Episode: 2280
Title: HPR2280: Lenovo X61s Part 2
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2280/hpr2280.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 00:46:16

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This is an HBR episode 2,280 entitled Lenovo X61 Part 2 and is part of the series Hardware Upgrades.
It is hosted by Tony Humeca Tony H1,212 and is about 9 minutes long and carrying a clean flag.
The summer is a description of living with the X61 for almost two weeks.
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Hello HBR. This is Tony Hunez again from Leppol in the UK.
Ok, a couple of episodes ago I was talking about Lenovo X61S's and particularly running
water-s on these machines and how this might bring them back to life.
At during that episode I talked about possibly upgrading the X61S's SSD, so after that
episode I went online, had a search around and found a Drevo 120 gig SSD. Initially I
looked on Amazon but it was cheaper to order it from eBay. I managed to pick one up
for £40. I'll put a link in the show notes to this particular SSD. Basically this
is a very nice little cheap SSD but you wouldn't know it. I got hold of the SSD, installed
it into the Lenovo, and Julie installed water-s onto it. Well, what OS did everything you'd
need of it as an OS. It was absolutely fine on the X61. I was a bit disillusioned with
the amount of configuration needed to get all the software I wanted to use working. And
it was definitely not new friendly. So I had a look around for other Linux distributions
and I came across Linux Lite and again I'll put a link to the show notes to their web
page. I had a look at this and I thought it might be a better choice as it says it's
aimed at new users and being based on Ubuntu the same as what OS. It's a familiar beast.
So I Julie downloaded the ISO and installed it onto the X61 and as soon as the updates
were completed I looked at the installed software and it's definitely a lot more comprehensive
but not at the expensive being lightweight. You get LibreOffice, Writer, the PowerPoint
replacement and the spreadsheet out of the box which you didn't with what OS and you
get a few of the codecs that you didn't with what OS as well. When I had a look around
of course so the Dacity wasn't installed which it wasn't on what OS either. So I installed
a Dacity but that's all I did I just picked a Dacity and installed that and when I went
to start it up it actually fired up and worked out to the box which when I tried out on
what OS I had to go back in and configure a load of stuff and download some more audio stuff
for Alsa and I can't remember what it is now but anyway take it it didn't work straight
away. So that was refreshing to find out that Audacity worked. At first boot Linux Lite
takes about 300 mega RAM and even after opening a word processor and using Firefox at the
same time RAM usage is only around about 700 megabyte which is a bonus on a machine that's
only got two gig installed on it. So I had to play around with it and since I installed
it and the SSD the battery life on the machine has gone up to well in excess of four hours
and probably in excess of five hours. I'm currently on battery at the moment and I haven't
charged the battery up and I've been using it all day today and I've still got one hour
29 minutes left so I've probably used it pretty consistently for about two and a half
three hours today so that would suggest a battery time of around four and a half five hours.
That's using the extended battery which is an 8 cell 63 watt battery which came with the
machine and considering it's 10 years old it's actually not got too bad a battery life on it.
So I've been playing around with the machine now for about two weeks doing HBR episodes recording
HBR episodes uploading them to the internet and writing the show notes in the word processor and
everything is working fine. I've also practiced processing a photo, a JPEG photo image that was around
about 10 gig and that was fine as well. So it's a very very capable little
PC. Very happy with its performance even when it had the 8 gig spinner but now with the
addition of the SSD it's improved the performance and the battery life. To the extent that I'd be
happy to take it on the road as me only PC and for the purpose of writing the review like I say I've
actually been living with the X61S for nearly two weeks now and although I have it's bigger brother
the X230i with an i3 processor and 8 gig around. I've not really missed that. I've not felt well I've
got to go and hunt that out because I can't do what I need to do on the X61. In fact at one stage
I was going to record a show using that machine and found out that the audio jack in it is a
composite audio jack and my headset which requires separate mic and headphone sockets wouldn't work
with it so I had to use the X61 there anyway so that's a that's a tick for the X61. So in conclusion
I would suggest you could use it as your own machine for taking on the road and not worrying about
too much about if it got dropped or lost or stolen or whatever for the for the kind of cost
in the show notes at the top of the page I've actually put what they've actually cost me
and what you might have to pay if you were going to buy it off the internet on the ebay or something
but for a machine that you could pick up even if you haven't got an option near you for 100 quid
it's a crack in that machine and even more if you've got a family with a couple of kids and
you're looking for a laptop for them to do their homework and you know surf the internet watch
a bit of YouTube obviously having enabled parental controls to stop them going where they shouldn't
then I wouldn't look any further really and then like I said if the kids break it you've not lost
a bundle of dosh so if you're looking for an older laptop you don't want to go out and spend
you know a few hundred dollars or a few hundred quid in in the UK I would look for a setting
dundler now right 61s and stick an SSD in it or try and get one that's already got an SSD installed
anyway that's my review of the x61s and you know using it as a real-time computer for everyday use
thanks I can public radio listeners I'll be back soon with another episode bye for now
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