This product is permanently sold out – we still offer the X200 coreboot service.
The Vikings X200 – FSF RYF edition is a refurbished, ultra-portable and durable business-grade laptop that respects your freedom and your privacy. It comes with coreboot boot firmware & Intel ME completely removed.
Ready to rock! The X200 Laptop – FSF RYF certified includes the following (updated on 18 April 2024):
- X200 laptop
- 8GB of RAM
- Battery
- libre-friendly Atheros 450Mbps WLAN adapter
UltraBase docking station for extra connectivity(out of stock since 18 April 2024)
- power supply (plug according to the shipping destination)
Please note the following before placing the order:
- If stock is ≤ 1: it may take approximately four weeks to ship after the payment has arrived in full.
- We try our best to find the best laptops available and we invest a lot of time in refurbishing and testing each X200 that you order. Please note that, given that age and the unavailability of new replacement parts, we cannot guarantee the exceptional condition that you can normally expect from Vikings. We consider it sort of a service to the FLOSS community to offer these laptops refurbished where seemingly nobody else does that professionally. Please note: If you are looking for a laptop in exceptionally good condition, this may not be the right one for you.
The Vikings X200 – FSF Respects Your Freedom edition
The Vikings X200 a refurbished, ultra-portable, durable, business-grade, slightly vintage laptop that respects your freedom and your privacy. It comes preinstalled with a fully libre software BIOS replacement based on coreboot. Enjoy the freedom of having control of your computing, improve your privacy and security by using this great laptop.
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 Vikings 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. Other items such as the keyboard and wireless cards 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 certificationThe Vikings X200 laptop fully meets the criteria for the FSF’s hardware endorsement program and has been certified on 3 March 2017 “The desire to own a computer or device and have full control over it, to know that you are not being spied on or tracked, to run any software you wish without asking permission, and to share with friends without worrying about Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) —these are the desires of millions of people who care about the future of technology and our society. |
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 Vikings 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.
Display
The X200 is equipped with a widescreen LCD with a resolution of 1280×800. This means there is more horizontal desktop space available at no cost to vertical desktop space. The Vikings X200 200nit screen is also brighter than it’s predecessor’s (X61) 150nit screen and offers a good number of levels of brightness adjustment. The screen also has very good contrast levels and produces decent blacks. Its viewing angle capability and the usable vertical viewing angle is standard among laptops. Overall, we think the screen pleasant to look at indoors in both high and low light conditions. It isn’t quite bright enough for use outdoors in direct sunlight.
Because the Vikings X200 is a refurbished laptop, the display that comes built-in is also in a refurbished condition. We can not guarantee a specific condition of the display. It may have blemishes/cuffs/marks and the backlight may be on the darker side. We’ll use the best display we have available at the time of the order.
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 music listening experience. You can also use the docking station (see info below), which provides for stereo sound and improved sound quality.
Battery
The Vikings X200 Laptop can be used with one battery at a time. A battery is included (capacity may vary, at least 1.500mAh).
Performance
The original Thinkpad X200 has shown an impressive performance when it’s been sold as new 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 the maximum spec of 8 GB of RAM (included) and a solid-state drive (SSD), the system is fit for some more years of work. You get between 2.26 and 2.66 GHz of dual core power and a 3MB L2 cache, Intel Turbo Memory and RAM running at 1066 MHz. We deem an SSD drive necessary for best performance and don’t offer HDDs.
Heat and noise
The fan is quiet when it runs and does its job well. You’ll appreciate the fact there’s simply no areas of noticeable heat on the Vikings X200 for normal use-cases. 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.
Libre-friendly wireless (currently out of stock)
An Atheros 802.11n wireless card comes preinstalled, ensuring full compatibility with libre driver software in GNU/Linux. It provides a data rate of 450Mbps net in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless networks.
Expansion capabilities/docking station (currently out of stock)
Partner the Vikings X200 with the included ‘UltraBase’ docking station and it can be your desktop replacement. It allows you to use the following ports: UltraBay Slim (SATA), 4x USB 2.0 ports, VGA, DisplayPort (maximum resolution: 2560×1600 or 4,096,000 pixels, whatever comes first), microphone in, headphone out, stereo speakers, RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet, cable lock slot and a battery charger. A key is not necessary to operate (lock/unlock) the docking station and may not be included.
No malicious software or back doors
The Vikings X200 does not contain any known back doors. It comes with the Intel Management Engine and Intel Active Management Technology fully removed. The boot firmware is fully free software and as such the source code is fully auditable. The option to order the X200 with a pre-installed operating system (OS) allows you to select a distro supported by the FSF or you can choose to install the OS yourself. The selection of available OSs may vary.
Hilary Jeffery
Excellent service. I bought an X200 a few years ago from Vikings and it served me very well.
After many years of hard work, travel and a few complicated re-installations of the operating system, it was time to get the laptop serviced and upgraded. Vikings provided a really excellent service to help me get the machine up to date and in perfect working order with a new mainboard, CPU fan, ExpressCard slot, keyboard, SSD and operating system installation. Very friendly and efficient, highly recommended for beginners and experts alike!
Adrien, Association Libre en Communs
That’s the best refurbished x200 I ever had
I give your product five stars, because that’s the best refurbished x200 I ever had !
I received the package quite quickly, but I preferred to wait before
writing back.
After more than a week of use, no problem to report and I’m even
pleasantly surprised by the reactivity of the machine (it’s probably the
most powerful X200 I’ve ever seen :D).
Thanks a lot for the surprise upgrades, it’s really nice. Very happy to
have ordered from you!
execpage
Good computer, bad screen. Bought x200 in 2020. Excellent customer service by Vikings. Regarding the computer: 1) very good performance for my needs 2) the screen hurts my eyes as no other computer had ever done.
arielenter
I really like the price quality ratio and I really think the seller is very sensible and gives you the best he has at the moment of purchase.
Thank you.
error
Thx Vikings!
I have received my X200 after only one week. It is perfectly cleaned and my debian sid (Distribution Siduction https://siduction.org ) is running out of the box except for the microphone, I will debug that as soon as possible. Vikings.net has brilliant support which answers immediately also to technical questions. And I like the paper goodies they add: stickers and pamphlets about FLOSS and privacy :-D.
My old X200 and X200T (the tablet version is available also with libreboot from https://tehnoetic.com/laptops/tet-x200t both have old harddrives. THis time I invested into an SSD also from VIkings, which is nice because Firefox and other GUI programs I cannot circumvent tend to become more ressource hungry from month to month. Sad development but with the SSD no performance problem any more for my fresh X200. Thx Vikings!
Adam Joneson
Wow, After I started using my Viking Libreboot x200 in Starbucks, I started magnetically attracting 10/10 females to my location, thanks Vikings!
Miloslav ČÞ
TL;DR: I am love with this laptop. It arrived in about 10 days from ordering in a great state, I only found a few very small scratches at the bottom side. Display shows some signs of usage, has a few slightly brighter spots visible on large white background and white color is a bit yellowish, but overall it has nice contrast and is perfectly good for anything but professional photo editing. The laptop is 100% quiet most of the time. Size if comfortable, keyboard is great, just the layout takes a bit of getting used to. Functionality-wise everything worked right away. I have settled for Devuan as my OS, which worked with no issues. Performance is better than I expected, web browsing with many tabs is completely smooth, videos can be watched in 1O80p. Even 3D games like Xonotic are playable on lower details. GIMP works well, only Blender can run just in slow SW rendering mode as the GPU doesn’t support required OGL version. If you’re looking for a true hacker laptop, I recommend this one.
Sol
Excellent buy!
I received the computer like it was brand new and extremely well packed.
German quality is renowned for a good reason after all.
With Trisquel installed on it, you can feel the difference (way faster) and you know that your machine is not spying on you.
For a daily routine it’s perfect (mail, internet surfing, watching videos, writing, online chat, etc…)
10/10 would buy again.
Jolan Vermeulen
Extremly happy with the laptop, currently running gentoo on it and it handles it great. I have had a single problem so far with the psu making a high pitch noise (after nearly 2 years of use) but after messaging vikings about this they immediatly sent me a new one.
Genesys
This laptop is the best.
anon
I’m very satisfied with quality of packaging and overall refurbishment. Laptop bag, along with pens, stickers and leaflets(one of which is in my native language!) is REALLY appreciated!
Jakob
Great Product!
They really take their costumer service seriously and they’ll gladly help out and offer compensation if there’s a problem.
Would recommend and buy again.
Alex
The service provided by vikings was excellent
Bought an X200 with the new AFFS display.
Have received the device in december 2018 in perfect condition and very well packed. Use it since then as my main device and it is working perfectly. I don’t miss performance compared to newer notebooks with i5 or even i7 core’s. But of course, I don’t have a use-case where I need high computing power.
The service provided by vikings was excelent and of a very high quality. I was positivelly surprised by the quality of the whole refurbishment.
think
Fast delivery, good condition and outstanding service!
I had a special request to upgrade the X200 Screen with an AFFS Panel and they not only made it happen for my order, they even added it as available option for the Vikings X200. The order was processed fast and the Vikings X200 came in great condition.
Thumbs up!
Igor
This is a good notebook for all my daily tasks
It cannot be overstated how important it is to be able to buy a computer that comes with libreboot and all the known hardware backdoors disabled. Thank you Vikings for doing this! Unfortunately only old machines can be liberated this way and suspending and hibernating don’t work (current state of affairs with libreboot). But does this notebook lack in performance? Nope, not at all.
This notebook turned out more powerful than I thought it would be. I don’t miss anything in terms of performance.
It runs KDE on Trisquel 8 like a champ (all programs start very fast, I’m comparing to a Core i5 machine without an SSD, and this notebook wins).
It runs eclipse smooth and responsive, without any more hickups than a Core i5 machine.
It runs gimp very good.
This is a good notebook for all my daily tasks, it will only have issues playing back videos at very high resolution and playing modern games. Imo one should have a different machine for such tasks, so 5/5 for this X200 notebook.
Thomas
Superb service and great communication with a personal touch
Buying a computer from Vikings has been a real treat!
This is the second x200 I’ve bought from Vikings. It arrived well-packaged and in fantastic condition. The first one I’ve used as a main computer for over a year now, and it works flawlessly. I’ve had no issues with it whatsoever.
Vikings is doing a great service for the free software community. Whether you are an experienced IT yoda or just somebody looking for a safe and free software computer that works out of the box, you’re in good hands.
Zach
Doing business with Vikings has been a fantastic experience overall!
The ordering process was easy and private. And their customer service has been quick to answer any questions I had during the process.
The X200 I ordered was promptly delivered and in good condition. It has been in perfect working order for the past month. The only mix up that occurred was that my docking station accessory was missing from the shipment. However, the fine folks at Vikings quickly shipped it out to me at no extra cost (and it looks like they threw in an extra dock, thank you very much!).
I have no complaints about my experience with Vikings, and I would wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone looking to support free hardware and free software. Thank you Vikings!
Keith
I would definitely repurchase this same machine again
I have had an X200 since 2008, and when my original machine started to show its age last year, I selected Viking as the place to purchase its replacement. I have had the Vikings X200 in service for about six weeks now, running Arch Linux.
Vikings did a thorough job of reconditioning the machine, and the machine arrived in a very clean state. The new modem has worked well as I have travelled through several countries. Vikings also upgraded the battery beyond what was strictly called for, which I appreciate.
In terms of negatives, the only thing I have noticed is that the palm rest is a bit cracked near the corners, and some USB ports are looser than others, presumably due to earlier users always using particular ports. All of this is within the reconditioning specification, so no real problem. Next time I am near some suitible glue, I can take off the palm rest and repair the cracks.
Overall, I am very happy with it and I would definitely repurchase this same machine again.
Ethan R. Jones
The service from Vikings was fantastic
Long overdue review. The service from Vikings was fantastic and easily worth the (now discounted!) price. The X200 itself was in great condition, although the power leaves more to be desired (Go with the T series unless you *really* need an extra hour or two of battery life) and Libreboot is not for the faint of heart, this is a definitive Hacker laptop – best served with a side of GuixSD.
Looking forward to the libre hosting in the future!
Min
Go Vikings!
I bought this laptop few months ago, and its been my main rig ever since. Shipping was very fast, took three days to get to UK since dispatch. I had a couple of issues with the product initially, but Vikings staff are very helpful and did make the best effort to address the issue. There are still a couple of minor issues in my laptop. For now I have no problem using the laptop itself so I don’t mind. (thinkpad_ec, for one) But I believe those things could be improved. Go Vikings!
Peter
I’ve received the Laptop in a good condition (better than what you would expect from a almost 10 year old machine) and installed Debian 9. Installation was flawless and so far it looks like everything works out of the box: screen brightness controls, volume controls, standby, bluetooth. I’ve decided to go with Gnome 3 just to see how it would perform: it’s just fine, no issues there.
Simon
I bought it to support the company
I cannot say I am satisfied with the x200, however I bought it to support the company so it´s a bargain made consciously. The Trisquel OS is lacking in terms of development so it´s not your go to option in terms of security. Other than that the computer is fine. KR, Simon
Nick
Service from Vikings was fantastic
Apologies for the delay in writing this. Service from Vikings was fantastic. Delivered promptly and as described. A Grade X200 with new battery.. Extremely well packaged. In the end decided to rebuild with Debian and it has been my daily driver since. One note is updating to the latest stable libreboot rom improved my performance due to it defaulting the video RAM to 256 as opposed to 64 – that being said, 1080 playback was fine even then. This is no doubt no longer an issue, since I bought this before the latest ROM came out last September! Anyway no complaints, other than wish I got it at the new reduced price (a steal, tempted for one for spare). Recommended for anyone that values privacy and freedom – or atleast maximising as much as possible.
Pablo González Otero
I really appreciate this laptop
I ordered it with Trisquel GNU/Linux and I noticed it has got Libreboot and 4.13 (not 3.13) libre kernel. I asked for help and all my claims were solved early.
I liked the options available (hd/ssd, ram, new/used batteries, etc.)
Good perfomance for my usage, not noisy fan, not much heat under my hands and comfort typing.
Well done for Vikings. Go ahead!
a customer
I’m loving my new laptop
Dear Vikings, thank you for everything. The shipment arrived and I’m loving my new laptop! I wish you guys loads of success and maybe I’ll host a server or two with you in the future 🙂
David Redick
The hardware is like new
Everthing was exactly as described and just what I wanted. The hardware is like new. There were minor communication hiccups at the start but it was all sorted out. I had them install Parabola and there were no problems, everything was configured. Should have bought one years ago. Tempted to buy a workstation.
Greg
It is lightweight enough to be taken anywhere
…It makes very little noise. Sometimes I’ll hear a little intermittent but very soft beeping and only when I have all my windows tightly shut and it’s night and there’s no noise outside or in my house. It is lightweight enough to be taken anywhere. The fan rarely turns on. The battery life is contingent primarily on what you’re running and the screen brightness, and if you don’t put it up to full brightness and just use it for web browsing, you’ll get easily 7-8 hours if not more. So I definitely recommend this laptop to everyone out there who wants a completely free system. Sometimes it’s not possible in life to only use free software for absolutely everything you do, but at least with this any compromises you make are limited to your actions alone and no one else imposes them on you.
Greg
I’ve been using this laptop for a couple months now. I wanted to wait a while before writing this review. I got it installed with Trisquel and shipped to me in the US. It has 8 GB of RAM, and a 250 GB SSD with a new 9 cell battery pack. Bottom line is that it works flawlessly. Bluetooth, wireless all work no problem. I thought the screen would be crappy, but it’s actually quite nice to watch the occasional HD movie. It will do 720p but not 1080p. Boots up in a few seconds. Literally. I use it for school and web browsing primarily, but I study computer science. It’s very easy to get all the packages and programs you might need simply from the Trisquel package manager. For example, I needed to install WireShark, which is a program that monitors network traffic, and I open up the package manager, one click later + entering my password and the program is fully installed. Continued…
rms
I am really happy with it
I’ve been using this laptop as my main development laptop for a couple weeks now, and am really happy with it.
The delivery took a few days, and I had a very quick response from Vikings after I had some questions about the delivery. I’d definitely recommend it.
Julian Doucette
Product arrived in very good condition
– Awesome customization options
– Awesome support
– Product shipped quickly
– Product arrived in very good condition
– Product works perfectly so far
mmpg
I’m happy about this laptop,
I ordered with laptop this configuration:
Qwerty (UK) keyboard
8GB ram
No disc
9 cell battery
Delivery takes 5 days from Belgium. Everything works fine, fan is quiet, installation of GNU/Linux-libre distros is easy with libreboot, only things which is not good for me is keyboard and sled for disc. Keyboard was not very clean under the keys, sled for a disc smell bad. Exept those two things i’m happy about this laptop, thing which make me happy while using it is free software inside. I would recommend this laptop for those, who want to have fully free/libre laptop.
// Note from Vikings (20170806): We ask the person who sent this review (anonymously) to contact us regarding replacing the keyboard and the HDD tray since this is not to our very high quality standards.
// Updated note from Vikings (20170920): The customer got in touch with us and we replaced the parts in question (keyboard, HDD tray) free of charge. We again apologize that this happened.
lmc2
I was happy to see…
Delivery from Belgium took about five working days to Germany, which is reasonable. The RF kill switch only disables BT – WiFi stays enabled. The screen was not easy to get used to initially but tweaking the color calibration does the job perfectly. Only gripe is that the key stickers/paint that “changed” the keyboard layout are wearing off significantly already and that the handrest has a visible crack that has been patched. I’ll have to replace the handrest and/or keyboard in case it gets worse.
I was happy to see that not only did it ship in the ThinkPad box itself (this causes less trash and is a rather nice looking box that I don’t mind having around) but also came with three ballpens of Vikings as well as a pamphlet about their Libre Hosting project, which I enjoy a lot. The battery that came with it is not an original from what I can tell, but from a company called “PowerSmart”. This is no deal breaker to me however, since the battery life is fine.
// Note from Vikings: We ask the person who sent this review (anonymously) to contact us regarding replacing the palmrest and keyboard since this is not to our very high quality standards.
dkr
I’m impressed
I’ve been using it for several days I’m impressed. For me battery life is the most important aspect. The X200 with its fresh 9cell battery reports 7hr of battery life under typical load for my needs.
Some inconveniences are that I had the luck to receive a revision of the X200 where the physical RF Kill Switch only applies to Bluetooth, not to Wifi. The other is a known Libreboot bug which results to uneven backlight on lower settings, something the user has to fine-tune. If you buy a X200 do not think that’s a defective screen, it’s something software can fix.
As for the experience shopping from Vikings, it has been only positive, and those are not empty words: we had to solve a logistics problem, and the response was immediate, multiple solutions offered, and we had an arrangement within 4 hours.
This textfield was too small for my review, in full here: https://log.tarxjf.info/a/reviewing-the-vikings-ryf-x200-laptop.html
Guilhem VIDAL
I recommend this product and this vendor
I ordered this laptop with these options:
– AZERTY keyboard – thank you to this add-on to answer at my request
– 8GB RAM
– No-SSD
– New 9-cell battery
– Docking station
And… Wow!
A fully free laptop which do that we want it does. I tried to install GNU/Linux Parabola with Gnome Shell -perfect, using Tails? No problems. And finally I used this with GNU/Linux Trisquel to support few distribution 100% Libre.
I recommend this product and this vendor. A couple of perfection.
PS: Sorry I’m French so my english can be so bad…
Peter Keel
I got one, I like it.
What I miss is documentation. Like, how is this set up, what do I need to do to install an OS (Can I do it without own grub, for instance?). But you can easily put this onto the webpage any time 😉
jasites
I would highly recommend this laptop
Ordered this laptop as soon as I saw Vikings had received RYF certification and opted for 8GB RAM with no SSD / OS installation and a new 9-cell battery.
Shipping to the US took a little while, but there weren’t any concerns or issues that would relate to Vikings.
Upon receiving the laptop, I was able to install a 2.5″ SSD that I already owned and install Debian Stretch without any problems or deviant behavior. Since then (about two weeks ago), I have been using this laptop as my daily driver, and I have no qualms about the laptop or the service/process from Vikings. Wireless works flawlessly, screen is great, typical keyboard excellence that one would expect from a ThinkPad, and the battery lasts several hours.
I would highly recommend this laptop to anyone looking for a fully Freedom Respecting computer for standard day-to-day operations!