Hmm. OK, been working on this one and just thought that it was interesting to some people who want to oogle at a RM9,588 notebook PC!
Lighter than Air
By Hazimin Sulaiman
Product: Lenovo ThinkPad X300Enquiries: Think Products (Malaysia) (03-76818000) or www.lenovo.com/my/en
Price: RM9,588
Specifications: Processor: 1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7100 (800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)
Operating System: Windows Vista Business
Graphics Adapter: Intel X3100Memory: 2GB Hard disk drive: 64GB SSD
Optical Drive: Ultra-thin DVD BurnerConnections: Intel 4965AGN (802.11 a/b/g/n wi-fi), BlueTooth 2.0 EDR.
Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.1 x 0.73 mm
Weight: 1.3Kg (3-cell battery) and 3.32Kg (6-cell battery and DVD Burner).
Verdict: 4
Physical design: 4.5
Features: 4
User-friendliness: 3.5
Performance: 3
Value of money: 2.5
Documentation: N/A
TO summrise, the Lenovo X300 is exrtremely really light. The basic black design, familiar to the ThinkPad series adds to slim-looking appearence of the X300. How light is the X300, well at 1.3Kg (1.42Kg with DVD Burner) it is even lighter than the famous Macbook Air! The Air weighs in at 1.36 kg. Of course if you fit in the 6-cell battery plus the DVD-burner for the X300, the weight goes up to 3.32Kg. But you get the idea: the X300 can give the Air a run for its money. The test model came with a 3-cell battery.
Technically, the X300 has some great features such as a 13.3-inch LED backlit 1440 X 900 screen and its composite F1 material chassis form factor. The body construction is very solid, as the internal chassis and roll cage uses an advanced carbon-fiber. Even if it feels too light to take punishment, believe me it will. The X300 is thin, almost anorexic like the Air but it comes in the all too familiar design of the ThinkPads before- very business-like; it is after all a businessnotebook PC anyway.
The lid is covered with a black rubber-like resin, just as the plam rests near the keyboard- nice to touch but sweaty palms will show and leave residue on your X300.
The Intel Dual Core CPU 1.2 Ghz. does come a tad low as far as specifications are concerned, but for most business applications, thanks to Lenovo's optimisations, the X300 seems to respond OK. For example, the 64GB SSD storage really makes a difference in performance as the boot-up time is less than 30-seconds. The 1.8 inch solid state drive delivers twice the performance of 2.5 inch hard drives used in older ThinkPad notebooks. It also weighs less, uses less power and offers better shock resistance.
This however, obviously, isn't a on-the-road gaming rig; compound that with the Intel Xtreme Graphics Adapter and paltry battery life from the 3-cell battery. While surfing,checking out Youtube and some word-processing, with screen brightness set to medium, the X300 did not even manage two hours usage. Compare that to the rated 4.3 hours; granted however, it depends on what sort of Wireless connections and applications are being used. The 6-cell Lithium-Polymer battery has been rated by Lenovo to run for 6.5 hours.
What's equally annoying is that when the screen blinks out to save power and you coax it back to wake up, the screen brightness is set to dimmed. It doesn't seem to remember the brightness you've set before. This is at Lenovo's Maximum battery life preset setting of course. Optionally, you can also remove the optical drive and slot in another battery for longer usage.
Well, that all said, the X300 is extremely comfortable to tote around and use.
Thanks to its full-sized keyboard, trackpoint navigation, touchpad and fingerprint reader. The fingerprint reader is cool for security reasons as it relieves you the process of re-entering your password everytime you wake it up from a nap. The integrated Web camera along with the built-in condenser microphone is supposed to allow Skype calls to be made, once you're signed on to Skype and installed the software.
The 1.2 GHz core 2 duo processor also means that it eats up les power in the long run and builds up less heat as well. The glossy bottom bezel area and the blue-glowing ThinkVantage and power buttons do add a nice touch. The surprisngly decent sounding speakers are located on the corners to come seamless with the X300. They actually sound better than previous
generation of Thinkpad X series. Even the heat vent grills are painted black to blend in.
The X300 offers more ports and an Optical Drive compared to the Apple MacBook Air: 3 USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, audio out, microphone in, monitor out and Kensington lock slot. There's no expansion port, no PCMCIA nor ExpressCard. There's also no type of media card reader.
All in all the X300 has a lot of appeal for business users who constantly travel, but comes off lacking in some departments. Being priced at a premium above RM9,000 range, some would expect more. But the X300 itself is quite a wonder when held and carried. Build quality was not compromised and that's what you're mainly getting by getting the X300. A lot of new
technologies were also put into this machine , such as the new SSD storagte medium- smaller and faster than older SATA hard disk drives.
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