lenovo

Lenovo has really been stepping up its ultraportable game this year, releasing first the unbelievably thin ThinkPad X300 and then the stunningly beautiful IdeaPad U110. They're both so well designed, we thought we'd put them head to head to determine which has the best design. The short version: the IdeaPad U110 is gorgeous, but is best used as a highly mobile complement to your deskop computer; the ThinkPad X300 may not be as eye-catching, but it has design elements that let it conceivably be your only computer. Full details of the comparison are after the jump. … Read more

I was gladdened yesterday when techbargains.com reported a sale on a new Lenovo ThinkPad R61 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop ($552, see below). It's not everyday that you run into a major PC vendor selling machines pre-loaded with Linux (excluding servers).

Perhaps pre-installing Linux will become more popular, in part, due to a Vista backlash. Or, the popularity of Linux of ultra-cheap laptops (where Vista doesn't belong) such as the Asus EEE PC, will lay a foundation for its expansion. Once people see and touch and smell recent editions of Linux, they'll realize it is no … Read more

When the much-awaited Lenovo IdeaPad U110 arrived in our offices on Monday, it went straight to the Labs for benchmark testing (the typical order of operations for a laptop review). I finally got my hands on the review unit this morning, and I've spent the day putting it through my own usage tests to see how this little laptop stands up to the demands of everyday computing.

One of my key questions was whether the keyboard, which is slightly compact, would be usable. The unusual key design added to my concern: the keys themselves are made of the same … Read more

Chinese laptop maker Lenovo, keeper of fabled ThinkPad business brand, seems like its finally getting serious about making consumer laptops. The eagerly awaited Idea Pad U110 has just landed in the CNET Lab, and we're just as impressed with the design as we were when we first saw it back at CES 2008.

This 11-inch ultraportable reminds us of similar-sized systems such as the Sony Vaio TZ150 or the Toshiba R500--but with a newer 1.60GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500, we expect it to be a faster performer. With a hi-res display (1,366 x 768), a 120GB … Read more

Regardless of whether you believe in the recession, you have to admit it's looking like lean times in laptop-land, with only a handful of products hitting the market this week.

But sometimes a handful is enough. Gamers will no doubt be satiated by news that the long-awaited Alienware Area-51 m17x is finally available for order, even if its starting price is a wallet-squeezing $2,199. Also for gamers, Asus dished the deets on its 17-inch G70 gaming laptop. Frequent travelers will be psyched that the Lenovo IdeaPad U110, a Best of CES Award winner, is officially available for purchase (… Read more

Lenovo first introduced its new consumer notebook line, IdeaPad, back at CES in January. Now, the smallest--and arguably best-looking--of the bunch is set to ship to consumers very soon.

The U110, Lenovo's foray into consumer-oriented ultraportable notebooks, is now available on Lenovo.com, with other retailers soon to follow.

The U110 comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6-gigahertz processor, 120GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and comes loaded with Vista Home Premium.

The screen is 11 inches wide with no bezel and weighs in at a mere 2.4 pounds. The battery life with the original battery … Read more

Blame it on the tax man, but it was a relatively quiet week in the laptop-osphere. That was good news for Dell, which refreshed its Vostro small-business laptops. We got a look at the 13.3-inch Vostro 1310, which makes a pretty decent value proposition for companies with fewer than 25 employees.

We also had a look at the Enpower ENP780, a desktop-replacement laptop with the heart of a thin-and-light. Elsewhere in reviews, NotebookReview.com posted its impressions of the new Toshiba Satellite L355D; we have a review unit in our Labs and will post our buying advice soon.

As … Read more

Solid-state drives continue to outperform hard-disk drives in tests, providing some consolation for the high price.

The X300 ThinkPad, which starts at $2,900, is one of the hottest--and most expensive--notebooks on the market now. The Apple MacBook Air is another. They both come with solid-state drives (SSDs) that perform better than standard magnetic hard-disk drives. And the X300's outpaces a 7200rpm hard drive by a long shot, according to review site Hot Hardware.

In a test, the X300's SSD "performed 2.75 times faster than the Dell XPS M1730 running dual 7200rpm drives," the review … Read more