Lenovo ideapad U110

Lenovo ideapad U110 Review

Overview, Design and Features

Review Summary

• Pros:
  • 
    
  • Great looks
  • Decent power under the hood
  • Decently Priced for an ultraportable
  • External Optical Drive
  • Nice extra's included
  • Appropriately priced for some

• Cons
  • External Optical Drive
  • Uninspiring Sound output
  • Glossy surfaces attract dust / oil
  • For an ultraportable, it could use better battery life
  • Spendy for some

Bottom Line:
An excellent ultraportable - but spendy for the average consumer. And even though it's the consumer line up - it's a beautiful looking laptop that has decent power to do most every business aspect - however, the glossy look isn't for everyone and the sound leaves something to be desired.

Specifications:

Rating:

Design & Features

Overview

Meet the Lenovo U110 - its sleek, it's small, and this particular one is Red. It is available in black but who wants black when red looks this good? The U110 is Lenovo's launch into the consumer grade 'ultraportable' category, and seemed to have hit a home run with this unit. It's everything an ultraportable should be, without the suit and tie required color scheme.

Design
The case on the U110 can be described simply as 'handsome' or 'beautiful' whichever term you prefer.

The aluminum/metal LCD lid has a mesmerizing Celtic like etching design - and even though at first glance I thought it was a bit chic, it didn't offend me and eventually grew to my liking more and more. When you take out the U110, be prepared for fellow mobile users eyeing your ultraportable U110 with color envy - wishing their stark black or aluminum lid had as much character as yours. The matte black magnesium body features the etching design as well - and is very durable. It offered little to no flex and no weak spots when the U110 was transported by holding the base.

The LCD bezel is extremely thin. Even though it is made out of highly durable alumiunum - I found it very susceptible to flex and puncture stress. It is however, one of the items in which makes this unit so light, so care must be handled when opening/closing and transporting this unit. I would not recommend caryying this, nor moving this laptop directly by the LCD lid alone.

Keyboard

Upon opening the U110 - you will be greeted by a shiny, glossy, piano black finish that surrounds the LCD display, but the glossy features also continue to the keyboard where the entire unit features a mirror like piano black finish - which looks really nice, but attracts fingerprints and dust very quickly.

The keys however, were a treat to use, as they were a bit oversized and actually made typing very efficient. I personally don't like the glossy look applied to the keys, and since they are so black - typing in the night was a bit hard to have (could really use that LED light from the x300 here!) If this unit had a LED backlit keyboard, it simply would be amazing - but it doesn't.

Directly above the keyboard are the volume and media lauch touch areas. The volume is constantly illuminated, while the media quick launch touch area is activated by swiping (or touching) the glossy area above the keyboard, in which, this area will then illuminate. These were accented by the same Celtic like designs, but weren't overpowering bright. They time out and dim back down after a few seconds if they are not used.

The track pad is nothing fancy, but works very well - however, the glossy buttons could use some work, and it's hard to distinguish left and right clicks in the dark. If they had a tactile pattern assigned to one button I feel it would help, but since it feels so much like the rest of the palm area and its flush mounted - finding and utilizing can be a little difficult.

Speaking of the palm area - there's not a lot of extra room to it, and from what we could tell - our unit had some funky light distortion from the plastic material - most likely from a protective coating to the materialor oils / debris on the plastic, but no matter how many times we tried to keep it clean with the included cleaning cloth, it got dirty rather quickly.

Sound
The sound from the two tiny speakers mounted opposite the user can best be described as 'something to be desired'. Even though - they did provide a decent amount of volume, it's defiantly geared for simple implementation and won't impress much of anyone in the audiophile area. Highs were very tinny, and lows were non-existent. I would highly suggest getting headphones / external speakers if you were to use this in any other setting than very, very casual listening. However - it's nice to point out that this ultraportable, still has stereo sound - unlike some other ultra-portables we can think of

Connectivity
Good looks aren't the only thing going for the U110 - it has decent power under the lid for an ultraportable and features a very decent amount of connectivity options.

The left side features the power jack, RGB output, two USB 2.0 ports, and a wireless on/off switch.

The right side features an express card slot, card reader, audio in / out - mini-firewire, USB 2.0 port, Network Ethernet and lock slot.

The rear of the unit doesn't feature anything and is free of connections - although the look changes from glossy to matte when switching to the larger cell battery.

The front is void of connetivity options, and only offers some LED status lights under the trackpad.

A blue power LED, an orange charging LED, and a pink WIFI led. Nothing special - and they aren't located in the most convenient of locations - but do offer some input without opening the LCD.

Display
The U110 features a glossy 11.1' LED backlit display running a native 1368x768 resolution making it a very crisp display for its size- and was had wonderful color output and evenly lit backlighting.

It also offered great viewing angles for the sides, and excellent vertical viewing angles.

This is a really nice display - although, the gloss finish does show some signs of imperfections. It could be better implemented as it was sometimes a bit too glossy, and some places it appeared to have an uneven surface application (dips or indents) made it look less than perfect.

Size & Weight
Measuring in at a mere 10.8 inches by 7.7 inches, and a height of only three quarters of an inch, it's a great example of what an ultraportable should, and can look like.

The U110 comes with two batteries, a 7 cell and a 4 cell - with the weight just over 3 pounds with its 7 cell battery, and just under 2 and a half with the included 4 cell.

It's a worthy road companion and won't hurt the shoulders when transporting it around in it's included Lenovo notebook sleeve. One thing we did note about the 7 cell, is that it made the laptop have a little ledge on the rear to carry with, which actually served the U110 some good. And another thing on the 4 cell battery - it was a son-of-a-gun to try and remove this from the U110! It had no points to really grab to help shimmy the battery out of it's place.

The Lenovo U110 does not have an internal optical drive; however Lenovo opted to ship an external optical drive with each unit. It's not a bad option and easy enough to connect to the U110 - simply utilize two USB ports on the left side of U110 and you're in entertainment mode.

The power brick - is exceptionally proportional to the unit, and isn't obstrusive at all.

Upgrading / Configuration Options
There is only one configuration offered by Lenovo, and this is it. You could, however, in theory, install yourself a faster hard drive and a 2GB RAM stick to replace one of the 1GB to bump up your total RAM to 3GB, but would it be worth it on a system like this?

Features:

This device features the VeriFace log in application utilized by it's 1.3mp lcd webcam - which is pretty neat, but makes the boot-up / log-in incredibly sluggish. The U110 features Bluetooth and A/B/G connectivity for wireless networks. It does not have 3G nor GPS built in, but at this price point and market it's understood.

Another feature of the Lenovo ideapad U110 is the novo key - which, when pressed as power when the unit is off - will start the automatic recovery to make the unit factory fresh. This also, however, takes a big chunk out of the usable hard drive space - nearly 20gb - making the actual hard drive space usable to users around 100gb.

Performance & Conclusion

The 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 runs decently within Windows Vista Home Premium- and even though not a top of the line CPU seemed snappy enough, especially when this is in such a tiny platform. 2GB of DDR2 Ram help the U110 out of course, however, we did find the hard drive - at 120GB and spinning at the lowly 4,200rpm, does task the unit to open larger files or resume from hibernation. You can read all about our testing methodoligy here (http://www.laptoplogic.com/about/test/)

Windows Vista Experience Score
We include this score to help consumers easily identify normal components that compliment or hinder a systems performance.

Speedy for such a small processor - and at only 1.6ghz not a bad number, falling only slightly behind the M305 we just tested with a 2.1ghz T8100 and an extra gig of RAM!

Unexpected - this unit surpassed our X300, Toshiba M305, and Lenovo 3000 - capable to play older games, but don't expect much more than that.

Pretty impressive number for such a small package, and even though 20 some points behind the Fujitsu E8410 and 10 behind the M305, this has a much less speedy CPU and I think it's a very respectable score for a unit with these specifications.

Battery Performance

The battery performance varied on which battery you choose to equip the U110 with. The smaller, 4 cell battery had an average life span of almost 2 hours - but only got about an hour into a DVD before the unit shut-down. That was pretty horrible. However, the 7-cell battery life was nearing 2.5 hours watching a DVD and nearing 3 and half hours on normal usage with the screen at 75% brightness and wireless enabled. It's not the absolute best we've seen (as in our Vaio TZ we just reviewed that neared 8 hours) but it is acceptable. If you brought both batteries along, you technically would have a 5-6 hour unit depending on how you utilized the power saving features.

Conclusion
At nearing $2,000 - this is sort of a justification for those who could afford it. It is an 11.1" ultraportable, and the smaller the size, it seems to be bigger the price. Honestly, if I were in the market and had the funds, I would purchase this unit as it has everything I would want to look for in an ultraportable - and even though it does have it's minor flaws it was rock solid on it's performance (for it's hardware) and it caught more attention than any other notebook I've used (ok, minus the tiny Asus Eeepc). The included accessories are an added bonus - the light weight and rigid materials make this laptop not only durable, but good looking as well. The performance, even though not a blazing fast machine - would easily suffice in most things one would need to accomplish on the road, and would even handle some photoshop editing. I do wish that you could opt for a beefier configuration as it only comes pre-configured with fixed specifications. Is it worth $1,849 - to some yes, but to others this falls clearly out of their budget - and for good reason perhaps, if it fell in everyone's budget, it wouldn't make it that desireable.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 Multimedia Laptop

Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 Multimedia Laptop Review

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 is a large, fairly capable and highly stylish multimedia notebook offering. The glossy 16-inch widescreen is impressively large, as is the multitouch capable touchpad. Throw in an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz processor, 4GB RAM, a 320GB HDD, a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce G105M GPU and you’ve got yourself some respectable internals to go with the gorgeous externals. And did we mention the weight is only 5.6lbs, and felt like less? If only the price were a little lower and the keyboard a little larger, this laptop would have some pretty high marks all around.

Design - Case look and feel

Lenovo has clearly put some time into the look of the Y650. The black, subtly honeycombed matte lid is smooth to the touch and easy on the eyes, with nothing marring it save a silver Lenovo logo in the bottom right corner. Above the glossy LCD a black webcam is embedded in the bezel, and the whole display is surrounded by an attractive copper trim. The keyboard is completely white, with a pair of JBL speakers and a couple of buttons surrounding the strangely recessed keyboard (more on that later). Above the keyboard lie a few touch buttons in black, and below it is the nicely oversized touchpad. The touchpad and wrist rests are also white and even the IdeaPad logo in the bottom right corner glows white. The only other color besides white here is the copper trim around the base and the copper function accents on the keyboard keys.

Size and Weight

The IdeaPad Y650 does an excellent job of being large without being either bulky or heavy, and for that it should be commended. With dimensions of 15.4” x 10.2” x 1.0” it almost, but not quite, achieves MacBook-like slimness. It does this despite having a 16-inch screen compared to the MacBook’s 15-incher and only weighing a tenth of a pound more at 5.6 lb. It’s obviously pretty wide compared to standard aspect ratio 14-15 inch laptops, but as long as you know what size laptop you’re getting you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the weight and thickness of this laptop. Considering its size, we were very impressed with the portability.

Keyboard and Touchpad

With a laptop this large you can generally expect a large keyboard. Personally, I’m a fan of dedicated numberpads if they can fit comfortably, and the 16-inch form factor is about where you start to see them appear. However, Lenovo has decided to play tricks with our mind here, taking a keyboard you might see in a 14” laptop and literally shoving it towards the very top of the available keyboard space, giving the whole thing a fairly scrunched look. We can understand the lack of a numberpad, as they aren’t terribly common, but were disappointed to see shrunken keys (like right shift and tab) with so much available space.

The shrunken backspace even went so far as to make an annoying springing noise every time we touched it, as if it weren’t quite settled into its slot. On the flipside, the touchpad is wonderfully large, and even boasts some basic pinch-me multitouch functionality. The keyboard and touchpad are both comfortable to use, with just a little flex in the center and a comfortable gridded feeling respectively. Finally, a few push and touch-sensitive buttons casually surround the keyboard on three sides. The features are nice, but we’re not sure why Lenovo included two different and redundant ways to adjust volume or call up OneKey. We’ll explain more below.

Display Quality

The display quality of the Y650 is well above average. The LED backlit screen is bright and helps fight the glare of the glossy screen, which makes the colors sharp. There is even a button to set the display to “movie mode” with brighter colors still. Horizontal viewing angles are good, although distortion sets in a little sooner than we’d like on such a media-centric unit. Vertical viewing angles are fine though, especially from below.

Connectivity

You can’t shed pounds without making some sacrifices, and the connectivity is a little weaker than we would have hoped. However, we can’t say Lenovo was lacking for creativity, going so far in their space saving measures as to load the DVD tray in the front. There is also HDMI and eSATA, which we’re always happy to see.

The left side of the unit contains the power jack, followed by the HDMI and VGA ports. 1 of the 2 (yes, there’s only 2) USB ports follows this, and then you’ll find the fan exhaust.

The right side features an Ethernet port, Expresscard34 slot (no 54), eSATA, audio in/out and the last USB port.

The front of the laptop sports the DVD drive and a wireless on/off switch, with a few status lights in between.

The back is bereft of ports as the display hinges downward, covering it entirely when in use.

Upgrading

The Y650 has an all-in-one bottom plate that you have to remove to access any of the internals, which makes it easy to do big upgrades, but kind of a pain to do small ones. Our laptop was more or less the high end of the Y650s on Lenovo’s site, but it’s possible to tick down the processor to a P8600 and get 3GB RAM on 32bit Vista if you want to save $100. You could also opt for integrated graphics, but currently it won’t save you a dollar (thanks to a Lenovo sale), so we don’t recommend this unless you’re insanely concerned about battery life. There doesn’t seem to be a way to get a higher resolution screen or bigger battery, both of which would be nice additions.

Features

The IdeaPad Y650 comes loaded with Veriface facial recognition technology, which essentially lets you capture an image of your face with the integrated webcam and use it instead of a password to login. The feature is cool and extremely quick and easy to use, but in extreme cases it can still be hacked just like a password, so it’s no reason to be careless if you store sensitive material on your laptop. The Y650 also comes with the front loading DVD drive, which we’re counting as a feature just for its uniqueness.

Other nice features include the enormous touchpad, measuring 4.4 x 2.5-inches, which Lenovo boasts is the largest on any laptop. There is a touch slider at the top which brings up a menu composed of Easy Capture, Ready Connect, Veriface and OneKey. There is also a touch button to switch between “movie mode” and “regular” and next to that, a touch button to call up Dolby sound software. There are physical buttons on either side of the keyboard, but aside from the power button they only let you adjust volume and call up OneKey. OneKey can be run from the slider and the volume is also a function feature on the regular keyboard, so we suspect these buttons were only put in place to take your mind off the fact that the keyboard is so scrunched.

Performance

On a multimedia notebook we don’t always expect the best performance in terms of gaming, but with a dedicated GPU and plenty of RAM and processor speed, we expected good performance and were not disappointed. For more information on our testing practices, see here: http://www.laptoplogic.com/about/test/

Windows Vista Experience

Overall	4.3
Processor	5.4
Memory	5.9
Graphics	4.3
Gaming Graphics	5.0
Primary Hard Disk	5.3

Surprisingly, gaming graphics posted a very respectable 5.0 here, leaving regular old graphics in the dust as the low man. Everything else posted average to above average scores.

PCMarkVantage

Lenovo IdeaPad Y650	3867
Lenovo ThinkPad T400	3746
HP Pavilion HDX16	3320
Sony VAIO FW270j	3235
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530	2872
Dell Studio 1537	2845

The Y650 performed excellently in PCMark’s test, posting a notably better score than the recently reviewed Y530.

WorldBench 6

Lenovo ThinkPad T400	91
Lenovo IdeaPad Y650	81
HP Pavilion HDX16	80
Dell Studio 1537	79
Sony VAIO FW270j	74
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530	70

WorldBench puts the Y650 back into the realm of the average, although it again spanks the Y530.

Battery Performance - General Use
Runtime in minutes

Dell Studio 1537	357
Lenovo ThinkPad T400	334
Sony VAIO FW270j	181
HP Pavilion HDX16	156
Lenovo IdeaPad Y650	148

Here the Y650 lags behind the pack, posting less than 2.5 hours during general use. It should be noted that these were under the “natural” settings achieved when disconnecting the power cord. If you use the included battery stretching software to the fullest, it’s likely you can reach just about 3 hours. We said it before about the USB ports, you can’t shed pounds without making sacrifices.

Battery Performance - DVD Use
Runtime in minutes

Dell Studio 1537	206
Lenovo ThinkPad X301	117
Sony VAIO FW270j	101
Lenovo IdeaPad Y650	84
HP Pavilion HDX16	80

Considering the general use battery life, the Y650 didn’t do too badly here, comparing reasonably well to multimedia laptops like the HDX and FW270. This test was conducted with the brightness and sound-boosting movie mode enabled too. Still, it would be nice to actually finish a movie before the (rather irritating) low battery warning starts to chirp.

Real Life Usage

In general use, the IdeaPad ran cool and fairly quiet, even during DVD playback. It felt surprisingly light and the large widescreen in conjunction with the helpful “movie mode” was excellent for watching media. The relatively short battery life didn’t prove problematic for us, but then again we never tried to take it on the road beyond going to the office and back. With an external mouse and a USB thumb stick in tow it was worrying that there were no other USB options, and we anticipate trouble for those used to leaving their printer plugged in at home or charging electronics in a spare port. The recessed keyboard design also had the unfortunate side effect of extending the palm rests, which is less than comfortable. However it was weirder than it was awkward and didn’t affect typing as much as the shrunken keys themselves did.

Conclusion

The IdeaPad Y650 is surprisingly powerful for a laptop whose power isn’t a selling point. From a beautiful thin design to a large screen and wonderfully small weight, the IdeaPad is stylishly designed for multimedia. Of course, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, so the IdeaPad is a bit skimpy on battery life and ports. It’s not exactly skimpy on price though, with our model costing a total of around $1400 while currently on sale. But if you’re making MacBook comparisons, it suddenly doesn’t look so bad does it?

Lenovo ThinkPad T400s thin & light laptop

Lenovo ThinkPad T400s thin & light laptop Review

Lenovo's ThinkPad T400s is a very thin, very light, and fully featured 14-inch widescreen laptop. Most people are familiar with Lenovo's ThinkPad line and the T400 is a well featured, all-around bread & butter laptop. While the T Series was once the uber-svelte, latest & greatest flagship notebook of the ThinkPad family, recent iterations have seen proportions grow and uniqueness dwindle. Today Lenovo announced the ThinkPad T400s (note the 's' moniker on the end, not to confused with plural T400's), which sets out to bring innovation and class leadership back to the T Series.

Design

At first glance, the T400s looks like any other ThinkPad: black and rectangular. If you look a little closer, you will notice the subtly rounded edges, surprisingly thin profile, and very non-T400 port placement. The T400s brings in a number of design cues from the super-sleek X300/X301 models, including the same material construction. Carbon fiber is used for the top cover, with a unique glass fiber for the edges of the top cover to allow for un-diminished wireless signals. You'll find a magnesium alloy in use on the bottom cover and keyboard bezel, adding to the chassis stiffness provided by the internal magnesium roll cage.

Open the black rectangle and you will see a familiar sight with a few tweaks. The TrackPoint and toucpad are redesigned with usability in mind, featuring larger TrackPoint buttons and a larger, textured multitouch-capable touchpad. Some of the system information LED's have been redesigned and consolidated, leaving you WiFi, Bluetooth, and hard disk activity LED's in the LCD bezel. However you also now have a Caps Lock LED on the key itself, mute and mic/webcam disable buttons with status LED's, and the power button slowly blinks to indicate the system is in standby. These complement only two LED indicators on the exterior: a battery icon indicating AC power, system powered on, and battery status along with a sleep icon. Lenovo also updated their keyboard design, you will see the enlarged Esc and Del keys which have altered the layout. I will discuss more on that later.

The hinges are still silver, unlike the black metal hinges present on the X300/X301 models, and the speakers are placed on either side of the keyboard for optimal listening. Many people took exception to the T400's off-center 14-inch widescreen, but the T400s has a centered screen. If you take a look at the bottom panel, you will see a fairly clean chassis with a single expansion cover to remove and standard 6-cell battery integrated into the front of the machine. Note that there is no room for an extended battery with this design.

Size and Weight

Having spent a lot of time with a regular T400, I can say that it is a bit on the portly side. Most configurations will weigh in at over 5 lb and it is about 1.1-inches thin. Combine that with the dimensions of a 14-inch widescreen and it is quite unwieldy as a portable machine. The T400s is like the T400's skinny relative, weighing in at only 3.91 lb and a mere 0.83-inches thin. That difference in numbers really adds up when you get it in your hands. Thanks to the advanced materials and internal roll cage, the T400s is not only thin but incredibly rigid as well. Picking it up by one corner feels exceptionally sturdy and lightweight, like a heavy duty (paper) notebook.

Keyboard and Touchpad

ThinkPads have always been crowned as having the world's best keyboards and the T400s continues, if not elevates, that lineage. The full 7-row layout is still present here and the typing experience is immaculate. Tactile response, key travel, and general stiffness are all amazing. Some of the regular T400 systems were plagued with extremely spongy keyboards, but the T400s looks to be void of any such problems. Ignoring the layout change for a moment, Lenovo also enlarged the size of the base of the keys to reduce any crumbs and such from getting in the keyboard tray. This doesn't affect the key spacing itself, it appears they simply added more of a sloped base to each key to fill in the gaps; it appears to be a rather effective technique.

As I alluded to earlier, Lenovo did change the keyboard layout a bit. They did a study and found that the Esc and Del keys were highly utilized, but also a bit harder to use accurately and efficiently. To help remedy this, they enlarged the Del and Esc keys to nearly double their previous dimensions. To make room for this, they did have to compress the Function keys a bit and move the Ins key to the top row of the keyboard. In my experience typing on this machine, these changes were not overly detrimental. I found reaching for some of my common Fn combinations with my left hand to be trying, as I was always a key off from what I intended. Also users who relied on the Ins key will be very affected, as it is in a very distinctly different position now. I personally never had trouble hitting the Del and Esc keys, but I can see how this change would help those with smaller hands or who had other accuracy problems.

For those of you not familiar, the TrackPoint is Lenovo's "pointing stick" device that provides the same functionality as a mouse or touchpad. The red nubbin acts like a joystick and for those adjusted to the device, it proves to be highly accurate and allows you to mouse around without removing your hands from your typing position. The TrackPoint mouse buttons have been enlarged and softened a bit, with more of a curve than the sharp peak on other designs. I did not find this to impact my usability at all and I don't think anyone will have trouble adjusting.

The touchpad is another area Lenovo changed in the name of usability. In an effort to keep the system as thin as possible, the touchpad was brought flush with the palm rest and given a unique texture to differentiate from the palm rest. It is also larger than the rather small one found on regular T400 models, and now support multitouch features. The T400s' touchpad is incredibly responsive and natural to use, with a sufficient surface area to be comfortable and efficient.

Display Quality

ThinkPads are traditionally business models and aren't exactly known for high quality displays. A few models had exceptional LCD panels, but most are just average, including the regular T400. The new T400s uses a 14.1-inch 16:10 ratio widescreen LCD running 1440x900 resolution. This LCD is exceptionally bright, with plenty of brightness steps to find the optimum level. When viewing at the sweet spot angle, you will be in love with the T400s' screen. It is bright, vibrant, and features crisp, dark blacks. Unfortunately, like most ThinkPad LCD's and many matte LCD's too, move about 5-10 degrees off the centerline and you dramatically lose dark details. Advance much further and you will see significant color inversing, although light colors remain in good contrast throughout. There is enough of a sweet spot on this panel that you won't constantly be fidgeting, and the brightness and colors really are superb, but the T400s' display doesn't quite impress.

Ports & Connectivity

Despite being uber thin and light, the T400s has literally every port or connection you might need. Every acronym and abbreviation you can think of is included for wireless: 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi (with three card choices), Verizon or AT&T WWAN, UWB, Bluetooth, and WiMAX. Ethernet is included as well, although the prehistoric modem has been dropped and you can get a USB model if you need it. You'll get 3 USB 2.0 ports on the T400s, including one that doubles as an eSATA port, and the choice between an ExpressCard34 slot or 5-in-1 card reader.

• Right side: Wireless switch, Ultrabay/optical drive, Kensington lock slot
• Left side: ExpressCard 34mm slot, mic/headphone combo port, USB 2.0
• Rear: AC adapter, VGA output, Ethernet, powered USB 2.0 port for phone charging, eSATA/USB 2.0, DisplayPort, fan vent

Upgrading

Keeping the corporate IT departments in mind, Lenovo made upgrading the T400s an extremely simple operation. One screw is all that stands between you and the RAM & PCI Express mini cards; no more removing the keyboard to change the RAM. But what if you did need to remove the keyboard for some reason? After opening the same panel as for the RAM, you remove an additional two screws to change the keyboard. The SSD/HDD is a single additional screw as well. I'm not sure what more you could really ask for in upgrading simplicity for these components, which are going to be the most common to change.

The T400s uses DDR3 PC3-8500 1066MHz RAM, with 2GB generally standard and upgradeable to a total of 8GB (4GB per slot, only with 64-bit OS). This is plenty of RAM capacity for a notebook and is very easy to change out on your own. The hard/solid state/storage/whatever you want to call it drive is unfortunately limited to a 1.8-inch form factor, so users are very limited in their upgrade options. Both 1.8-inch SSD and HDD's are relatively uncommon in the marketplace and generally command a higher price, despite lower performance and capacity. This was a necessary move to get the T400s as svelte as it is, but a hit to expandability.

Features

What does the T400s not have? An extended battery. An archaic 56K modem. Firewire, and HDMI. That's about it. At only 0.83 inches thin, the T400s is loaded to the hilt with features and even has a wide range of docking options to extend those features further, at your desk anyway. Below is a list of the tech features on the T400s and I'll discuss some of the more unique ones after.

• Standard USB 2.0 port, selectively powered USB 2.0 port for device charging, eSATA/USB combo
• VGA & DisplayPort output
• Combo mic/headphone jack
• ExpressCard34 or 5-in-1 card reader
• 2MP webcam
• Multitouch touchpad
• Hot swappable Ultrabay: optical drive (Blu-ray available), 2nd HDD adapter, or 2nd battery
• Fingerprint reader with LED indicator

As you can see above, the T400s is well loaded. The eSATA combo port is new to the ThinkPad line, and welcome indeed. Another innovation is the powered USB port. Within Lenovo's power management software, you can set the port to be powered up even when the system is in standby, hibernate, or powered off. Here's the only catch: the AC adapter must be connected. This is very handy for travelers who don't always have an AC or DC port to charge their phone, but kind of defeats the purpose if you must have a wall jack to use it.

Performance

Lenovo was able to keep the ThinkPad T400s cool and quiet while stuffing in a normal voltage Core 2 Duo processor. Between this and the SSD options, it is lightning fast in normal usage. It does use the Intel 4500MHD integrated graphics, which won't win any performance awards, but do keep the power consumption down.

For more information on our testing practices, see here.

PCMark05

Lenovo ThinkPad T400s	7502
Dell Latitude E6400	5529
Lenovo ThinkPad T400	4810
HP 6930s	4599

As you can see, the T400s packs quite a punch in the "general usage" area. Its fast Core 2 Duo CPU and slick SSD make up the majority of the reason why it wipes the floor with everyone else here.

3DMark06

Asus F6Ve	3184
Lenovo ThinkPad T400s	984
Lenovo ThinkPad T400	942
Lenovo ThinkPad X301	716

And how the tables have turned. Unless you're gaming or watching a ton of HD movies, there isn't much need for discrete graphics as they just suck down extra power. Accordingly, Lenovo's flagship ThinkPads here all have Intel's X4500MHD integrated graphics, which get creamed by the Asus F6Ve's 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon 4570 and T9550 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor.

Battery Performance

We did something a little different this time with battery life, to hopefully ensure greater consistency in our testing and provide better data for our readers. We are testing the use of a tool that has been around for a while: Battery Eater Pro. This tool at its core measures runtime for you, but does include a few usage scenarios.

The "Classic" test consists of rendering a 3D image full screen at native resolution until the battery runs out; clearly a high-stress test that is more indicative of a "minimum run time." The "Reader" test consists of scrolling text, as though you are reading a book; clearly a very low usage test representing a potential "maximum run time." Both of these tests were run with WiFi on, since these days your WiFi is generally always on and it is a very real factor in power consumption.

Runtime in hour:minutes

Reader Test	4:58
3D Rendering Test	2:46

Lenovo advertises a 5.5 hour run time on the T400s with the lone 6 cell battery, which is a bit optimistic. The Reader test is optimistic on its own, doing very little actual work and really deriving most of the power consumption from the LCD and WiFi. On the other end, you have almost 3 hours of runtime while rendering a large 3D image, which consumes a fair amount of CPU and GPU cycles. Your realistic usage is going to fall somewhere in the middle, closer to 4 hours if you're a light web/email/video users and closer to 3 hours if you're doing some CPU or disk churning activities. Not bad for a 3.8 lb package that actually has a lot of horsepower behind it.

Real Life Usage

The T400s can do it all, and in great comfort. The screen is large enough to be the primary display, while the system is petite enough to go almost anywhere. The performance in Vista, even with "only" 2GB RAM, is excellent. While the 80GB SSD our model came with might not be enough for some users, there is a slower 250GB 5400rpm drive option and a 128GB SSD. The typing experience is downright blissful and even touchpad lovers have an excellent pointing option. Heat and noise are practically nonexistent, a testament to Lenovo's engineering prowess.

The chassis size is on the high end for what I would consider an "ultraportable" device, but still very much an ultraportable. Handling a T400 and T400s back to back will make the T400 look like a bloated desktop replacement, weighing in over 5 lb and 1.1-inches thin. You also need to have an extended battery sticking out the back for the T400 to get decent battery life, while the T400s will break 4 hours on its standard, and slim, 6-cell battery.

What would I change about the T400s? HDMI output is the only big one on my list, but there are DisplayPort to HDMI adapters that are fairly cheap. A larger capacity battery would be helpful, but you can add the bay battery and increasing the size of the main battery would impact the system's svelte design. The speakers are just satisfactory, which is about the best you'll find on a ThinkPad, so as always they could go louder.

Conclusion

The ThinkPad T400s delivers as well as, or in some cases better than, previous ThinkPads. It should also set the standard for 14-inch widescreen notebooks in the industry and show up most competitors, even if the pricing is not entirely comparable. Performance is snappy as ever and the T400s has nearly every feature in the book, even adding a few new ones that will hopefully become more common.

A $1599 starting price is not considered "cheap" these days when it comes to notebooks, and rightfully so in the T400s' case. While most people expect everything for nothing, quality products deserve a fair market price, for many reasons. I digress, but the bottom line is the T400s is a premium product at a fair price. If you're shopping for a notebook and can afford to look in the T400s' price range, you owe it to yourself to give it a hard, long look. Accordingly, we have selected the ThinkPad T400s for LaptopLogic's Editor's Choice Award.

Lenovo S10

Lenovo S10 Review

Overview
Netbooks – all flavors, sizes and colors...and this time we have the Lenovo S10. It packs the same core essentials as most others. It has an Intel Atom processor at 1.6ghz, 512mb RAM, and a 10.2"; LED backlit screen. However, some things are meant to be for the better regarding with what options come with a netbook. Not all netbooks ARE the same, and for the S10 it has some neat tricks up it's lid, and some standards it needs to learn...

Design
The S10 can come in a variety of colors, but they all have one thing in common – they are proportionate, and carry nice design aesthetics. Of the netbooks out there, I must say the lines of the S10 are some of the most appealing. Our model is a pearl-escent white – featuring a 3-cell battery. Everything seems to flow, from the latchless lid, relatively thin bezel surround, and attractive chrome like accents...if you can't tell, the S10 does excel in the design department.

Size & Weight
The S10 size measures in at making it a 9.8" x 7.2" x 1.1", which is a bit thinner than the MSI Wind we just recently reviewed, and being that it only incorporated a 3-cell battery instead of a 6-cell option as the Wind, it weighs a bit less as well tipping the scale in at 2.4 pounds. It's quite evenly balanced, making computing one hand rather easy with the S10.

Keyboard
The keyboard for a 10.2” netbook, is rather cramped. I'm not sure what happened, as I'm usually awestruck with the keyboards on Lenovo's as of late, but this model, doesn't strike the same emotion. It' s not just the cramped feeling, it's the actual placement of some keys and omission of others. For example, I'm not sure who's idea it was to get rid of a mute button (or fn combination for that matter) but it doesn't exist that I could find. I'm not one to think about what needs to happen when I need my volume to mute – I just press the buttons and be done with it. With the S10, this isn't an option. Also, I'm not sure the reason behind having a FN+F11 to make it F12 – but it may be in part that the tilde key is so apparent isn't part of the normal key layout that seemingly the rest of the laptop world has adopted. Another thing, I'm not sure, but I think “backspace” is one word, and not two words mashed together making it “BackSpace” - but I could be very wrong, someone correct me here...but Lenovo thinks it's BackSpace...and I don't agree.

Amongst those, there are two odd sized layout keys I find on the S10: the smallest tab key since my smartphone and the right shift key. Not my choice of use or size.

Trackpad
The trackpad however is a nice one – firm and consistent travel, however the buttons are rather noisy and a little stiff. I'm not sure if these work out over time, but as far as I'm concerned – the touch option on the Snyaptics touchpad should suffice most users (and the fact that it's a Synaptics touchpad and not a Sentellic off-shoot) with its side scrolling function, makes things manageable albeit tolerable for such a small touch area.

Display Quality
At 10.2" and a resolution of 1024x600, it follows the same suite as the MSI Wind – but it's not as sharp and the viewing agles are a bit off. They're about the same as the Wind, but I find the Wind's LCD having a bit more contrast and brightness.

Connectivity Description
The S10 features a nice amount of connectivity options for this price range and target audience who are into extreme mobility and form factor.

The left side of the S10 features an exhaust port, VGA out, multi-card reader, and a USB 2.0 Port.

The front doesn't have anything other than a few status lights.

The right side features and Express card slot, headphone, microphone, USB 2.0 port, Network port and lock slot area.

So, this netbook only has two USB 2.0 ports – but it does come packaged with a mini-express card which I do like the notion of.

Upgrading Possible?
What is a nice feature on the S10 is the relatively easy access to upgrading the internals. There are only two little screws and a plastic covering and you have easy access to upgrading the anemic 512mb of RAM. Also, sitting nicely awaiting a user to plop in a larger hard drive - since this unit only came with 80gb, half that of the MSI Wind and Acer Aspire One we just reviewed. Other than that, there's not much more you can (or should) do to upgrade this.

Features
The S10 does features some nice internal connection such as bluetooth, but it lacks the wireless N function of others we've tested. The webcam is one of the nicer webcam incorporated we've seen with nice tracking and fluid motion. The big winner would be the mini express-card on the right side, leading to a whole slew of options which I think is a big part of the lifeline of a netbook.

Performance & Conclusion

Performance
We always try and test with a standard method, and with netbooks, our standard method is pretty simple. We try to run Worldbench, and we do a battery test. So without further ado, here is breakdown that most (if not all) netbooks fall into.

WorldBench 6: 29
No surprise here, the worldbench score falls right in line with other similarly spec'd netbooks. However, it is to note that this unit only carries 512mb of Ram, which might contribute to the slightly lower score than others, and I would be willing to bet that if you upgraded this to 2gb, the numbers would improve a bit.

Battery Performance:

Battery life is stated to be nearly 4 hours, but we found that with Wi-Fi enabled you're going to be lucky in squeezing 3 and a half. With the LCD on it's lowest setting, and no wi-fi, reading an e-novel or the likes will gather you just shy of four. Not bad, but it's nowhere near the battery life of our 6-cell models.

Real-life usage:
The bluetooth came in handy, but missing that extra USB port that has been featured on plenty of other netbooks was a real let down. Also, the keyboard wasn't to my taste, not saying it's bad, but I've mentioned it above and I feel it needs a serious run through on what their plan was for this unit.

I did get plenty of compliments regarding it's looks, but when it came down to it, the MSI Wind I had just had one more feature that for the price point (and battery life) made it more of a winner.

And even though I didn't use the mini-express card slot, the added bonus of devices that utilize this BUS will definitely be a plus in the future.

Conclusion
I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. It has a lot of nice features at this price point and the connectivity isn't the worst, and carrying a nice LED 10.2” LCD is also great. However, I feel that there could be some improvements on some aspects and the touchpad could be slightly quieter. If you're looking for a fashion friendly netbook that doens't leave you stranded for some great function, I'd highly recommend it. However, being that the 6-cell version has been spotted but no sign of official release on our side of the pond, I'd have to say that the modest battery power might not be for some users, along with that kinda funky keyboard.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y530

Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 Review

Today we bring you the the Lenovo IdeaPad Y530, the predecessor of the Y510, with quite a few improvements. This 15.4" widescreen IdeaPad was designed with intent to reach out to the mainstream consumer looking for multimedia focus. In that regard, this computer looks very pretty, displays quite nicely, and has a couple key features that will have you showing all the YouTube or Hulu videos at any laptop party. Our Y530 came with a 2.00 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 (Centrino 2), 2 GB of RAM (upgrade option to 4 GB), 250GB 5400 RPM hard drive, and an NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS. The IdeaPad includes a 1.3 M pixel fixed camera, an integrated array microphone, a 6 in 1 multimedia card reader, 802.11n wireless capabilities, Bluetooth 2.0, a Dolby Home Theater and super speaker system, and some convenient software to help keep it safe which we'll get into later.

Design

The look of this Lenovo is not all that like the ThinkPad lineup except maybe that it’s all black. This stylish laptop comes in a colorful Lenovo box that just begs to be opened and once pulled out looks quite elegant. The top at first glance is a smooth black finish but upon further inspection one can see a "light weave texture" that I assure you looks really nice in person, especially with the slick silver Lenovo Logo protruding at the top center. The back side of it curves down away from the user giving it a solid grounded feel wherever it is to be placed and at the front the IdeaPad has a slight incline almost parallel only helping with the elegance. Upon opening the Lenovo, both hands are required to move the screen away from the keyboard and the case certainly feels as solid as it looks. The glossy "frameless" screen is a clean dark black and as one can tell from just opening, is quite sturdy and well protected. This 15.4" Frameless VibrantView LCD screen certainly does its job in looking and displaying pretty. The screen when looked at from straight on is definitely bright and vibrant.

Size and Weight
One thing to keep in mind is that this laptop isn’t exactly tiny. At 14.2 x 10.3 x 1.4 inches and 6.6 lbs (2.96 kg) the Lenovo Y530 is a tad bit on the thicker and heavier side especially for a 15.4" screen. That's not to say you can’t carry it around or take it with you while traveling. No, this laptop is sturdy and still maneuverable. Interestingly the thickness only helps annunciate that it feels like a solid box, but a carrying case works just the same. At just over 6.5 lbs, one would expect some heavy features or heavy duty battery. Oddly enough, the Y530 came with a 6 cell 5200mAh Li-ion battery which for a multimedia purpose machine meant to last, did a…ok job.

Keyboard
With plenty of room on the base of the IdeaPad the center contains a full size ergonomic keyboard that, like the ThinkPad linuep, is soft to the touch and quite pleasant to type on. The base itself is a very unique design of mainly black and orange. At the top center above the keyboard is a glossy black finish on which lays the touch sensitive buttons. From left to right across the way orange glowing touch buttons are: mute, a button for self defining programs, the device manager and 4 buttons for multimedia control (play/pause, stop, backwards, forwards). To the left of the glossy touch area is the OneKey Rescue System, and the orange glowing power button. To the right of the touch area is the swap button which converts the multimedia control touch buttons to Audio default touch buttons (and to the right of that, the volume control). These buttons all lay on a lighter metallic non-scratch surface which to the left and right of the keyboard holds 2 of the home theater speakers. The touchpad below the keyboard is wider than your average touchpad and is smooth and accurate to the touch. Simple and Sweet, great job with this Lenovo!

Display Quality
The Lenovo Y530 is meant to be mainly a multimedia machine. So while it may not be meant for heavy processing, it is meant to display nicely. The 15.4 inch WXGA (1280 x 800) res. isn't the highest resolution but certainly looks good on the frameless VibrantView LCD display. DVD's play smoothly, online videos (Hulu, youtube) look as good as they can and output to displays such as LCD TV's had no problems whatsoever. The only problem I had with the display was darkness from side viewing angles. At minimal side angles the screen begins to very noticeably darken as if someone turned the brightness down and the gloss does allow for minor glare. But as for all else, the brightness and colors are vibrant and the visuals look great. On an interesting side note… the screen is quite glossy… so much so that when the laptop is off the screen practically turns into a mirror. Check you out…

Connectivity
The case isn't small and does come with a good assortment of connectivity.

The right side of the unit holds a headphone, and microphone port, one USB 2.0 port, FireWire, DVD-RW/CD-RW, and a modem jack.

The left side of the Y530 holds two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI, Ethernet, S-Video, VGA, and the power chord port.

The front comes with a sensor for the optional remote, the wireless on or off switch, an ExpressCard slot and a 6-in-1 memory card reader, and holds 3 LED status lights of blue, orange and purple (power, battery, wireless).

In the back of the Y530 is a 5 bar orange glowing LED of which shows the battery status. Interestingly enough this can also be seen from the front when the screen is extended all the way.

Upgrading
Our Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 only came with 2 GB RAM but you’ll be glad to know it is possible to upgrade to 4 GB of DDR2 or DDR3 (1066MHz memory). Also while ours only had the 250GB 5400 RPM harddrive, it supports 320GB 7200 RPM. Another graphic card option upgrade is the NVIDIA GeForce 9500M G 512MB as well and would probably be worth it.

Features:
The Lenovo Y530 definitely has some unique and fun features. HDMI, Bluetooth, and some nice software to boot, but among the top two are the touch sensitive buttons and Veriface technology using the 1.3 M pixel webcam. The touch sensitive buttons which are located above the keyboard are a light glowing orange that when pressed brighten and glow for a nice effect. Another point is Lenovo’s Veriface facial-recognition technology. The software is easy to find, set up and use. It took only minutes to create a password and log my face and only seconds to log onto the computer using Veriface. While it doesn’t seem to be the most secure way to protect your computer, I couldn’t fool it. I tried hats, hoods, not shaving, still it recognized me. So, I then tried my friends and photos and proudly they were still locked out! The IdeaPad also comes with Lenovo’s Easy Capture software which is essentially the PC version of iPhoto and with only the 1.3 M pixel camera is ok at best. ‘Still’ photos look decent but videos and motion is choppy and blurry. Another nice piece of software included is Lenovo’s OneKey Recovery which will automatically reset the C drive to the factory default and leave the D drive untouched.

Performance and Conclusion
If you would like to read more about our testing methdology, please see here

Windows Vista Experience Score

Processor	4.9
Memory	5.8
Graphics	3.5
Gaming Graphics	4.8
Primary Hard Disk	5.2

With the lowest score being 3.5 and all others well above 4.0 its clear this is not a poor performance laptop. Solid high score of 5.8 on memory and the low score on graphics.

PCMark Vantage Pro

Lenovo Y530	2872
Lenovo T400	3746
HP HDX16	3320
ThinkPad X301	3308
VAIO FW270j	3235

The Y530 ran PCMark Vantage with a score of 2872 performing at only an average rate for a multimedia PC.

3DmarkVantage: NA

We were unable to run 3DmarkVantage on this laptop. Although it can run a 1280x800 resolution, it could not generate the 1280x1024 resolution the benchmark required.

Worldbench 6

Lenovo Y530	70
Lenovo T400	91
Toshiba E-105	83
HP HDX 16	80
VAIO FW270j	74

Running multiple instances of WorldBench we kept getting the same result. A mere score of 70. The firefox test however could not run properly and it is possible it would have scored slightly higher with it.

Battery Life

DVD Playback

Lenovo Y530	135
Toshiba E-105	210
VAIO FW270j	101
HP HDX 16	80
Asus G50	80

It seems DVD’s don’t have a huge affect on the battery life compared to regular use as it drained the battery for a score of 135, that’s 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Regular Use Battery Life

Lenovo Y530	165
Lenovo T400 (Integrated)	334
ThinkPad X301	235
VAIO FW270j	181
HP HDX 16	156

We ran the daily battery test strain using a constant stream of audio files and video files as well as basic word documents and internet browsing. It actually stayed alive for a decent time with a score of 165 equaling 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Conclusion
At a price under $1000 the Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 definitely covers your basic needs and looks pretty while doing so. It has some cool features like the ability to look at yourself every time you login or lock your computer - and isn’t too heavy or big to carry around.

Bottom Line
If you want a laptop for basic browsing and nice media displays this Laptop is worth the dough. If you want something that processes quickly and can handle a lot of computing this may not be the laptop for you. The 15.4 inch widescreen Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 is a fun, unique laptop that overall looks nice and has some fun features.

Lenovo Thinkpad T400

Lenovo Thinkpad T400 Review

Overview:
Lenovo proudly presents the successor to the popular T61 series, the ThinkPad T400. Our model of this portable business laptop came with a Montevina Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz processor, 2GB DDR3 RAM, and a 160GB HDD. It was equipped with a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 dedicated GPU, but also had a switchable graphics feature which let us go between that and the Integrated Intel GMA 4500 graphics at will for the sake of battery life. The 14.1” display was a bright LED backlit WXGA+ (1440x900) LCD. With all the reputation (and looks) of the ThinkPad series behind it, ths T400 is another strong entry into the workhorse business notebook world.

Design:

Case look and feel:
If you’ve ever seen a ThinkPad before, you know what the T400 looks like for the most part. Although Lenovo has made slight changes in other lines, like making the hinges on the X301 black and the top glossy on the SL400, the T400 continues to sport the traditional silver hinges and black matte top we all know and 'love'. The chasis is all black as is the keyboard and palmrest/touchpad. You’ll find the bright red nub of the TrackPoint in the center of the keyboard and the silver ThinkPad logo emblazoned across the bottom right corner of the palmrest and lid. There are a few dull silver buttons for volume control/power next to the blue ThinkVantage button. Just above the keyboard there are a number of green status lights to tell you if your WiFi, BlueTooth, etc is on.

Size & Weight:
With dimensions of 13.2”x9.4”x1.1” and a weight of 5.3lbs with a 6-cell battery, the T400 will win no awards for portability but neither will it slow you down. We don’t advise picking it up with one hand if you’re going to move it further than across your desk, but you could if you needed to. The dimensions are small enough that it doesn’t feel awkward carrying it with one arm, and carrying it in a normal laptop case it will hardly feel heavier than you’d expect. To sum it up, “how you’d expect” is a good description of the size and weight of this notebook – unimpressive without being detrimental, it manages to feel “normal”.

Keyboard:
Ordinarily, we love typing on ThinkPads, and while the T400 still beats a lot of other laptops we’ve tested we got the feeling something just wasn’t quite the same. Nosing around online we found others had the same feeling, some going so far as to take apart the notebook and get a good look at the backplate. To his (and our) dismay, the new backplate is riddled with holes when compared with the old T61 backplate, which we suppose was done to reduce the weight. This had the negative effect of also increasing keyboard flex.

Don’t get us wrong, it’s still a good keyboard, with decent feedback and key travel. It wouldn’t be a ThinkPad if the keyboard wasn’t still at least good. We’ll be a little sad if Lenovo decides to bring the ThinkPad standard down to this level though, because keyboards such as the one located on the X301 are some of the best we’ve ever typed on.

Display Quality:
The LED backlit WXGA+ (1440x900) LCD offered an excellent display. The screen was extremely bright at full brightness, and even when reduced to 60% visibility was still respectable. On full brightness the LED backlit screen is visible even in sunlight. Horizontal viewing angles were strong, with little to no washout even when nearing perfectly horizontal viewing. Vertical angles were still good, and we were able to push the LCD back on its hinges almost 135 degrees before significant washout occurred.

Connectivity:
The connectivity on the T400 is fair, going back to the original theme of failing to either impress or disappoint. You get most everything you need, but nothing flashy like HDMI or a DisplayPort. Our particular model even lacked a card reader, but it’s available as a $10 option on Lenovo’s website.

The back features nothing but the jutting 6-cell battery and the AC power jack, as well as a lock slot.

The right side contains a USB port as well as the optical drive.

The front has a FireWire port, WiFi on/off switch, and audio in/out jacks.

Most of your wires will be hanging off the left side (even the power cord is in the left half of the rear). After an exhaust vent you get VGA, modem, LAN, 2 more USB ports, and an ExpressCard 54 slot.

Upgrading:
The T400 comes with a decent amount of upgrading options. Our T9400 processor was close to the high end, but you can go even higher with the T9600 2.8GHz if you want to. The HDD can grow to be as large as 320GB, or if SSD is your thing there is a 64GB option for that as well. RAM can even be upgraded to a whopping 8GB DDR3, although it’s important to note that you’ll need a 64 bit version of Windows if you want to utilize more than 3GB of it. If you’re a DIYer, the hard drive can be replaced from the outside by removing a single screw, and while other components are accessible it takes a bit more work to get at them.

Features:
The ThinkPad T400 comes with a number of useful features. From 802.11 a/b/g/n to integrated WWAN (our model didn’t have it, but it’s an easy upgrade), it’s easy to stay connected on the go with this notebook. Also useful for travel is the keyboard light, activated by pressing the bottom left button (fn) and top right button (PgUp) on your keyboard, making it easy to find in darkness. Other features include a fingerprint reader, integrated webcam, and as always on a ThinkPad the ThinkVantage button, offering easy access to wireless and multimedia management.

Some of the more unique features of this notebook revolve around switching on the fly. The UltraBay optical drive is hotswappable, allowing you to switch it for an additional battery or hard drive with the computer still on. The T400 also features Switchable Graphics, allowing you to switch between integrated and dedicated graphics and improve your battery life without interrupting what you’re doing. These are both useful features that are also extremely convenient, as neither requires the loading of any software, or a login/reboot.

Performance & Conclusion

The T400 is certainly a workhorse, capable of performing well even when multitasking. It’s not a high end unit but we predicted it would do pretty well in our testing. For a full explanation of our testing methodology, see here.

Windows Vista Experience Score

Processor 5.4
RAM 5.7
Graphics 4.6
Gaming Graphics 4.7
Primary Hard Disk 5.3
Overall 4.6

The 4.6 overall rating is actually fairly strong, comparing favorably to the 3.4 of the ThinkPad X301 ultraportable and approaching the 5.2 of the ASUS G50-X1 gaming laptop. It’s clear, however, that gaming is the weakness of this business oriented notebook.

PCVantage Pro

We ran the PCVantage test twice, once with the laptop plugged into the wall and the graphics set to dedicated, and then again after unplugging it and setting the graphics to integrated.

ASUS G50-X1 3935
Alienware M15x 3767
ThinkPad T400 (dedicated) 3764
HP HDX16 3320
Lenovo X301 3308
ThinkPad T400 (integrated) 3100

As you can see, thanks to a good processor, a solid 7200RPM HDD and DDR3 RAM, this laptop scored better than the ultraportable X301 and the multimedia focused HDX16, and was surprisingly close with the slightly older M15x. Predictably though, on integrated graphics, the laptop trailed everything, although not by as much as you might have thought.

3DmarkVantage

We were unable to run 3DmarkVantage on this laptop. Although it can run a 1440x900 resolution, it could not generate the 1280x1024 resolution the benchmark required.

WorldBench 6

Alienware M15x 104
ThinkPad T400: 91
Toshiba Satellite E-105 83
HP HDX16 80

The T400 (dedicated) compares well here to some of the other laptops we’ve tested. The versatile M15x still leads the pack, but 91 is a strong score and a testament to the capabilities of this computer.

Battery Performance

We tested the 6-cell battery with dedicated graphics and also with integrated graphics.

ThinkPad T400 (integrated) 334
ThinkPad T400 (dedicated) 291
Toshiba Satellite E-105 260
HDX 16 156
Lenovo X301 235
ASUS G50 X1 110

Here is where the T400 shines brightest. With the medium sized battery we were able to generate almost 5 hours of casual use battery life with the graphics set to dedicated, and over 5.5 hours doing the same with the graphics set to integrated. With the 4-cell option you should expect reduced time, but with the 9-cell you can expect as much as 10 hours if you play your cards right. Recharging our battery took approximately three hours.

Real-life usage:
We’ve described this computer as striking us as a sturdy workhorse, with features that are easily sufficient but not necessarily impressive. After extensive use and additional testing, we realize we may have sold it just a bit short. It’s not flashy, but it’s done pretty much everything we’ve asked it to and done it well, and that in and of itself is an impressive feat. It’s portable enough to move around but solid enough to know that it’s there. The keyboard may be half a notch down from some other ThinkPads, but we can’t complain after typing on it for several hours consecutively. It’s quiet and runs relatively cool, generating just enough heat that you notice it and no more. We feel like we would be extremely happy if this was a computer we had to work with on a regular basis, and take comfort in the fact that it seems every dollar that wasn’t spent on flash was spent on solid construction. Yes, it is indeed a ThinkPad.

Conclusion:
Lenovo has presented a worthy successor to the T61 series with the T400. Every piece of the hardware, from the processor to the RAM to the HDD, was a solid choice by Lenovo and performed well under our testing. The battery life was excellent, in part thanks to unique features like Switchable Graphics, which let you switch between integrated graphics and the dedicated 256MB GPU at will. The brightly lit WXGA+ display was easy on the eyes and there were just enough peripherals (fingerprint reader, webcam, keyboard light) to keep us interested. Further, it was portable enough that we didn’t think twice about carrying it all over the office. Overall the computer was a great worker and did everything we asked, even if it didn’t drop our jaw with anything too astounding.

Lenovo x200

Lenovo x200 Review

Design & Features

Overview

Today were putting the Lenovo x200 through its course. The x200 is the smaller brother to the now infamous x300, and an upgrade to the x61 series of earlier years (best in class for ultraportable as far as were concerned). Although being smaller, and lacking an optical drive, the x200 doesnt seem too tiny nor as thin as the x300, and developing most of its hardships with the battery bay and standard tracking devices. Of course, this is a very near end pre-consumer level model were reviewing, so Im sure things have gotten ironed out as soon as this review hits the shelf as far as fit and finish is concerned (more at the end of the review on that)

The x200 is a 12.1 widescreen ultraportable, in which it features the new Montevina platform, (not to be confused with actual Centrino 2 certification as it makes no claim to being certifiedyet) and runs the Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 at 2.4 GHz. It Features a 1066 MHz FSB with a 3mb cache limit and a nice low 25 TDP. Big measurements (although technical) would be the newer FSB and low TDP otherwise, marking a smaller die for the CPU and no increase in cache limit. We cant always win, but its a step in the right direction. Our pre-consumer unit came pretty loaded consulting the ordering screen from Lenovo. It did skimp us on the operating system, only touting Vista basic and WWAN feature, but did allow us an extra gigabyte of RAM, fingerprint reader, 160 GB HDD and Integrated Bluetooth, making the running total around $1,600.

Design

Case look and feel

The case is standard Lenovo x series styling there is little to no color variations, sticking with its stark black rubber like finish, branding stamped across the base of the LCD lid, which is held to the strong chassis by the now loved/hated steel hinges. There is also suitably efficient LED readouts at the top telling some simple status changes of your unit.

The x200 features the tapered front end, housing the media card reader and LCD release latch. If you seen one x series Lenovo, youve pretty much seen them all as far as styling is concerned. Although Im not flattered by it, it does hold its own for material and minimalists. It is made of the strong magnesium allowing very little flex, and this time around, features two run off points underneath the laptop for spilled liquid.

Although I didnt feel like testing this feature, its nice to note and Im sure will save some busy coffee / cola drinker one morning.

Size & Weight
The size is very nice, featuring a decently slim profile, very thin LCD housing, and weighs just under 2.95 lb with the 4 cell battery. However, our unit came packaged with the extended 9 cell battery, which extrudes out the rear pretty awfully.

Yes, you do gain that tremendous battery life, but it makes this ultraportable larger than it should, and weighs just about as heavy as a 14.1 counterpart nearing almost 3.7 pounds. Looks will deceive you if you arent prepared for this change.

Keyboard

The keyboard again is strict Lenovo X series styling and specifications, holding cues to previous models before it, featuring alphanumeric typing keys that are spaced 18.5 mm vertically and 18.2 mm horizontally, which is defined as full-sized by ISO/IEC 15412. The stroke travel is a full 2.5 mm, which is always a pleasure to type on.
But, unlike the SL series that was also released, this still features the track-point nub in the center. Although keen for space saving design, and a following crowd of aficionados, I would have much rather seen an implemented track pad, and even make it multi-touch based like the Asus series that we just reviewed, to help aid in all those cramped Fn buttons. Am I nitpicking? Of course, but lets lay that out there.

Display quality

The display is a 1280x800 widescreen 16:10 aspect ratio display. There are 15 levels of brightness offered with a max output nearing 200 nits, a 50 nit increase of the former x61, and a welcomed addition. I noticed it didnt have very great side to side viewing angles on some PDF documents, but mostly, color representation was very decent, with adequate indoor backlighting. Outdoors seemed a bit washy or mixed results, which might harbor others to look into a more transflexive notebook option if they are constantly outdoors.

Connectivity

Connectivity is pretty standard, albeit changed from its predecessor, and a bit different from its thinner, lighter, much more expensive brother the x300. First and foremost, there is no optical drive. It doesnt list as an option of ordering one, so picking up a slim USB 2.0 self powered drive (a la the one the U110 we reviewed earlier came with) would be a handy option if you plan on using this machine to view, read, burn, or transfer optical media with. This might be a deal breaker for a lot of people but foreseeing the available prices and capacities for flash drives, SD media, and wireless data banks it might not to others.

The left side houses the power jack, exhaust, 2 USB ports, monitor-out, Gigabit Ethernet, ExpressCard 54mm slot, and the wireless LAN on-off switch. This is to note that it turns off all wireless options, Bluetooth and WLAN. Im not sure about WWAN as my unit did not come configured to use this.

The front, as mentioned earlier, can contain either a 5-1 media reader, or an SD card slot. Ours totes the SD card reader slot.

The right, with our configured unit, came with another USB port, headphone out, microphone, modem port, and lock slot.

The rear houses nothing other than the obtrusive battery (in being fair, it was just a bit too big for my taste.)

Upgrading?
Even though WWAN wasnt configured in our pre-consumer level test system, the antenna that is needed to utilize these features is installed by default, so its simply a matter of inserting the WWAN card into the bay inside the x200, call up new service, and away you go. Since I dont utilize a company or hardware to test that feature, I can only say that it is possible to upgrade to using it.
Memory can be configured a few ways, which can handle up to 3 GB of internal memory. Which, is all Windows Vista Basic would utilize anyways, so if you feel cramped, you can do a little memory management there.

Hard drive capacity is another relative upgrade, with Lenovos website listing solid state 64gb as an option, and all the way up to a 320gb 5400 rpm drive. As a note, were sure it could handle the newer 7200rpm drives that are 320 GB but were not 100% positive.

Features

Some excellent features on the x200 that are worth noting that are new is the spill flow keyboard, and biometric finger print reader. Also, the x200 features that handy ThinkLight, an LED near the top bezel of the LCD and offers illumination for typing in near darkness. Its handy, its welcomed, and although not as cool as a backlit keyboard, functions just as well.

Lenovo decided to implement a webcam on this model as well which will serve great for video conferencing, but unless you need proof that someone is at the office and need to see it, the benefits of video-conferencing and voice conferencing is minimal in my opinion.

Again, the x200 does feature the ability to connect to GPS WWAN services from Verizon, Vodafone, Telus or KDDI but mine didnt have this feature.
The speaker, on the x200 is pretty dismal. Great for the beeps, hums, chimes and pings from OS system sounds, but otherwise, pretty pitiful. Dont count on it for much more than a what just happened, I thought I heard something Alert status.

Performance & Conclusion

Windows Vista Experience Score
The Windows Vista Experience score is a 3.7. In comparison, the U110 we reviewed earlier this year was a 3.5. The breakouts are featured below:

3Dmark Vantage
3Dmark Vantage refused to operate, and in which, I didnt test 3Dmark 06 on this unit. Its 3D abilities are not being included.

PCMark Vantage Pro
*UPDATE*
In light of the other blunder of leaving power save mode on, the PCmark Vantage score has been updated using "full performance" power scheme, and greatly affects the outcome to nearly 3200 PCmark Vantage points. Sorry for the mix up. In light - this is one very decently powered ultraportable.

WorldBench 6 (33 on power save 86 on full performance)

Ok, so here we see some major spanking happening. Itobliterates other ultraportable competition models with ease. In power save mode its pitiful and I was so shocked when I first ran the test, it only gathered 33 Worldbench points. I was like, that can not be right! And I wasnt! Thankfully I had set the laptop to full powersave and not full performance. Once that blunder was reconciled, and worlbench set its course to run again -it indeed, did pick up the pace. It hammered a striking 86 worldbench points down the tube!

Battery Performance

Ok, so me demeaning that battery for looks has its take-backs. I was successfully able (with power stretch) to somehow navigate 8 hours and 47 minutes on the x200. All at one time, mind you. Thank god it comes in this battery flavor as I wasnt feeling good from the night before and seeing my horrible entourage captured on Facebook made passing my time down laying down in bed much easier. Seriousness aside, the x200 with its 9-cell battery packs some serious longevity. I couldnt test its real world DVD rundown time, but Im assuming you could get by with watching a full movie (via external USB DVD drive), running some spreadsheets and youtubes afterwards bringing heavy use to a moderate 5.5 or 6 hours.

Real-life usage:
All in all its not much to look at, but what it does offer is a nice punch under the hood for performance if it needs it. Using that power saver profile and power stretch program, you can really thin things to the lines of ultimate mobility with this unit and its 9 cell battery.

The only other gripes I come are from pre-consumer build quirks (9 cell battery being fairly losedont grab this by its tail end thats for sure, and gaps with some panels on the LCD housing). Other than that the heat and efficiency of this unit is awesome.

Conclusion
If youre looking for a stiff upgrade to your x61 series, need a widescreen, dont mind missing out on a track pad, and like the idea of no optical drive, the x200 can fit the bill, and fit it much more nicely than some other ultraportable. However, this is such a new platform still that it would be hard pressed for me to say that this is THE ultraportable to get. If it came outfitted with an external drive, a transflexive screen, a track pad option (as the x300) and a more advanced video card, I would say yesbut until then, it measures quite well, but not in the realm of unbelievable.

• Pros:
  • Stark Black Design
  • Decently Powerful Components
  • Awesome Battery life with 9-cell
  • Decent display resolution for its size
  • Connectivity is adequate
• Cons:
  • Huge Battery really increases weight
  • No optical drive option
  • Minimal Graphics Options
  • Upgrade options are awkward
    

    Bottom Line:
    A healthy refresh to the older X series, now offering widescreen and beefier components, the x200 is a very decent commuter workstation. Now, we just need a slight refresh to the aesthetics, a couple of more advanced output options, and a track pad / track point option, and we might have more of a winner. Oh, and usable speaker(s) would be nice as well.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700

Lenovo ThinkPad W700 Review

Overview
I want to start by telling you I was always a fan of the smaller and lighter laptop. So, while anticipating the tremendous power that would come with the 17" Lenovo ThinkPad W700 I was not awaiting the strenuous task of lugging it around. But what comes with great size and weight must also come great power, right? In this case, jammed with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9300 and 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM, the Lenovo W700 has the power. This thinkpad, made for heavy processing and graphics, uses the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M GPU. It includes an integrated fingerprint reader, 1.3 megapixel camera, 802.11n wireless capabilities, Bluetooth 2.0 and gives all graphical users great pleasure with a 3x5 built in tablet and pen.

Design
Case Look and Feel
The simple and smooth black look of the thinkpads are generally pleasant to look at with nothing perticularly special. The w700 comes with a nice smooth black matte finish and a sturdy case and screen. The features are for the most part positioned in convenient places such as the camera at the top of the screen, the tablet on the lower right wear your right wrist generally rests, the fingerprint scanner to the right of that and the ThinkVantage and volume buttons at the top left of the keyboard. All there for easy access including a num pad to the right of the keyboard. At only 1.5"thick its not quite as big and bulky as one would think.

Size and Weight
Known around as the "World's largest ThinkPad," the Lenovo W700 comes at you with a 'desktop' sized screen at 17" and dimensions of 16.1" x 12.3" x 1.5". Traveling with this puppy will not be easy. I found myself even questioning whether I really wanted to move one room over to the comfortable living room couch verses just staying at my desk in order to not have to move the massive beast. But, it deserves credit, for as big as it looks it is just under 9lbs (8 lbs, 10 oz) with a 9-cell lithium-ion battery and it isn't quite as heavy as one expects it to be. I found a simple close of the lid followed by a pileing of accesories and the power cord made for movement of this laptop relatively easy from room to room. I would not however, recomend this for heavy travel or long distance walks by any means.

Keyboard
Aside from having a tremendous amount of space and some extra features the keyboard was very similar to the Lenovo SL400. The W700 packs a full sized ergonomic keyboard with palm rest, and a thick base which is comfortable for typing. Lenovo gives us both the bright red TrackPoint “nub” as well as a touchpad. At the top left of the keyboard just to the right of the Escape button are the volume controls and easy press ThinkVantage button. At the top center of the keyboard is the power button and to right of the keyboard there is even enough room for a Numpad. For the amount of available space at the base the Track Pad could definitely be bigger and has that same "too thin" scroll bar problem that the SL400 has. To the direct right of the Track Pad is the 3x5" tablet which is in a convenient position if you are right handed. And further right lies the fingerprint scanner convenient for any of your right hand fingers.

Display Quality
Furnished with a high-end display for a ThinkPad the W700 comes with a 1920x1200 resolution WUXGA TFT LCD. With brightness on high everything is visible from even an extreme wide angle. Graphics, movie playback and all visuals look fantastic on this Laptop. The screen is not glossy and does not attract glare. A nice feature comes with the W700 called the Huey Pro. It is a color calibrator that comes pre-installed and is a fast and convenient calibrator, profiler and spectrocolorimeter and very quick and simple to use.

Connectivity
With such a massive case, it's no wonder the W700 comes with so many ports and connectivity.


The right side of the unit features 3 USB ports, a modem port, tablet pen holder, and optical Drive: DVD recordable. HDMI port, the exhaust, an SD Memory slot and mini-firewire.

The left side features a firewire port, 2 more USB ports and an SD Memory slot closest to the front.

The optical drive extends nicely from beneath the tapered edges.

The front is pretty basic. The base tapers inward and holds the internet card switch at its left and the headphone and microphone jacks on its right.

In the back of the W700 rests the display ports, an ethernet port and the charge cable port. The display ports, located in between the charge port and the ethernet ports consist of a DVI port, RGB port and HDMI port.

Features
The w700 definitely has some nice features such as high quality HDMI, Bluetooth, the integrated fingerprint scanner, the integrated 3X5 tablet, and the 1.3MP integrated webcam. What should have been a nice feature but turned out troublesome instead was the pre-installed Windows Vista on a 64bit Operating system max RAM usability. There are 2 partitioned drives. One for all 32 bit programs and one for all 64 bit programs which are put in the folder labeled (X86). When trying to install basic old fashioned pc games and programs such as You Don't Know Jack. I couldnt install it on either in any way! Of course the 64-bit operating system has its benefits - it runs quickly and efficiently for the most part. Another nice features on the W700 are the ThinkVantage button, located at the top left of the keyboard, which brings up all functionality options you can get for all the features. The menu houses a lot of convenient features, such as wireless radio, bluetooth radio, access to backup software, and network and multimedia management. And the last of my favorite features is the 2 spotlights which you can turn on from the Fn key on the keyboard and are located at the top of screen. These nifty little lights do very little as a means to provide light unless you are in complete darkness, but aside from draining the battery when on, they are fun to play around with and provide some light for dark workplaces.

Performance and Conclusion

Windows Vista Experience 5.8
With the lowest score being 5.8 It scores impressively high as it should on Windows Experience Index.

PCMark Vantage: 5246
The W700 runs with a solid score of 5246 at possibly slightly lower than expected.

3DMark 06: 12038
With a decent score of 12038 The W700 stacks well against its counterparts

WorldBench 6: 76 (64 bit errors)
After Multiple Tests Run of Worldbench 6 it was concluded that Worldbench 6 was not running properly on the quad core 64 bit system with a score of only 76.

Battery Life: 134 MIN
While using the lenovo for daily average use: webbrowsing, media playing, and using multiple programs it lasted a solid 2 hours and 14 minutes for a decent score of 134 for this "Lenovo's largest laptop"

DVD Battery Life: 94 MIN
Clearly the W700 is not a laptop made for travel and clocks in at a mere 1 hour and 34 minutes of DVD play; thats a score of 94. But remember even though you may not be able to finish that movie... it looks pretty darn good!

Conclusion

While nicknamed around the office as "world's largest laptop" the W700 really packs some power. This laptop can easily substitute your desktop and its much easier to move around. You can't really travel with this thing but for a price around $3000 it might be a good idea to keep this puppy locked away safe at home anyway.

Bottom Line:
The W700 is one heck of a powerhouse with a great selection of features. While it is heavy and large in size and will take a nice chunk out of your pockets, if you are looking for a top of the line computer for visual and graphic aid, this is the laptop for you. The 17 inch Lenovo w700 is a great machine and worth the money.