Gizmodo Australia » x300

Lenovo’s Official X300 Comparison vs. MacBook Air Shows Why It’s Better For Business Dudes

Jason Chen — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:55:59 +0000

You saw the 5 takes on the Lenovo X300, the X300 benchmarked vs. the MacBook Air, and even Mossberg’s review, but what does Lenovo think about the comparisons between the two laptops? Well, obviously, they think their machine is better, but the reasons given for why it’s better appeals to Lenovo’s core audience—the travelling corporate worker—and not the MacBook Air’s core audience, weaklings who like shiny laptops. Hit the jump for a big version of the image and realise that these two aren’t really competing for the same credit cards. [Thanks Justin!]

5 Takes On the Lenovo ThinkPad X300

Mark Wilson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:25:20 +0000

After Apple stole the show with their amazing Macbook Air, it was easy to overlook Lenovo’s announcement of their own 18.5mm thick, 1ish kilo laptop—that, by the way, features a 13.3-inch display, 64GB SSD, DVD burner, EVDO, WiMax, GPS, 3 USB ports, and a blessed swappable battery.

And at US$2,680.00 (2GB configuration), it may seem a bit expensive…but compared to the Macbook Air’s US$3,098.00 (solid state configuration), it seems like a steal. So what did the reviewers think? Here are five takes on the ultraportable:

PCMag
Like the MacBook Air, the X300’s wider dimensions allow not only for a bigger screen but also for a full-size keyboard, and who better to take advantage of this than the makers of the ThinkPad keyboard. It’s arguably the best typing experience on a laptop keyboard, better than the Air’s oversize phone-pad keys.

CNET
The matte-finish display itself features a 1,440×900 native resolution that’s sharper than that of the MacBook Air and other similarly sized screens, resulting in text and icons that are a bit smaller than you’d expect…The trade-off: more screen real estate for multitasking and, when it’s time for a break, beautiful video.

CMP Channel
It’s cool. Not stylistically, but thermodynamically. Two hours into testing, running a movie, the keyboard’s temperature never got above 30 degrees C and the fan vents never climbed above 33 degrees. The only way this could run cooler was if it were dead.

Notebook Review
How about this, the X300 actually has good sound and speakers that are well positioned! For an ultra thin notebook, that’s astounding…ThinkPad X300 equipped executives will never have to tote their external speakers to watch DVDs by night in their hotel rooms again.

Walt Mossberg
I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation, provided they can live with its two biggest downsides: a relatively paltry file-storage capacity and a hefty price tag.

- It’s too bad that the X300 didn’t hit the market with something other than the solid state drive option. Shave several hundred off the price and you’d have a total Air killer on your hands. But if you have the money and like the OS (XP comes stock, by the way), it seems like the Lenovo X300 is a no-brainer.

Lenovo X300 Benchmarked Versus MacBook Air

Jason Chen — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:20:28 +0000

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Although Mossberg’s Lenovo X300 vs. MacBook Air fight compared things like weight, portability, inputs and functionality, it didn’t compare the thing that power users care about—performance—in absolute numbers. Notebook Review did. In their CPU benchmark, the Air finished the test in 68 seconds while the X300 took almost double the time at 118 seconds. Things flipped around when they tried another benchmark.

When using the PCMark05 bench, the X300 took the lead once again at 3,467 points, beating the Air, which had 2,478 points. Part of the reason why the Air did worse in the PCMark05 test, which scores based on all the system’s components such as the “processor, hard drive, memory and OS.” Their Lenovo contained a solid state drive, but their MacBook Air did not, which makes us wonder if the gap would be closer if they re-did the test with a SSD-enabled version. [Notebook Review]

Mossberg Discovers the Lenovo X300

Brian Lam — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:35:18 +0000

Mossberg is introducing the Lenovo X300 to the mainstream in a preview this week. Giz readers will recognise that everything here was already seen in a wide-open leak on January 18th. Best new thing from his write-up is the cool photo of the x300 on a manila envelope, same as in those now famous ads.

This particular Air competitor is unique because unlike most ultralights, it will also have a full keyboard and 13-inch screen. We’re looking forward to Mossberg’s opinion, on the machine with optical drive, 1.4kg weight, faster processor, plentiful collection of ports and 3G. The fact he’s gone to lengths to preview this machine says enough about it. But likely he’ll say it comes down to OS preference, as it does for us. [AllThingsD]