I have got a new laptop for my work: the Lenovo X260. It' isn't the fastest
computer on the Earth but a very portable one: it has only a 12.5" screen. It
run Windows 10 (in a few last years I am rather a manager than a scientist, so
it's OK for most of my work).
There are some nice thinks:
- the device looks to be very conservative (like a real Thinkpad)
- the battery is user-accessible and can be replaced
- there is a trackpoint (the touchpad, too but it can be turned off)
- acceptable keyboard layout
- a normal, wired Ethernet (on an ultrabook!)
- backlit keyboard (I would prefer the normal IBM-style lamp but I'm out of
luck here)
- a SSD drive - it's quiet and it makes the computer to feel faster
- a SD slot
It has also a dock connector, but I have no dock at the moment.
There are not that nice things, too:
- a rectangular power connector (I have several old-style ones for our X60/X61
but they are useless here)
- the modern, wide, screen has too small height for normal use, and the whole
device is too wide
- the keyboard is of an average quality at maximum (the X60's keyboard is much
better)
- the 1920x1080 resolution makes some problems to the OS: there are various
sizes of fonts in applications, it looks very inconsistent (I have thought
that there is nothing worse than Ubuntu Touch - but I was mistaken - this is
much worse)
After all, it is probably the best small laptop that man can get today. But it
seems to me that it's only real advantage over my old Thinkpad X61s is a higher
processing speed (a better bus, the Core i5 against the Core2Duo, and a bigger
RAM: 8GB vs 4GB). In the field of ergonomic the old machine wins: it has more
practical dimensions of the screen, much better keyboard (and somewhat better
trackpoint) and more USB ports. I would try to replace the HDD in the X61s by
the SDD drive. But the X260 isn't 10 years old and thus it should be a bit more
reliable.
I installed here some useful thinks: the GNU Octave (4.2 with a GUI), the Vim
and the Git to be able to do some computing here.
