Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The ambitions of Lenovo are clear, create the best ultraportable in the market. Building on the prestigious ThinkPad family, the X300 is an impressive computer which does not compromise ultraportable and functionalities.
Lenovo X300 versus MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is definitively a beautiful design (some will say sexy) and is ultra thin and light. In order to look that way, the Mac book has made some sacrifices in ways of functionalities, battery life and power. X 300 has a more conventional (old fashion) look, thicker and a bit heavier but it gains in functionality, power, has a DVD burner and yet has the dimensions and weight of an ultraportable. To complete the comparison The MacBook Air is beautiful extra light, trendy and will satisfy light users; the X300 looks conventional, is powerful and functional and will satisfy medium and some heavy users.
ThinkPad style
At first look, you can see a lot of similarities from previous generation of ThinkPads. The lines are straight (most competitors have rounded their laptops) and the min-joystick is still there. The keyboard has a the usual soft touch and comes with a retro light if needed. The finish is clean, robust, only the screen maybe sensitive to scratches.
Inside the X300
The processor used for the X300 laptop is new, it is a Core two duo L7100 this processor has an ultra compact chip similar to MacBook Air; it has a speed of 1.2 GHz and belong to the family of the Intel-based low voltage processors. The L7100 runs at 800 MHz and has 4 Mo of cash memory. This laptop comes with 2 GB of RAM which is enough to run Vista. That ThinkPad works very well in most situations and unless you are a graphic artist, big database user or heaver gamer, you will be very happy with its performances.
Lenovo X300 equipment
Despite its small size, The X300 focuses on maximum integration. No wasted space here, it comes with a DVD burner, you will also find three USB and one Ethernet connection. The wireless is equally well represented with Bluetooth 2.0 WiFi, 802.11 and 3G HSDPA. This one is also in charge of the video output for VGA.
Screen for professional
With a 13.3 inches the screen is big enough to view wide spreadsheet such as Excel, it is built up with a high quality definition of 1440 by 900 pixels. The graphic card is the classic Intel GMA X3100 with 368 Mo of shared memory.
Disappointing autonomy
During a testing the laptop battery never lasted more than 2 hours and 30 minutes, which is a bit disappointing with the SSD, LED screen and low-voltage processor. After we "played" with the numerous internal management tools we were able to extend the autonomy to 4 hours with light use such as Word. Additionally, the DVD can be replaced by an additional 3 cell battery.
Conclusion
All in all, a ThinkPad X300 is a wonderful ultraportable, light, compact and robust. Professional travelers will be very happy to use that notebook. There is a price for excellence and that price is $3,000. Final note, the X300 comes with three years manufacturer warranty.
