X62 Laptop Review

The matte plastic/magnesium case with reinforced frame of the X62 is as classic ThinkPad as it gets. Resembling the "Bento Box" design of old far more than Lenovo's current flagship, the X1 Carbon, the X62 is classically squarish in design (due to the 4:3 display) and as well much thicker than its contemporaries. With a rear height of 1.41" (35.5mm) that tapers slightly towards the front, width of 10.58" (268.7mm), and depth of 8.35" (212mm), the X62 is anachronistically stocky. However, its boxy appearance is certainly part of its charm (otherwise we assume this product wouldn't have been created).

Being a boxy ThinkPad also has its benefits for robustness. Except for the rather obvious wear on the rubberized finish on the back of the display on our review unit, there are few hints that the materials used for the X62 are over a decade old. The fit and finish of the black plastic is excellent—especially for a machine whose case was originally manufactured over a decade ago before being refurbished for this device. The material resists fingerprints and grease exceptionally well. The chassis, keyboard, and hinges all seem exceptionally well put-together. The only hint that this isn't an original production of IBM or Lenovo is the decals added on both the lower bezel and ThinkVantage panel. The markings which identify the notebook model and the website of its creators, 51nb.com, look great. The other decals on the ThinkVantage panel above the function keys look good from most angles, but when looked at in the right light, they shine somewhat unnaturally. This is just a minor aesthetic complaint, however. One last design element of the chassis to note is that the X62 uses the classic ThinkPad opening hatch to secure the lid. Unless you haven't updated your laptop in about ten years, it will probably take some getting used to remember to pull the latch before trying to open.

The only structural weak point is the left palm-rest, where the ExpressCard originally was. Like many other ThinkPads with this slot (such as the X220 or X230), it is hollow here and flexes slightly under medium pressure. Unlike the X220 or X230, however, it is quite unlikely that the palm-rest could crack as a result of picking it up; the X62 is surprisingly light. This relates to the other minor quibble, which is weight distribution of the notebook: the screen assembly articulates extremely smoothly throughout its 190-degree range of motion, but beyond around 125 degrees or so, the weight shifts too far back and the palm-rest of the laptop can lift off the ground. This happens with a smaller (lighter) 32WHr battery, and it will probably be worse with a larger and heavier 75WHr battery. This is unavoidable due to the X62's light weight (around 1.2kg) in combination with its necessarily heavier detachable battery, though.

The name “ThinkPad” mean you should expect standard business ports and upgradability, but the X62 is based on a laptop designed for use in 2007. Despite this, the X62 does a pretty good job of modernizing the connectivity: There is an mSATA slot accessible through the keyboard that can be used for an SSD, and the original Wi-Fi card has been replaced with an Intel 7260AC combo card (a somewhat dated but still solid card). The left-hand USB Type-A port has been upgraded to USB 3.0 while the two on the right remain USB 2.0.

The ports and modernization do come at a slight cost, however. While few people will miss the 56K modem or 1394, the dock and CardBus connectors had to be disabled as well. Additionally, adding the mini-HDMI and DP ports meant the removal of the original VGA port. It’s somewhat of a shame that on a laptop with the business heritage of the ThinkPad, the VGA port had to go—it’s also unfortunate that they couldn’t fit a full-size HDMI port, as a mini-HDMI cable is something rarely seen in the wild.

Lastly, while most of ports are easily accessible, the SD card slot is very near the bottom of the chassis, which makes it difficult to insert cards without lifting that end of the computer up. Additionally, the mini-HDMI, mini-DP, and SD card are upside down(!). This may be a necessity of engineering for one reason or another, but it is a small reminder that you are using a custom-made creation rather than an original IBM or Lenovo ThinkPad.

The SD Card reader is located on the lower left side. Conveniently positioned (yet upside-down), we measured transfer rates peaking at 14MB/s and averaging 9MB/s during a transfer of 1GB of JPEG files. A Kingston 64GB MicroSD Class 10 card rated for speeds of 45MB/s read and 10MB/s write was used with a SanDisk SD caddy, so we believe these results show the limitation of the SD Card Reader hardware itself.

The X62's Intel 7260AC combo Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card is rated for 867Mbps, though it performed rather below that with sending and receiving rates of 425Mbps 522Mbps, respectively. Still, it is a great improvement on the X61's original card and is compatible with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks. Signal reception seems good, and we had no troubles with dropped connections or weak signals.

While the X61 originally had a 56K modem, this has been disabled with its new board. It does pack a gigabit LAN port on its left side and the option for a WWAN card through its internal PCIe expansion slot, however.

One interesting omission of the X62 is its lack of webcam. Unthinkable for a laptop released today, a webcam is nowhere to be found among the slim bezel of the X62's 12.1-inch display. This omission could be a total deal-breaker for those who need to video conference on the go, though perhaps more security-minded users might welcome its absence.

The X62 does have a fingerprint scanner, though it is of the old "swiping" variety. It is functional, but nowhere near as convenient as today's "press" sensors: it often takes more than one swipe to recognize the scan. It is compatible with Windows 10, though we had to install the ThinkVantage fingerprint software to use it on the login screen.

Other security features include a Kensington slot and a hardware switch to enable or disable the network card.

The X62 does not come with any accessories when purchased from 51nb. It comes as a bare-bones system for its starting price of US$750, which means that it doesn’t include its own RAM or HDD, though they can be purchased as add-ons. Additionally, the user will have to source their own batteries and power adapter—not a difficult or expensive task, but certainly an added inconvenience.

The internals are easily accessible for upgrades—just as you’d expect for a ThinkPad. The two SO-DIMM slots are accessible through a panel held in place with two screws, while the SATA bay requires the whole bottom to be taken off. Accessing the mSATA and Wi-Fi module require the removal of the keyboard to access, as they are on the other side of the board.

The X62 can use batteries designed for the X60, X61, and X61S (though not the tablet variants of those models). There are both 4 and 8-cell battery variants available for anywhere between US$25 and US$85 depending on whether you purchase a generic Chinese replacement or an original Lenovo part.

51nb includes a 6-month warranty with purchase of one of their custom-made laptops. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

The X62 can be ordered with an i5 Engineering Sample CPU, which is close to an i5-5200U, or an i7-5600U. The i5 model has a base clock of 2.0GHz and will boost up to 2.3GHz, The i7-5600U has a base frequency of 2.6GHz and will turbo up to 3.2GHz. Given the extra US$230 the i7 costs, we're not sure if that jump is worth the extra money in this kind of laptop.

The X62 was provided to us without RAM or a HDD, thus benchmarks specific to these parts have not been included as they are not standardized. We equipped our unit with 8GB of SK Hynix DDR3 RAM and an Intel 120GB SATAIII SSD.

Our unit is powered by an i5-5#### Engineering Sample chip. The cache and other specifications of the architecture make it most comparable to an i5-5200u, with the major difference being that the ES chip has a base clock of 2.0GHz and will only boost to 2.3GHz for single core and 2.2GHz for 2-4 core loads. However, we found that the chip runs cool and never throttles its clocks, even during heavy repeated benchmarks.

Though you might say the X62 is outdated in that it lacks a Kaby Lake processor, the reality is that there haven't been major speed increases in mobile CPUs since Intel's 4th generation. The 5th generation i5 CPU here is more than up to any office or browsing tasks you'll throw at it.

As this is sold as a bare-bones system, your storage benchmarks will depend on the type of SSD or HDD used. Our unit was equipped with an Intel SSDMCEAC120A3 120GB SSD connected through the SATAIII port. The X62 is compatible with both mSATA and SATAIII drives, but not newer NVMe PCIe drives.

All models of the X62 are powered by the Intel HD Graphics 5500 integrated GPU. As an integrated GPU, it utilizes system memory as its own. The X62's HD Graphics 5500 has an effective memory and core clock of 800 MHz, both of which can boost to 850 MHz. The HD 5500 is roughly half the speed of a low-end dedicated card like the Nvidia 940M. 

The Broadwell HD 5500 integrated graphics bundled with both the i5 and i7 models performs similarly to the more recent HD 520 found on Skylake CPUs. Thus, it is sufficient for only very casual gaming—and even then be sure to temper your expectations. Older or more forgiving games such as CS:GO or Dota 2 are playable on lower settings and resolutions, but don't expect to play modern 3D titles smoothly at anything above 768p. For more information on how a specific game will perform on this hardware, check our database of benchmark scores for the Intel HD Graphics 5500.

The original X61 suffered from high palm rest heat as both wireless cards were located there. The X62 does slightly better than its predecessor here. Nearly every other part of the laptop stays cool, even under load, but the left palm rest is a warm 34.4 (94F) during light usage. Under load, this increases to a toasty 39.4C (102.92F). We did find that the heat output of the Wi-Fi card can be improved by setting the energy-saving preference to moderate or maximum. Still, though, the left palm rest remains the warmest part of the computer during use, and you will notice (if not be bothered by) it.

The speakers on the X62 are weak, and the absence of bass and mids means they sometimes resemble headphones playing at max volume. On the bright side, they are loud enough to at least not require the volume to be turned up more than 15-20 percent most of the time.

Unique for a non-gaming notebook today, X62 sports separate line-in and line-out 3.5mm jacks.

Frequency Comparison (Checkbox selectable!)
Graph 1: Pink Noise 100% Vol.; Graph 2: Audio off

The X62's idle Power Consumption (~9) is higher than it should be with the Broadwell ULV CPU. We believe that the high percentage of backlight level needed to get above 150 nits (90-100%) with its inefficient CCFL backlighting is mostly responsible for this. When brightness was lowered to 25%, the idle draw dropped to 5.5.

The idle draw dropped to 5.5 when brightness was lowered to 25 percent. The inefficiency of the old CCFL backlight is seen in our Reader test, where the laptop is put in airplane mode with minimum brightness: in this mode, the X62 (with its tiny 32WHr generic battery) lasted 351 minutes. In comparison, it only lasted about 130 minutes in the browsing test and 55 minutes when placed under full load. Upgrading to an LED backlight should make the X62 far more power efficient than with the stock backlight, but either way we recommend purchasing the larger 75WHr battery for this device.