Lenovo IdeaPad U110

The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 is the latest addition to the IdeaPad ultra portable family, soon to be joined by the IdeaPad S10 and S9. In this review, we check out whether the Lenovo IdeaPad is worth the rather high price it demands, especially since the ultra portable has been revolutionized by many low cost entrants like the Asus EEE PC and the MSI Wind, which are priced much lower than the IdeaPad U110. It competes more with the likes of the Macbook Air, Sony Vaio TZ and the Lenovo Think Pad X300 at a slightly lower price and smaller form factor.

Lenovo IdeaPad U110 Specifications:

• Processor: 1.60GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 (800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)
• Graphics: Intel GMA X3100
• Screen: 11.1-inch WXGA (1366 x 768 px) display
• Memory: 2GB
• Storage: 120GB Parallel ATA HDD (4200rpm)
• Optical Drive: None (External Dual layer CD/DVD recordable drive)
• Wireless and Communications: Intel 4965AGN (802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi), BlueTooth 2.0 with EDR
• Battery: 4-cell Li-Ion and 7-cell extended life Li-Ion batteries included
• Ports: 3 USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 1394 Firewire, 5-in-1 card reader, ExpressCard/34, VGA monitor out port, AC adapter, headphone/line-out, microphone/line-in, Gigabit Ethernet

• Dimensions: 10.8″ x 7.7″ x 0.72″ - 0.88″
• Weight: 2.42lbs with 4-cell battery and 2.92lbs with 7-cell battery
• Price: $1899 (Approx)

Design

The design of the IdeaPad U110 is a refreshing change from the boxy designs of Lenovo’s classic ThinkPad line. It looks sleek, slim and small. It also has a great build quality and feels sturdy. It should easily withstand a few accidental drops without worries. It inherits the build quality from the ThinkPad line we suppose, while leaving out their average design and looks. The aluminium chassis and cover make it strong and sturdy, yet light in weight. It sports a new “Tendril” pattern on the display cover, and on the back of the notebook, which looks elegant. All of the components are styled superbly giving it a great design with superb build quality allowing it to withstand rough handling with ease.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 features a wide range of ports - 3 USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, ExpressCard/34 slot, Gigabit Ethernet, 5-in-1 multi-card reader, Audio out, Mic in, VGA out and a standard Kensington lock slot. They are much more than the minimal ports provided by both the Macbook Air and the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. It does miss out on the HDMI port though and a standard Express Card slot, but you can’t actually ask for more in such a small form factor. It maintains an excellent balance between the available space and the essential ports provided.

Display and Sound

The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 comes with a 11.1-inch WXGA display supporting standard resolutions of 1366 x 768 px. It looks good with good brightness and contrast levels, but it is a bit too glossy. The display quality is also a wee bit grainy. Due to the high glossiness, it is difficult to read anything on the display without straining your eyes. There is a bit too reflection even under standard lighting conditions. Other than these, the display performance is quite good with accurate color reproduction and vibrant colors. The vertical viewing angles are quite good, and the horizontal viewing angles aren’t too bad either.

The IdeaPad U110 comes with stereo speakers which are quite good and loud. Obviously, it won’t please the audiophiles but then they can always connect their headphones to the Ideapad U110 for better results. There isn’t any distortion and the volume is rather good for a short movie or some music. As usual, the speakers suck at bass.

Performance

The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 is powered by a Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 clocked at 1.6 GHZ with 4 MB L2 cache, operating at 800 MHZ FSB. Like in most ultraportable notebooks, it uses the low voltage Intel L7500 processors, which consume very less power and dissipate much less heat than conventional notebook processors. It is powerful enough to run standard Office and Multimedia applications and normal web surfing. You should not expect the performance you would from a Desktop Quadcore and you will be blissful. The Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics are good enough to run Vista with Aero on, and some light games at low settings. If you intend to play Crysis at high resolutions with AA, AF turned fully on, you should look elsewhere (read: Alienware Area 51 m17x).

The IdeaPad U110 comes with a 120 GB 4200 rpm hard drive which is low on performance but generates much less heat and consumes less power. Portability comes at the price of performance after all. But you wont feel the lag much in daily usage.
Overall, the performance is just as much as you would expect from a laptop of its size and portability. It doesn’t disappoint at all.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 features a great little keyboard which is slightly smaller than a standard laptop keyboard. It offers adequate key spacing and great key travel making it a breeze to type. The keys offer decent tactile feedback and dont make much noise. The keys sport a glossy finish and the media buttons on the top feature a cool design which add to the style factor. Regular typists can get used to the keyboard in just a matter of time. There is nothing much to complain about in the IdeaPad U110’s keyboard.

The touchpad is standard with good sensitivity and a very smooth finish. The touchpad buttons are quite good too, with just the right amount of force needed to click them. Lenovo has done away with the fingerprint reader and replaced it with its nice new face recognition technology called Veriface which performs great. It uses the built in webcam to scan your face and checks whether you are authorized to access the computer.

Battery Life

Lenovo bundles both the 4 cell and the extended 7 cell battery with the IdeaPad U110. The 4 cell battery has a rated battery life of about 2 hours while the 7 cell battery can juice it up for about 6 hours, exactly as much as Lenovo claims. The above battery life was obtained with the Power management settings turned to Laptop / Portable. You can squeeze out even more by turning off Wi-Fi and lowering the display brightness. Surprisingly, the 7 cell battery is just slightly bigger and heavier than the 4 cell battery inspite of the huge power increase it supplies. The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 completely pleases in terms of battery life and its very nice of Lenovo to include both the 4 cell and 7 cell battery at no extra charge.

Pros

• Clean Design
• Great Build Quality
• Ultra portable
• Good Battery life

Cons

• Expensive
• Extra Glossy & Grainy Display

Conclusion

The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 is a good notebook with a very stylish mix of decent power and great portability. It can be called one of the best in its range and is a much better buy than the Macbook Air. Except for the mediocre display, it doesn’t actually have any shortcomings. The bundled 7 cell battery and the external DVD drive are great additions. If you are on the lookout of a stylish notebook with a small footprint, adequate power and maximum style, we would definitely recommend the IdeaPad U110.

Lenovo ThinkPad SL400

The Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 is the latest addition to the ThinkPad family and promises to offer features and performance at a fraction of the cost of other ThinkPads. Lenovo's new IdeaPad line of notebooks might give consumers plenty of attractive options, but The new SL series is the first line of small business notebooks designed with ThinkPad styling at an affordable price. Is there more here than just traditional ThinkPad shape and a low price? Our full review of the SL400 shows why this laptop might (or might not) be perfect for you.

Our ThinkPad SL400 has the following specifications:

• Processor: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 (1066MHz FSB, 3MB Cache)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 256MB
• Screen: 14.1" WXGA, Anti-glare (1280x800, 200nit)
• Memory: 2GB(up to 4GB configurable)
• Storage: 160GB SATA HDD (5400rpm)
• Optical Drive: Dual layer CD/DVD recordable drive
• Wireless and Communications: Intel 4965AGN (802.11 a/b/g/n wi-fi), BlueTooth 2.0 EDR
• Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion
• Dimensions: 13.2" x 9.7" x 1.3"-1.5")
• Weight: 5.5lbs with battery
• Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
• Warranty: 1-year

The pricing on the SL400 starts at around $799. As configured, the price of our review unit of the ThinkPad SL400 is $1,119. While that puts it above the range of most "budget" laptops, this configuration does offer a new Intel "Montevina" processor, and dedicated graphics card at a reasonable price. Needless to say, this is one of the more budget-friendly ThinkPads on the market. More to the point, Lenovo has gone out of its way to give you multiple reasons to consider the SL series over the competition.

Build and Design

The ThinkPad SL400 is quite solid in terms of build quality, though the plastics used in the chassis construction do give in to some case flex when squeezed. The entire chassis exterior is plastic and while the appearance is nice, the "feel" of the notebook is a little less rugged than we've come to expect from ThinkPads. Unlike with the other ThinkPads, you don't get a double latch mechanism with button release to make sure the screen is held down when it is closed and being carried. Instead, the SL400 uses hinge tension to hold the screen in place.

Speaking of the tension hinge, the hinge on our review unit didn't provide nearly as much tension/resistance as we would have liked. Specifically, if you pick up the base of the SL400 and lightly shake the base of the notebook forward and back the screen will "flap" forward and back as you shake the notebook.

The glossy black plastic display cover is probably the most interesting design element on the SL400. Lenovo also decided to modify the traditional ThinkPad logo by adding a small red LED to the dot above the "i" in ThinkPad. I suppose someone still thinks "bling is the thing" in the world of small business. In any case, this certainly isn't a boring ThinkPad.

Expandability and expansion are pretty simple with this chassis design. The two access panels on the bottom of the notebook provide access to the wireless cards, RAM, processor and graphics. The side panel on the opposite side of the optical drives allows you to swap out the hard drive for a replacement drive.

Input and Output Ports

The number of ports the SL400 has is fairly good and certainly much better than the average budget notebook designed for small business. Here's a run down of the ports:

• 4 USB 2.0 ports
• Firewire
• ExpressCard slot
• Gigabit Ethernet and modem
• 5-in-1 multi-card reader
• Audio out, microphone in
• VGA monitor out
• HDMI (video and audio)
• Kensington lock slot

About the only thing you might consider "missing" on this notebook is an eSATA port. Since eSATA is rapidly becoming a new standard for external data storage, it would have been nice to see an eSATA port on the side of the SL400. On the other hand, it may only be a matter of time before we see USB 3.0 ports that surpass the performance of eSATA.

There's also no option for a docking station, you have to go with a USB-based port replicator (or ExpressCard/34) to get the additional ports you would want at a desk. Obviously engineers had to make design trade offs and you can't have it all on a notebook in this price range. Personally, I feel like the SL400 provides an excellent balance of ports for its size and cost.

Left view.	Right view.
Front view.	Rear view.

Performance and Benchmarks

Although it's nice that Lenovo is bringing a small business solution to the market for less than $800, the price wouldn't matter if the SL400 can't provide great performance for your dollar.

The Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor in our review unit provided ample processing power and never presented any problems when running applications or encoding video and audio files. The synthetic benchmarks below suggest the P8400 processor is one of the more capable processors from Intel and should satisfy the needs of any business professional.

Likewise, the NVIDIA 9300M GS dedicated graphics card with 256MB of RAM allows you to play most average games at a reasonable frame rate. This certainly isn't the laptop designed to play Crysis, but you'll have enough power to handle 1080p Blu-ray movies and some games (during non-work hours, of course).

Screen

The 14.1" WXGA, Anti-glare (1280 x 800) is nice and reasonably bright at 200nit brightness, color, contrast, and viewing angles are all good. More importantly, the display on our review unit uses a anti-glare matte finish ... something important to many business professionals and something we're glad to see.

Like most budget laptop displays, the screen on the SL400 does suffer from some minor color inversion at the lower vertical viewing angles ... but this is rarely a problem unless your laptop is resting on a desk and you're looking at the screen from down on the floor.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the ThinkPad SL400 has zero flex and excellent key travel with quiet presses. The keyboard is remarkably similar to the keyboards on the older ThinkPad R-series notebooks. There's little to complain about here from a functional standpoint. Sure, it's not the most attractive keyboard on the market ... but it works great. Of course, the SL400 wouldn't dream of calling itself a ThinkPad if it didn't include the iconic red Trackpoint pointing stick in addition to the standard touchpad.

The palm rest area is pretty plain: it has a matte black finish so it both feels and looks nice. It's very smooth and the touchpad is nicely textured with a responsive surface. Lenovo also decided to include the standard fingerprint reader for those businesses concerned with security.

Speakers and Audio

The built-in speakers are ... well ... average built-in speakers. In short, the speakers are small, underpowered, and produce tiny sound with plenty of highs and acceptable mid range but almost no bass. This is similar to what we've seen from other laptops in this class such as the Dell Vostro 1510 and Toshiba Satellite Pro L300. In other words, this ThinkPad is designed for small business and consumers who want a laptop that isn't flashy. Don't expect amazing speakers in this type of notebook.

On the bright side, the headphone jack produced distortion-free audio and works perfectly for earphones or external speakers.

Heat and Noise

The ThinkPad SL400 does a good job keeping heat under control. Even when the system was under stress during the performance benchmarking tests the SL400 remained relatively cool. Most users certainly won't have any trouble using this as a "laptop" since the these low heat levels won't cause any discomfort to your lap. Below are the external temperature readings listed in degrees Fahrenheit:

Noise was never an issue with the SL400, and this is one of the quietest notebooks we've seen (or rather heard) in this class. The system fan is extremely quiet, the hard drive rarely makes a peep even when it's actively writing data, and the DVD drive is fairly quiet (though not as quiet as some tray-loading DVD drives we've seen. In other words, the ThinkPad SL400 won't disturb your coworkers or the person seated next to you on a long flight.

Battery Life

With the notebook power settings in "balanced" mode, wireless on and the screen brightness set to 50 percent, the SL400 drained it's full battery after 3 hours and 13 minutes. Interestingly, Lenovo's proprietary Power Manager software accurately monitored the power consumption during the course of the battery test as the estimated battery time remaining changed depending on the level of activity. The battery life estimate jumped between a little more than four hours (when the notebook was left idle) to a little less than two hours when I was typing Word document and opening several applications at the same time.

While road warriors will cerrtainly want more battery life than what the SL400 has to offer, the notebook does a reasonable job in terms of travel power and provides battery life similar to the competition in this class.

Conclusion

Overall, there is a lot we can say in favor of the ThinkPad SL400. Lenovo is offering a solid budget ThinkPad for only $799 and also offering pre-configured models with better performance and features for $1,249 or less. That said, like most notebooks in the small business class, the SL400 suffers from cheap plastics used in the chassis construction, weak built-in speakers, and an overall build that is slightly thicker and heaver than needed.

As it stands now, there are a number of reasons you might want to pick up an SL400 rather than a similar notebook from the Dell Vostro lineup or Toshiba Satellite Pro line. That said, diehard ThinkPad owners might criticize the glossy lid, lack of lid latch, and the type of plastics used in some places. The performance of our test configuration suggests the SL400 packs enough raw power to satisfy most small business owners, but it's clear that the new SL series isn't the same ThinkPad we've seen before.

Pros:

• Affordable price

• ThinkPad quality keyboard and trackpoint

• Good screen (matte option is great)

• Solid performance

• Nice pre-configured options

• Stays cool and quiet
  

Cons:

• Thick and boxy overall

• Weak speakers

• Glossy lid is a magnet for fingerprints and dirt

• Plastics are thin and weak in some places

• Weak hinge tension on display lid

Lenovo 3000 N200

A lot of people are making a shift from desktops to laptops and hence are in a lookout for a cheap and reliable notebook PC that also has good enough performance for day-to-day needs. Lenovo 3000 N200 is one such laptop that does everything mentioned above. There are not many similar laptops sub $900 that would deliver the same performance.

Lenovo 3000 N200 specifications:

• Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo T7300
• Dimensions : 14.2″ x 10.5″ x 1.5″
• Display : 15.4″ WXGA TFT 1280 x 800
• Graphics : Intel GMA x3100
• RAM : 1GB DDR II
• Hard Disk : 160GB
• DVD±RW Drive
• 5-in-1 card reader
• 1.3 megapixel webcam
• 6-cell battery
• Approx. price : $900

The Lenovo 3000 N200 is an inexpensive laptop but has a very good configuration for the price tag. This one gives a strong competition to the Compaq series and the Dell Vostro series which are targeted at low-end users.

The N200 has no great looks but certainly fairs better than its Acer counterparts! The case is silver on the outside and has a dark gray color on the inside. The overall build quality is quite good but its weight is a bit on higher side.

The display is a 15.4″ TFT display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 which is good enough to view HD movies also.The display is no where as good as compared to either Dell or HP but it is certainly not bad. It does it job well. Lenovo is known for its great keyboards and N200 is no exception. It features a comfortable keyboard that makes it a breeze to type. The touchpad isn’t the same as the keyboard and moving the cursor with it is not an easy task. You better buy a mouse! There aren’t any media keys to play around with though.

The speakers built-into the laptop aren’t very good and movie watching experience will be subdued due to this. The speaker have a very soft sound and the volume isn’t high which will dissapoint you. The built-in webcam though is pretty good and video conferencing is quite smooth.

The performance of N200 is very good to set it straight. The T7300 processor is fast enough for day-to-day tasks and can play HD movies smoothly. 1GB RAM is good for multi-tasking and can also handle memory intensive applications like Photoshop etc. Gaming performance is not much to talk about as the onboard graphics are average but they can run Vista to its full effects.

The battery is a strong point of the laptop and it has a good backup time of 3 hours while watching movie which is very good. It is certainly one of the best backup times on a 6-cell battery.

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Good performance
• Excellent keyboard
• Great battery backup

Cons:

• Average looks,bit bulky
• Average display
• Bad touchpad
• Lousy speakers
• No dedicated graphics card

Final Thoughts

The Lenovo 3000 N200 is a good laptop for people looking to make a shift from desktop to laptop and need a budget laptop. Strong performance is its biggest positive point followed a great battery backup which are two things that are hard to find together. Although it is not a good multimedia laptop due to its display and speakers.

My Rating : 3.75/5

Lenovo ThinkPad X300

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 is light weight and ultraportable offering Lenovo and aims at giving serious competition to the recently released Apple Macbook Air. Although the X300 can not be compared to Macbook Air in terms of thickness but that can also be attributed to the fact that it comes pre-installed with a DVD-RW drive. The laptop is aimed for professionals who do not want to lose out on productivity when on the move.

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 specifications:

• Dimensions : 12.5 x 9.1 x 0.73 inches
• Intel Core2Duo 1.2 Ghz
• 2GB 667Mhz RAM
• 64GB solid state hard drive
• Display : 13.3″
• GPS, Wireless USB
• Graphics : Intel GMA X3100
• Weight : 3.4 pounds
• Operating System : Windows XP Professional
• Base Price: $2476

The ThinkPad has undergone a few cosmetic changes to make it look more attractive.The laptop although has the regular ThinkVantage button,fingerprint reader,keyboard light etc. The ports from the front edge have been shifted to the back edge to reduce the thickness.

The ThinkPad also features a 1.3 megapixel webcam along with noise-cancelling microphone for web conferencing.The display has a native resolution of 1440 x 900 which beats Macbook Air’s resolution.The high resolution on a 13.3″ screen does sometimes cause a few problems in reading small text but that can be sorted out by zooming in a bit on those pages.

The keyboard found on this ThinkPad is similar to ones you would find on 14″ or 15″ models from Lenovo which to say the least is good.Although the keyboard is a touch better on Macbook Air but ThinkPad x300’s keyboard is good enough for day to day usage.

The touchpad is quite smooth to use but your wrist might accidentally touch it when using the wrist rest sending the cursor awry.The laptop lacks an memory card reader but compensates much more by adding GPS ,Wireless USB,mobile network WWAN.The Thinkpad puts Macbook to shame by incorporating two USB ports,a Ethernet port and a DVD burne, none of which can be found on the Macbook Air.

The ThinkPad X300 is strong performer as it couples a C2D processor with 2GB RAM.The Macbook Air takes the lead in the processing department due to its 1.8Ghz processor.The ThinkPad has a six-cell battery which lasts above 4 hours on average usage and is comparable to Macbook Air’s battery life.The warranty has been dropped to a single year with extended warranty coming at a premium of $119.

Pros:

• Extremely Thin
• Light Weight
• High Resolution
• Built in GPS,Wireless USB,WWAN
• Two USB ports,Ethernet port
• Good performer

Cons:

• Expensive
• Awkward touchpad location
• Slower processor compared to Macbook Air
• Only 1-year standard warranty

Final Thoughts

The Lenovo ThinkPad X300 is a brilliant offering from Lenovo and gives serious competition to Apple Mackbook Air.It also corrects the various shortcomings of the Macbook Air like the integration of Ethernet port and the DVD burner.The laptop comes at an expensive price tag.

Rating: 3.3/5