Lenovo ThinkPad X300

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

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 specifications:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Final Thoughts

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

Rating: 3.5/5

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Posted by Ankur Gupta on March 8th, 2008 | Category: Laptop |

8 Responses so far »

ReviewOfWeb

March 10, 2008 at 5:08 pm

Well, I am planning to buy a laptop with latest configuration.

RAM > 2GB
Hard Disk > 100GB
Budget: ~ $ 1500-1600
As light weight as possible.

What is your suggestion among the 100s of options available in the market?

Adam McKerlie

March 10, 2008 at 10:25 pm

There are a number of great laptops on the market. I suggest one of the following:

Asus M50: 6.7lbs, 15″ screen, Intel C2D T9300, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, Nvidia G9500M graphics card, $1350 US. Number 1 choice

Sony VAIO: 8.3lbs, 17″ screen, Intel C2D chip, 3GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, Nvidia 8400M GT graphics card, Blu-Ray drive, $1700 US

HP Pavilion: 7.7lbs, 17″ screen, Intel C2D chip, 3GB RAM, 3250GB hard drive, Nvidia 8600M GT graphics card, $1350 US

Lenovo IdeaPad: 6.4lbs, 15.4″ screen, Intel C2D T5450, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, Intel graphics card, $850, very cheap but the graphics card isn’t that great (everything else is though, if you’re not going to game)

Hope these suggestions give you an idea of what you want. If you have any further questions feel free to ask.

ReviewOfWeb

March 11, 2008 at 1:21 am

Great! Thanks for the nice research…I appreciate that..

well,

Have you mentioned the laptops in descending order of preference?

You havent mentioned any Dell laptop? it doesn’t fit in acc to you?

Intel C2D–you mentioned one is T9300, other is T5450 and the rest 2 w/o any number …whats the difference? which one is the best processor among them?

Last …can you throw some light on the diff graphic cards you have mentioned?

Hope I am not bothering you with too many questions!

Adam McKerlie

March 11, 2008 at 4:51 am

The laptops I listed above are in the order of my preference.

Processors:

Asus: C2D T9300. This processor is the best one on the list. 6MB cache and 2.5GHz clock speed. Its the fastest of the four

VAIO: C2D T8100. Next best processor. 3MB cache and 2.1GHz clock speed.

Pavilion and IdeaPad: C2D T5450. This is the slowest processor. 2MB cache, 1.66GHz clock speed.

As for graphics cards. If you’re going to do any gaming (or intensive graphical programs), you’re going to need a dedicated graphics card (Nvidia or ATI cards).

For a mobile card the 8600M is a good card and the 9500M is a good card as well. Stay away from any Intel graphics cards, they’ll just cause you problems with incompatibility.