The Vikings X200 - RYF edition -

is a refurbished ultraportable and durable business laptop that respects your freedom and your privacy. It comes preinstalled with a fully libre software BIOS replacement and with a fully free GNU/Linux operating  system at customer's choice. Enjoy the freedom of having control of your computing, improve your privacy and security by using this great laptop.

For a business notebook, the look of the X200 works as it is clean and professional, it features a magnesium alloy casing on both the top and bottom of the body.  To go along with the external magnesium alloy casing is an internal magnesium roll-cage skeleton that reinforces the overall feel of the notebook, there’s little flex to be found anywhere.

For upgrades and repairs that might come up down the road, the X200 keeps the user in mind with easy to remove access panels and covers. The most frequent upgrade items being the hard disk and RAM, are accessed through panels on the bottom and side of the X200. Other items such as the keyboard, wireless cards, and backup battery can be reached by removing a handful of labeled screws on the bottom, and easily pop out.

The Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your Freedom" hardware product certification

Keyboard and Touchpoint

The keyboard on the Vikings X200 is a standout in the field of ultraportables.  It’s entirely comfortable for typing with no adjustments necessary for smaller keys you often find on ultraportables. Each key is individual, there’s no sink to the keyboard no matter how hard you push, and the feedback you get from each key is so perfect it’s just plain satisfying for a laptop.  It’s also quiet and won’t click or rattle to annoy others.

To save space the X200 omits the touchpad system in favor of a touchpoint.  The touchpoint is easy to use and allows you to move a cursor around the screen more efficiently as you can keep your fingers placed on the keys and use it without lifting a hand down to a touchpad.

The mouse buttons just below the space bar are easy to use with a nice travel distance, good smooth feedback, and no stiffness or annoying click noisiness.

Screen

The 200-nits of brightness is more than adequate for any indoor situation.  The brightness can be adjusted along fifteen levels, if the room is dark it’s recommended to dim the screen to half brightness. It’s not bright enough for outdoor viewing on a sunny day for most people, Vikings is working on that by soon offering another display.

Speaker

The Vikings X200 has one mono speaker located on the bottom of the laptop. System sounds are mostly fine and audible, but you will want to use headphones for a decent listening experience. You can also use the docking station, which provided for stereo sound and better sound quality.

Performance

The X200 has shown an impressive performance when it's been sold between 2008 and 2010. Today, the performance is still good enough for the most common use-cases and even occasional graphics design. Especially together with 8 GB of RAM and an SSD drive, the system is fit for some more years of work. You get 2.26 GHz (or better) of dual core power and a 3MB L2 cache, Intel Turbo Memory and RAM running at 1066 MHz. We deem an SSD drive necessary and it's the only option in our shop.

Heat and Noise

The fan is amazingly quiet when it runs and does its job well. You’ll appreciate the fact there’s simply no areas of noticeable heat on the X200.  Even if you put your hand up to the heat vent area it’s hard to feel anything more than a bit of warm air coming out. Oftentimes with ultraportables heat will build up and the fan can become noisy, the X200 proves this does not have to be the case if the right type of engineering is used.  Reducing the heat buildup is important to both your comfort and also ensuring that the system doesn’t cook itself and break down under the heat stress.

Wireless

The Vikings X200 comes with an 802.11n wireless card (3-antenna Atheros chipset, MIMO 3x3:3 - 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz), ensuring full compatibility with libre driver software in GNU/Linux. It provides a data rate of 450Mbps net.

Expansion Capabilities

The X200 can be docked with the X200 UltraBase.  It allows you to use the following ports: UltraBay Slim (SATA), 4 USB 2.0 ports, VGA, DisplayPort, Microphone in, Headphone out, Stereo Speakers, RJ-45 Ethernet, Cable lock slot, 2nd battery charger.  The X200 UltraBase is available from the options menu and most recommended if you like to use the X200 as your desktop system with an external monitor.

A similar ultraportable laptop based on the X200 is also available at our friends Tehnoetic, based in Romania (E.U.) and Libiquity, based in New Jersey, (U.S.A.)