Laptop Buyer's Guide: 14-inch and Smaller
by Vivek Gowri on July 19, 2010 12:01 AM ESTBusiness Class: Lenovo ThinkPad X201
Did you honestly expect anything else? This is the quintessential business ultraportable. One of the first notebooks to pull off the now-trendy lack of an optical drive, the X series has a long history of being some of the most reliable and well built ultraportable systems on the market. The latest iteration is the X201, which has, as I mentioned earlier, a 12” widescreen, Core i3/i5/i7 processors, and superlight starting weight.
As a business machine, this rules. Amazing build quality, one of the best keyboards in the business, a matte screen, and basically everything else that that has made the ThinkPad line the standard of the business class for the last twenty years. Magnesium alloy chassis, steel hinges, rugged plastic, rubberized exterior coating, spill-proof keyboard, TrackPoint, Thinklight, the X201 has them all. Granted, this also means that an unwelcome ThinkPad family trait - poor quality LCD panels - is in order too (and no, the old T43p’s 15” IPS panels don’t count; those are ancient history at this point.) Having matte displays is a good thing, but when they’re poor quality panels with low contrast ratios, they’re not so appreciated.
But it’s not all about the ThinkPad stuff, the X201 has the computing prowess to back up the build quality. It’s the lightest computer with standard voltage Core i3/i5/i7 processors, even more so than the R700, which to be fair is a bit larger and has an integrated optical drive. Option up to the 9 cell battery, which bumps the weight up to 3.5lbs, and you get around 12 hours of battery life. That’s a pretty ridiculous figure for something with all the power of a full sized mainstream laptop.
You do end up paying quite a bit for all this business quality ultraportable goodness - the starting $999 price is reasonable, until you realize that it includes a paltry 2GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive, and a 4 cell battery. You can find those components in Walmart for $549 on any given Sunday, so some optional extras are definitely in order. Spec’ed the same as the $799 Toshiba R705 (Core i3, 4GB, 500GB hard drive, 6 cell battery, etc) and you’re looking at right around $1300 for the X201. Interestingly, the touchpad and webcam are optional extras on the X201. Look for a faster processor or WWAN, and you’re talking substantial sums of money. Even if you hit one of Lenovo’s awesome sales, the X201 won’t come cheap.
For a hardcore business user though, nothing this side of 4lbs can beat the ThinkPad’s combination of ruggedness, build quality, power, and battery life, and for that reason the extra few hundred dollars are definitely worth it for the people that care.
Alternative: HP EliteBook 2540p
The only other notebook line I’ve found with build quality even approaching the ThinkPad is HP’s new EliteBook lineup. The 2540p is the smallest EliteBook, a 12” unit like the Lenovo. It also has the standard voltage Core i5-540M, 2GB memory, and a 250GB hard drive at $1099. Also, you don’t have to pay extra for the webcam and touchpad. The aluminum panels on the palmrest and lid are nice, and the silver colour could suit some people’s tastes better than the all-black look of the ThinkPad. But it’s a bit heavier than the X201, starting at 3.4lbs, and has less battery life as well (7.5 hours on a 62 Wh 6 cell). The 2540p is still a great business portable, but it’s not on the level of the ThinkPad.
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VivekGowri - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
Oops! Fixed now, thanks for catching that!EarthwormJim - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
I'm surprised that the 13" Macbook wasn't included. Doesn't it have a better display than all the other laptops here?ExodusC - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
Well, the Envy 14's screen is 1600x900 (that's in the base model, too!), which definitely beats the 1280x800 on a MBP. I'm not sure if it's IPS, but early reviews of the screen say it is amazing.erple2 - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - link
No, the screen is not IPS. It's a TN just like every other notebook is. The screen has slightly better viewing angles than some other screens, but it's ultimately more of the same. Same basic color reproduction, same basic everything else.While it is "better" than other screens in the 13" market space, I wouldn't call it any better than various other high quality notebook screens (Envy 15 1080p looks a little bit nicer, though the Dell "RGB LED" screen does look noticeably better).
zshift - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
I know it's currently only available at Best Buy, and it's not even mention on Asus' website, but the U52f is a pretty good laptop. 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, DVD Super Multi drive, Core i3-350M, and around 6.5 hours of battery life (listed), it's a pretty good deal at $679. Granted, it only has Intel HD graphics, but for anyone not interested in gaming or 3D content in general this laptop is pretty good. Also, I've personally used it in the store at my local Best Buy, and the build quality is excellent, being nearly as tough as the Protege 705. As far as the touchpad, though, the buttons were a little uncomfortable to press, requiring a little too much force. All in all, I would recommend this as a cheaper alternative.8steve8 - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
I'm super-familiar with this market segment and think there's a real lack of good choices out there with ULV or LV arrandale CPUs.It's not just the power consumption, it's the heat generation.
the X201s with the i7 LV cpu is not available for sale (hasn't been for months)
what the market needs:
dell V13 with arrandale ULV cpu and a little better battery
X100e-like thinkpad with arrandale ULV (trackpoint FTW) @ 2.5lbs
macbook air with arrandale ULV or LV (not waiting for this since apple is sold on having nvidia graphics)
the R700 is nice (ive used it), it should use a LV cpu, but still nice... too bad they spent the volume and weight on an optical drive, totally useless now days.
VivekGowri - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
Arrandale ULV is still brand new, most of them (other than the one Acer TimelineX 1830T I'm struggling to think of one) haven't started shipping yet.I'd love to see what Toshiba could do with the R705 if they took out the DVD drive. Can you imagine like a .8" thick 2.7lb notebook with those specs and a $749 pricetag? I really hope they think about that.
HHCosmin - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
the article seems ok but i guess you do injustice to acer. i do not really know the acer models you mentioned but i have the 3820tg featuring i5 430m, 4gig of ram, hdd, 13,3", 1,8kilos, up to 6,5hours of REAL battery life, discrete ati 5460 graphics, 640gb of hdd. it has no optical drive and i do not think it is useful to have optical unit in a ultraportable. an ultraportable needs to be light, have lots of conectivity and be powerfull enough.HHCosmin - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
and it has aluminum chasys and it is quite strong.5150Joker - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
Anandtech made terrible choices in the entire article. What's the deal with all the Asus picks? They make cheap laptops with some of the worst build quality and displays around.