IBM TX031UK (X20 Series)

Any decent notebook manufacturer worth its salt must have an ultra-portable in its range, and IBM is no exception. The likes of Sony have led the way in this, producing models that are not only stylish but also highly functional. IBM's offerings have been looking a little dated, but with the X series, the company hopes to once again take the lead in the sub-notebook field.

There are several models in the X20 range and they all differ slightly, but for this review we looked at the TX031UK. The X20 is certainly very compact, weighing a skimpy 1.55kg. IBM has played safe in the design, with the X20 maintaining the same look as all Thinkpads, but this construction does make the X20 extremely robust. The lid is a Titanium composite, which helps protect the screen and keyboard from damage.

The key to any good notebook is ergonomics, and here IBM wins hands down. The keyboard is simply the best there is: the near full-size keys have just the right amount of travel, are very responsive and feel extremely comfortable to type on. The 12.1in TFT screen is fairly good and has a native resolution of 1024 x 768. There were a couple of small dark patches in the top-left and right-hand corners of our review model, but nothing that would affect your viewing pleasure.

There's a D-SUB connector at the rear of the Thinkpad for an external monitor, and this supports resolutions of up 1600 x 1200. Graphics are supplied by a 4Mb ATi Rage Mobility M chip and as with all notebooks you can swap between displays using a keyboard shortcut. There are three dedicated volume shortcut keys, and a Thinkpad key that brings up help files and configuration utilities for the X20. There's also an extra selector button - if you hold this down, you can scroll through the current window using the Trackpoint.

Underneath the Thinkpad's robust shell is a mobile Pentium III clocked at 600MHz. Along with all recent releases from Intel, this features battery-saving SpeedStep technology. With mobile processors now running as fast as 850Mhz, this may not seem all that impressive; but for the kind of applications this notebook is designed for, it's more than adequate.

The 128Mb of RAM is a healthy addition, resulting in a decent SYSmark 2000 score of 118 (check VNU Labs for methodologies).

To keep the unit small there are no internal drives, but a USB floppy and CD-ROM are available as optional extras. There are two USB ports for this purpose. In the box is a claim form for Lotus SmartSuite Millennium and, for £9.99, IBM will send you a copy on CD. Without paying for the CD-ROM drive, though, most people will have no way of installing the program.

Other ports are few and far between. There's a line-in, headphone and mic connectors, but that's it. A Type II PC Card slot is on the left-hand side, and there's a Type II Compact Flash slot that can take IBM's own Microdrive and removes the need to buy a PC Card Compact Flash adaptor.

The port for the integrated V90 modem is at the rear. There's space for integrated ethernet as well, but on this model it's blanked out. This is a shame, as it would offer an opportunity to install extra software. More expensive versions in the range do come with integrated ethernet, however.

IBM has its own power management software in addition to that offered by Windows 98, and the lithium-ion battery has a quoted battery life of three hours. When the X20 is running on battery power, it is advisable to turn off the screen and hard drives after a preset period of time. You can customise this, of course, or use one of the power profiles IBM has set up. The profiles also adjust the power-saving functions to be optimised for activities like presentations or watching DVD movies.

The X20 is an excellent ultra-portable, combining ease of use with a touch of style. There are a couple of problems, though. If you are a home user, you'll need to add the cost of a USB CD-ROM to install any software; corporates won't be so worried by this, but then, they'll probably want a version with integrated ethernet. For these reasons, the X20 doesn't quite make top marks.

Contact
IBM: 0870 010 2512 www.ibm.com

See also:

IBM to offer 'self-healing' computers

IBM has announced plans to equip its new PCs with online tools to diagnose and resolve common IT problems.  04 Jan 2001

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