a bit of a high tolerance for potatos. At this point these laptops are glorified typewriting toasters, and retro console emulation machines for comfiness. So I use mine to...
If you still want a ThinkPad X60 or X61 today, thing is that the supply of these is dwindling because of memery (fags like me singing praises of the EPICK IBM THINKPAD) and because the awakening of people who prefer to have more simple computers in their life. And because time just passes. Ten years ago, Core 2 Duo ThinkPads could be had practically for free. Now, you can pay $100 for a terribly dirty and busted one with pressure spots all over the LCD, dirt in the keyboard, and a fried ethernet port. So, if you're not in the market for a novelty and fixer-upper, don't be in a rush to get an X60/X61, I'd say. Today, also, modern low-end laptops are actually kind of usable in their own right. You can not really break the bank and get a modern netbook for like $300ish, which can handle video watching and basic tasks better than an X61, probably has great battery life, and for the extra freedom you can just throw a GNU/Linux distro on it anyway.
So yeah. I think at this point if you buy a ThinkPad X6x you are buying a meme, but, hey, it's a nice one. I use my X60/1 Tablet amalgamation often while in bed, just watching videos and browsing the internet until I dose off. I have a T430 as well and it does that much more smoothly, but I don't feel as attached to it as I do to the 4:3 machine. Just, if you want one, know it's limits and know that it probably needs a little TLC.