Lenovo ThinkPad X201 Subnotebook - The Small & Mighty Laptop! 

I have been using almost exclusively small ThinkPads since I was a little girl. My first X-series one was an X200T, which I still own and use as a low-distraction writing machine under a lightweight Linux distro. Since that time I've gotten an X230T and an X380 Yoga (my current daily carry laptop) and adore them all.

have an x200 ( librebooted) 8gb of ram still a champ to this day - the older thinkpads really are pretty damn awesome.

i love the lenovo t60 notebook still

i have bad luck with laptops

love myThinkpad X201

That looks a lot like a more recent X61 😅 I just finished disassembling it, cleaning it and replacing thermal paste. Beautiful little laptops. Regarding RAM, the X61 is also stated to go up to 4Gb tops (DDR2, though), but it actually supports 2x 4Gb. Too bad 4Gb DDR2 sticks are so unjustifiably expensive,😂 so I see no reason why yours wouldn’t also accept 8Gb

I wonder how it would run if Linux were run on it…

Here to confirm 8GB of ram works on the x201, runs surprisingly well both windows 11 and pop os 22.04

My lenovo legion 5 weighs a ton huggge battery, i think that is half it's weight lol..i like yours better, more compact lol

Great video! Love the X series - my X201 is running Win11 with 8GB RAM, and of course an SSD. There is a BIOS mod available that removes the whitelist so you can run newer WiFi cards - IE Intel 7260AC. I should mention that the 201 uses the same dock as the x200 (X200 Ultrabase) which besides port replication, has a built-in optical drive and a DisplayPort 1.2 port for digital video.

Love those ThinkPads! As far as Win10 installation, just a possible reason why it failed, besides a generic drive. As I'm an admin at my workplace, in one of our labs, there was an issue with 22h2 version (certain build) of Win10 that I had on my usb drive. As all of the machines had the same hardware, and all of them failed exactly at the same point (17:36 in your video), at that point i reverted to 21h2 which worked perfectly. Later on I downloaded the "same" 22h2, but not only was it not the same image size, but this time, installation worked. I'm not saying that this might be an issue here, since you tested that ssd and found it to have issues, but it might not always be the issue with the hardware, but the image itself. Btw, I'm certain that you just need a good set of memory and you'll be running 8GB in no time.

These can take 8GB absolutely fine, they aren't picky with RAM. They aren't picky with clock speed either, you can put PC3 12800 in there just fine, they will just be downclocked to 8500 regardless which is what the chipset could support.

I still use my X201 tablet and I really love this PC. Of course, it has been significantly updated over time with SSD, RAM, GPS, mobile modem and multiple batteries. I use it for car diagnostics, where I don't need the keyboard, so I twist the display and use it in tablet mode.

I've collected a bunch of Lenovo laptops over the years because being the IT person at work, we upgrade every 4-5 years. I have the same laptop with 8GB of ram and an SSD. I prefer installing Ubuntu on these older laptops. Seems like the newer models are made much cheaper now.

Love ThinkPads! My dream ThinkPad would be a t530/w530 and pimp it so much haha🤣

I have an X201i (with the 1st-gen Core i3) and I use it daily for web browsing , email and light work. I also have an X220, X270 and X280, so the X201i is pretty much a machine that I don't worry about upgrading. I did have a fan faiure recently, but I was able to take it apart and blow it clean again. If the fan goes permanently, though, I'll probably write it off, as the X220 is quicker, has a better screen and similar keyboard (plus I've done some upgrades to RAM and SSD on it). For a 14 year-old system, it's remarkably quick, stable and reliable. Interestingly, it only has a trackpoint--it's probably one of the last Thinkpads that they made with no trackpad at all. If anyone finds one of these in decent shape, than they're worth considering. But the wider screen on the X220 is an improvement and it's not really any less portable.

When I saw 8GB fail I was hoping you might get it going with 6GB RAM and you did, nice! That KingFast F10 SSD looks super cheap. I read on Reddit that it has an incredibly high failure rate & supposedly uses NAND flash chips from brand names that didn't pass quality control. Modern Windows definitely needs a good brand name SSD even if we have a soft spot for spinning rust!

Why not try to use window 11 for demo LOL ?

The yellow usb is the Always-on usb for charging things when laptop is off but connected to wall. I have a X220 i use when i'm away from home, 8gb ram and a 128gb ssd in it. And 16gb sdcard. Recently discovered it takes msata ssd so i had to put in a 120gb. So a lot of storage for mine. Originally i got mine from a friend, one of the usb's was broken. I found a same model in e-waste, just changed the motherboard around. Have also bought a original 6-cell battery for it. Except for the soldered down i5-2500 it runs Transport Tycoon Deluxe just fine. Also installed with Win 10 Pro.

I notice the local Goodwill has many, many HP Elitebook 840G3 6600U's for around $200 depending on their condition. I'm thinking these things came from a school.

i got it with a Core I3 370, 8gb ram and 120gb SSD and Windows 10. For web browsing, text, office use and more is still good 10 yers after.

I have just looked up the specifications for that laptop and they state that 8 gig., is the maximum. I have found that cleaning the ram., with Isopropyl alcohol sometimes helps and in my opinion, an SSD., is the way to proceed and Linux Mint Mate version would really improve the performance.

mine works like a charm ,runs win11tyni 8gb ram and ssd 128gb and linux lite 6.6 dual boot 😀😀

have you tried to update the bios to enable more ram? and maybe you have ram with different voltages (indicated by an L in the name like PC3L-xxxx or DDR3L-xxxx) all inserted ram must be the for the same voltage, otherwise it will not work

Hi, is it possible to upgrade the video card in the x201 ? I would need a DX 11 card.

try a bios update if it has one as i find them to be beneficial.

I had a T510 and ran into the same RAM issue. In the end, I had to get 2 x 4GB PC3-8500 in order to get to 8GB total. I have since sold that laptop. I also have an X230 which I love. It can handle Win 10 no problem. I am somewhat of a ThinkPad hoarder. I have 5 ThinkPads currently. At one point, I had about 12 ThinkPads, but I got rid of many of them.

Oh, and I forgot to addon, the bios you have should work just fine with 8GB of RAM already. Cos that was the version my second X201 have.

i have had the same issue with the ramm in various machines. i got past it by leaving one original with one new larger volume ramm. then both larger volume. sometimes i have started with just one larger volume and progressed upward. i have an hp pavilion g7 with 12gb that was only supposed to support 8. i wish i could get it up to 16 but hey ill take 12 over 8 for now.

One thing I will say though, is that the last bios update, which only updates the ec firmware compared to the previous, is said to be known to break compatibility with chinese clone replacement batteries, so keep that in mind when updating the bios if you intend to use it with those chinese clone replacement batteries.

I use a thinkpad for work love my thinkpad

I’m pretty sure some older laptops that say they support 4gb can go up to 6gb but not 8gb

great content as always & yeah figuring out ram with a laptop can always be an issue. I've had some issues working on my old dell laptop from 2009 and had to order brand new ram for it. I can max it out at 8gb however DDR2 ram is just so damn expensive. So 4gb 700mhz of DDR2 will have to do for now. Also the said laptop I worked on was a dell Inspirion 1545, if you ever get one it's the easiest dell laptop to service. The CPU/Heatsink has a panel under the computer next to ram and you can even change the Wi-Fi card to a newer one too. There's no need for a full teardown unless you want to change the CMOS battery...

A friend of mine gave me a "broken" ThinkPad X200, turns out the hard drive was busted. Installed a SSD and two DDR3 modules (PC3-8500, 4GBx2) and it came back to life inmediately.

Great laptops. I have the x220, which is basically this one looks the same, with a core i5-2520m, 8gb, 128gb ssd....It's my work laptop, a customer let us keep it because he didn't feel like replacing it's bad hard drive. I had my boss buy me a ssd caddy so it would fit in nice (wonder why the hdd failed it was loose before), and it's been a great workhorse. I like how it has an LED light that shines down on the laptop keys to light the keyboard. Dual boot Win11/Ubuntu

9:30 with the X-series the "Ultrabase" was available, that was an add-on which makes the device a bit thicker but gives it an optical drive, some more ports and better speakers, the BIOS speed option is for that drive.

x201 is still my daily driver,still strong and fast!

I am still using x201 day to day. Mine is from 2009, I upgraded the ssd and the ram to 8gb. I changed the thermopaste once, changed keyboard twice. I upgraded to win10 but downgraded back to win7 back in 2015 . I might upgrade back to win 10 one day.

It is often possible to install more RAM than a manufacturer says can be installed. With some laptops they say 16 GB is the maximum but really they work with 32 also. Is having more RAM than was specified for it bad for any component in the computers? Is it usually just a suggestion that just shows that they don't really know the specs of the CPUs they use? That CPU you have there would have had a maximum limit of 4 GB with a 32 bit CPU OR if a 32 bit operating system was installed. Anything after 4 GB would not appear to exist in the system despite it being physically present.

Love me some Thinkpad PCs.

The light was called Thinklight by IBM