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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Johnmcl7 - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
Macbooks at similar prices get entire articles regularly as do top of the range graphics card and computer parts which would also be out of most people's price category so a page or even article on the Z on a site like this doesn't seem too much.John
GTaudiophile - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
I just bought one...sort of like a cheaper Z...Intel Core i3 330 UM (1.2GHz)
ATI HD 4550 w/ 512MB VRAM
4GB DDR3 RAM
320GB HDD
Webcam/WiFi/Bluetooth
5+ hours battery with WiFi
Less than 4 lbs.
About $800
darunium - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
The M11x is an impressive notebook, despite the undervolting of the CPU, but why is there no mention of the Asus N82Jq? With a standard clock of the i7-720QM and GT335M, plus a solid screen in a 5lb package, I think that as a gaming portable notebook it really stands strong, even if it isn't specifically marketed in that segment.VivekGowri - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
Read more carefully, it's there. Try the page with the Envy 14.Shadowmaster625 - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
What new Puma platform? What the heck are you guys smoking. Puma is 2 years old WWWWTTTTTFFFFF? This whole thing reads like a big stinking pile of intel advertising.VivekGowri - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
My bad, that was supposed to read Nile, dunno why I said Puma (fixed now). But the rest of that is accurate: the new AMD-based ultraportables still don't have the battery life to touch the Intel portables, simple as that, but performance is starting to catch up, benchmarking similarly to the equivalent Core 2 CULV parts, and the HD 4225 is obviously a ways faster than GMA.Where AMD is really winning right now, both in desktop and mobile, is in environments where power requirements don't matter so much and they can provide tri- and quad-core processors for dirt cheap. Honestly, if you don't care about battery life in a 15" machine, you'd rather have an AMD quad than an Intel dual core, right?
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
I had the unfortunate displeasure of using a N450 netbook this weekend. The things are just not usable for anyone with a pulse. Of course AMD cant beat that battery life, because those things dont even do anything except sit there frozen half the time. Everything I've read about the K125 suggests usable performance with respectable battery life.Chloiber - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
Is it even available in Europe?jtsarnak - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
As an owner of Sony's Z-series laptop, I want to chime in and discourage anyone seriously considering an ultraportable from looking at Vaio machines.There is a known problem with Sony's newer laptops and battery drain. The battery loses life at an appreciable rate when completely shutdown. The only way to prevent loss is to physically remove the battery. Some have speculated the battery care function, some the hinged design common to the lines experiencing the problem, but Sony has done nothing and in fact call it a "feature".
The Z would be perfect (although expensive) if not for the drain. Now I have to remove the battery whenever I'm not using it or keep it plugged in. The 7+ hours of battery life in a machine this powerful mean nothing if I have to keep it constantly plugged in.
No review site has mentioned this issue which just goes to show you should head to notebookreview's forums before making any decisions on a laptop.
Mr. Gowri, you'd be doing the buying public a great service by looking a little deeper into this problem with Sony's laptops and making the problem more public. Maybe Sony will finally be forced to make a change...
GTaudiophile - Monday, July 19, 2010 - link
I have no such drain issue with my Y-series.