Lenovo 3000 N200

Lenovo 3000 N200 Review

Design & Features

Lenovo's 3000 Family notebooks encompass the Widescreen Ultraportable sector with the V Series, and the larger, entertainment-minded notebooks with the N Series. The N series is marketed with a bevy of features to allow both ease of entertainment and general usage for small business users.

But how different is this than the multitude of fully-featured business models? Does Lenovo bring a competitor to this bursting market, or just a bystander? We'll find out.

Today, we check out the N200 paired with the 15.4' LCD displaying a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. The N200 also ships with a lighter 14.1' form factor, although we felt that most consumers looking for a business model with entertainment capabilities would opt for the larger monitor.

Design
The N200 is dressed in silver that contains subtle mineral reflections. The Lenovo insignia is in glossy silver on top of the monitor, facing away from you. The squat silver hinges match the ones on the R61, albeit these are thicker. Speakers are located on the front of the unit, to project sound easier in an entertainment setting. The unit is powered by a 6-cell Li-Ion battery, which is standard for the market segment the N200 is attracting. Lenovo does offer a 9-cell battery as an accessory if you're pulling a Captain Kirk.

Keyboard
The keyboard is the same understated black-grey of most Lenovo models, housing 85 keys with four hotkeys along the top controlling power, Mute, speaker volume, and Lenovo Care. Think of it as the more entertainment-oriented ThinkVantage key found on the ThinkPads. From the care center you can adjust your network connections via a very cool web GUI, maintain your computer's health, and perform all sorts of useful functions.
The keyboard goes for a walk on the N200, relieving any cramped space thanks to the 15.4' display. For someone who frequently feels cramped on laptop keyboards, this layout is better than most. The key response is above-average and light on the noise, which contributes to this laptop feeling well-crafted under the Spartan exterior.
The only real gripe I have about the keyboard is the Left-CTRL key losing perimeter space to the Function key. I found myself perpetually holding down Function while trying to execute CTRL shortcut commands.

Front

(Left to Right) Left Speaker, Status Lights (Sleep Status, Hard Drive Status, Bluetooth, Wireless), Lid Latch, Right Speaker.

Rear


(Left to Right) S-Video, Modem, Power Socket.

Left

(Left to Right) Vent, USB 2.0 Port, four pin IEEE.1394 FireWire, 10/100 Ethernet port, Express Card Slot, 5-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/XD/MS/MSPro).

Right

(Left to Right) Headphone-in, Mic-in, 3x USB 2.0 ports, optical drive, VGA port.

Heat and Noise
Heat was rarely an issue, thanks to the energy-scrounging T7500 processor. Noise was also minimal, even though there are only two small vents to expel the hot air. You'd think the fan would be working constantly, but that wasn't the case at all with the N200. Yet again, Lenovo performs admirably in a way not immediately noticed, although always appreciated.

Upgrading and Expansion
The unit came stock with 2GB of RAM via 1x 2GB DIMM PC2-5300/667 MHz chip. There's a second slot in case you decide to bring that up to 4GB. Personally, one of the first upgrades I make is to maximize the amount of RAM I can fit on a mobo. It's a relatively cheap, powerful upgrade that every system can benefit from, and the performance gains are generally seen across the board (no pun intended). As you can see from the picture below, the rest of the components are easily accessed for upgrading.

Display
The display is an expansive 15.4' WSXGA+ VibrantView with a native resolution of 1680x1050. The monitor face is covered with a gloss finish, unlike the ThinkPad line which enjoy a matte look. This gives you a more colorful and pleasing image, although gloss finish carries the risk of high reflection, especially at steep viewing angles. These LCD's get better and better, and the viewing angle on the display is excellent, as long as you're not in a location prone to high reflection. I noticed almost no light bleeding from the sides of the LCD, hinting at a high-quality manufacture process, as well as truer blacks.

Audio
The speakers for the N200 are located on the front of the unit, which is something of a mixed bag in terms of placement. On the plus side, you get more forward projection for watching movies and such, which can result in a fuller sound. However, you trade immersion when seated immediately in front of the laptop, a stance that the majority of users find themselves in. The sound can move past you, so I learned to sit back a bit and let the sound travel to my ears.

Webcam
The ubiquitous 1.3 Megapixel workhorse webcam is mounted above the monitor and lacks any ability for adjustment. It's an excellent webcam for the sake of claiming your laptop comes with integrated video recording, although anyone with a serious need for video will want to get their own. It's satisfactory for the majority of people who use a webcam only a handful of times in their life.

Connectivity
The N200 makes its impact felt via Lenovo's Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN, the same one we found on the R61 ThinkPad we reviewed recently. You can also get your kicks across Bluetooth, 10/100 Ethernet, and in extreme circumstances, Dial-up.

Battery
The 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery is sufficient on this notebook, due to the lack of dedicated graphics and a more efficient processor. It still ends up protruding from the back of the unit, which is unfortunate given the battery capacity. In the image below you can see how the Adaptor measures up to a bananaer iPhone.

Performance & Conclusion

Specifications
Our Lenovo N200 came packing an Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 rated at 2.2 GHz, a 4MB L2 cache, and an 800 MHz front-side bus. This is the same processor you’re seeing on the new Santa Rosa platforms, so it does a great job expending energy in an effective manner. It’s running Windows Vista Ultimate through the 15.4” WSXGA+ VibrantView reaching a default 1680 x 1050, which is one of the biggest accolades of this system. Your graphics are coming to you via the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 with 256MB of memory through TurboCache. This means the majority of that 256MB is coming from your system RAM, so you’re going to suffer from latency and bandwidth issues in graphic-intensive programs, such as games and video-editing software. The benefits to TurboCache technology are two-fold: it’s cheaper, and it uses significantly less power. I’m disappointed with the lack of dedicated video RAM on an entertainment-minded notebook, but I see the need. That takes a chunk out of the 2GB of RAM this notebook came with, but we’ll make it.

Setup
We will be comparing the previously reviewed Lenovo ThinkPad R61 and Acer Ferrari 5000. Our testing methodology can be viewed here.

Performance
The excellent processor can’t make up for the sub-par video card, and the GeForce 7 series with no dedicated memory shows its age. The 7 series isn’t compatible with DirectX 10 effects, and with the limited dedicated memory, it completed our F.E.A.R. test like a mosquito wading through molasses, posting an abysmal 22 FPS at 800 x 600 resolution. Upping resolution to 1024 x 768 was an exercise in futility and the N200 puttered along at 14 FPS.

The N200 shows a steady lead over the other notebooks in these general performance tests, thanks to its high end processor and relatively speedy hard drive.

As mentioned previously with the FEAR game results, the N200's 3D performance isn't much to write home about.

Battery life on the other hand is quite respectable, especially for the base battery option!

Conclusion/Recommendation
The Lenovo 3000 N200 combines a powerful processor with an energy-minding GPU to create an excellent business laptop that you can watch a movie on with satisfaction. However, the lack of dedicated graphics memory means there’s little fun to be had for anyone more than a light gamer. Granted, that’s not the market this laptop is trying to reach, and they’ve succeeded in creating a business solution that you won’t mind bringing home.

If you’re looking for something more business-minded, and have a second laptop/desktop to take care of entertainment, check out the 14.1” N200. You can pick it up for around $900, and you won’t notice much of a performance difference in the daily grind. You’ll even get better battery life with the smaller display alongside the first-rate Lenovo craftsmanship. For $1399.99, I expect a laptop to go beyond simply satisfying my electronic needs, I want to be pleasantly surprised.