I have one of the old Lenovo X1 Carbons from when they first came out. It's great, I had been considering a MacBook Air, but I liked the thin bezel on the X1, a little more screen resolution, and Linux-ability (was also a couple hundred cheaper at the time). I mainly use it for coding and web browsing and the slowest CPU with 4GB memory and 128GB SSD does fine for a dual boot setup with Win7 and Ubuntu. The overall look and feel, and the keyboard (pre-weird function row thing) are the highlights, but the screen is not the best, especially after using a MBP retina often. But it works and I'm happy with it. The changed keyboard would make me question a new model, and I'm not interested in a touch screen.
Also, the touchpad is the best I've used on a non-Apple laptop, and is of comparable quality. It has a trackpoint, but I never use it.
I have a very old x201 that I love... except for that damned screen. The visual angle is so small that even sited directly in front of it, looking square on, the blacks around the edges look bad. Makes it hard to watch a dark movie.
The other thinkpads I've seen don't have screens this bad, but this one is a corker. Apart from that, I love the little thing.
Sounds like I have some thinking to do. I've had this laptop for 5-6 years, and apart from the bad screen, the only fault is that the speaker started failing about a year ago (so I've been using headphones). Spend some time and effort fixing and upgrading this thing (new battery, screen, hunt for speaker issue, perhaps ssd upgrade?) or just go for a new machine?
One of the big bonuses to the thinkpads is that very complete user manuals are available free online, including exploded disassembly diagrams. Perhaps I should do the upgrade just because it's possible :)
Well that descision is pretty up to you. It depends on your needs and how much you like the laptop.
I'll recount my recent story.
I started out with an x200, which I loved for the size and lack of trackpad (I only use the trackpoint, I use keybinds and tiling wms heavily), and ran that for a few months. I did the screen upgrade[0] and was extremly happy with the mod. Unfortunatley a mishap at a hackerspace involving a large cup of beer destroyed my poor motherboard. I had a descision to make: either buy a new laptop or repair this one. I went with the rebuild plan. I squeezed in an x201 motherboard into the chassis instead of going with the same C2D mobo. I bought a refurbed 120GB SSD and a new 4GB stick of RAM. On top of that I had to replace my keyboard so that came as I also bought a new 9-Cell battery.
In the end I ended up with a near new x201 with an x200 chassis, an IPS screen, SSD, full DIMM of RAM, and a kew keyboard with roughly 8-9 hours of battery life all for about $550 out of pocket. I've spent about 2 years with it like this and if I had to make the choice again I would absolutley do the repair; I love my laptop. But I'm also only a sysadmin and compiling code and major power isn't a conern for me. Portability and reliability is.
[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4hVYq9glKg : This mod is just under $200 but you get an IPS equivalent screen that covers roughly 75-80% colour gamut. Way nicer to watch movies on.
Thanks for the info. Do you recall the model number of the IPS panel you used?
Poking around on youtube a bit more, here is the x201 TN screen (same as mine) in a side-by-side with an IPS screen - it's quite a dramatic comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzP3rFZXSgE
There's two screens you can choose from. The 120 is a matte finish just like the stock screen (a little finer/nicer than the stock finish) and the 110 is a glossy finish. Your preference.
The screen is a direct swap for the x200. For the x201 you need the CCFL/screen controller from an x200. The x201 has an LED backlight and it doesn't work with this screen. You need the CCFL controller from the x200. Easiest way to do this is to source a broken x200 with the lid intact and swap the screen into the lid, and then the lid onto the x201. Aside from that it's a direct swap.
