Lenovo X300 In-Depth Review

Lenovo is known for developing useful, if uninspiring notebooks for business. With a market that prides itself on exterior design innovation, it's tough to get noticed when your creativity is trapped underneath the plastic. At least we thought it was tough until we saw the Lenovo X300. Touted as the "No-compromise Ultraportable," the X300 brings all the features you've come to expect in business laptops into one of the smallest spaces since the MacBook Air. An optical drive and 10-hours of battery life in a package that's as light as the MBA? We'll see.

Let's compare the dimensions of the two laptops, for posterity. Both are 13.1" ultraportables. The X300 weighs in at an astonishing 2.93 lbs. (1.33 kg), with the MBA at an impressive 3 lbs. (3.36 kg) pounds stock. The X300 sizes up to 12.5" x 9.1" and the MBA at 12.8" x 8.94. The specs are nearly identical, although when you view them side by side they look anything but. It's important to note that our test system was closer to 3.32 lbs (1.51 kg), although that included the optical drive and 6-cell battery. Although the system claims a 10 hour charge with the 6-cell and swappable 3-cell battery (in place of the optical drive), our configuration puts the claim closer to 6.5 hours. That's still a 3,000 mile flight across the US with power to spare.

Features and Technology
This notebook starts at $2,548 if you purchase directly from Lenovo's website. Our unit went for $2,936 all said and done, which is a hefty amount to shell out. However, it's labeled a no-compromise machine for a reason. Processing power comes from an Intel Core 2 Duo SL7100 rated at 1.2 GHz. It's a processor designed to sip power rather than gulp it, and contributes to Lenovo's claim of a 10-hour battery life. Two GB of DDR2 RAM running at 667 MHz, with your choice of either Windows Vista Business or XP Professional. At the time of this review, either is included in your bottom-line price tag. Our unit came with XP Pro.

The 1440 x 900 LED backlit display is combined with a 64 GB solid state drive, which further cements Lenovo's commitment to a no-compromise laptop and longer battery life. The internal optical drive is even swappable with a 3-cell Li-Ion battery. The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 won't help you win Call of Duty matches, but it will pay for itself with exceptional efficiency over more powerful cards.
Lenovo shifted their stereo speakers toward the front, where they sit to the outside of your wrists. The placement is welcome because you're closer to the speakers (you don't need to pump up the volume and drain the battery). Unlike the MacBook Air, these speakers offer full stereo playback. The palm rests (and all other touchable surfaces) are covered in rubberized paint for a more pleasant feel. The "roll cage" has been upgraded to take jarring bumps and falls, and with the solid state drive, less moving parts means less fail.

Small details like the new paintjob and keyboard spotlight give you an idea of how much thought went into the design of this machine. The biometric reader is a welcome addition for notebook security, although we're waiting for Lenovo's VeriFace technology (found in the new IdeaPads) to make it to their business notebooks. It was a cool feature that worked really well in practice, and we just want to see more of it.

We’re also excited to see an integrated webcamera built into the top bezel. We’re not as wild about the 1.3 Megapixel resolution, although you can’t have everything you want, right? The webcam does serve the purpose of every feature on this notebook, which is to extend business functionality.

Overview