Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Review - Finest Of Its Class

The ambitions of Lenovo are clear, create the best ultraportable in the market. Building on the prestigious ThinkPad family, the X300 is an impressive computer which does not compromise ultraportable and functionalities.

Lenovo X300 versus MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is definitively a beautiful design (some would say sexy) and is ultra thin and light. In order to look that way, the Mac book has made some sacrifices in ways of functionalities, battery life and power. X 300 has a more conventional (old fashion) look, thicker and a bit heavier but it gains in functionality, power, has a DVD burner and yet has the dimensions and weight of an ultraportable. To complete the comparison The MacBook Air is beautiful extra light, trendy and would satisfy light users; the X300 looks conventional, is powerful and functional and would satisfy medium and some heavy users.

ThinkPad style

At first look, you could see a lot of similarities from previous generation of ThinkPads. The lines are straight (most competitors have rounded their laptops) and the min-joystick is still there. The keyboard has a the usual soft touch and comes with a retro light if needed. The finish is clean, robust, only the screen maybe sensitive to scratches.

Inside the X300

The processor used for the X300 laptop is new, it is a Core two duo L7100 this processor has an ultra compact chip alike to MacBook Air; it has a speed of 1.2 GHz and belong to the family of the Intel-based low voltage processors. The L7100 runs at 800 MHz and has 4 Mo of cash memory. This laptop comes with 2 GB of RAM which is enough to run Vista. That ThinkPad works really well in most situations and unless you are a graphic artist, big database user or heaver gamer, you would be really happy with its performances.

Lenovo X300 equipment

Despite its small size, The X300 focuses on maximum integration. No wasted space here, it comes with a DVD burner, you would also check three USB and one Ethernet connection. The wireless is equally well represented with Bluetooth 2.0 WiFi, 802.11 and 3G HSDPA. This one is also in charge of the video output for VGA.

Screen for professional

With a 13.3 inches the screen is big enough to view wide spreadsheet like Excel, it is built up with a high quality definition of 1440 by 900 pixels. The graphic card is the classic Intel GMA X3100 with 368 Mo of shared memory.

Disappointing autonomy

During a testing the laptop battery never lasted more than 2 hours and 30 minutes, which is a bit disappointing with the SSD, LED screen and low-voltage processor. After we "played" with the numerous internal management tools we were able to extend the autonomy to 4 hours with light use like Word. Additionally, the DVD could be replaced by an additional 3 cell battery.

Conclusion

All in all, a ThinkPad X300 is a wonderful ultraportable, light, compact and robust. Professional travelers would be really happy to use that notebook. There is a price for excellence and that price is $3,000. Final note, the X300 comes with three years manufacturer warranty.