Lately, we've seen a lot of long life battery promises made by key netbook manufacturers including Samsung and Asus. Of course, they're powered by the relatively weak (and less power hungry) Intel Atom CPUs.
Lenovo is aiming to balance both battery and performance with the new X201 and X201s ThinkPads, which are among the first tablets we've seen that incorporate Intel's latest CPU architecture, the Core i3 processor, with long battery life rating.
According to Lenovo estimates, the X201s is good for 12 hours and the slightly heavier X201 will last for 11 hours. But like most manufacturer claims, we'll take those figures with a grain of salt until we carry out our own tests.
In actual fact, that kind of battery life is only made possible with a separately purchased 9-cell battery, something we're guessing that won't look so snug in the back of a tablet style laptop, anymore than a 6-cell battery juts out on some netbooks.
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| The many faces of Lenovo's X201 model; a tablet styled laptop with long battery life and a Core i3 processor |
As a tablet/touchscreen unit, the $2,459 X201 is most likely to appeal to the business market. The screen can also be viewed from a 185 degree viewing angle. The 12in X201 weighs 1.5kg, 300g more than the X201s, Lenovo's 'ultralight' model.
The X201 also includes a TV Tuner and noise cancelling headphones; the type of extras we usually expect on entertainment focussed machines. And given it's also expandable to 8GB of RAM, the X201 has some room to grow. There's also Windows 7 on board.
Finally, the X201, along with a range of Lenovo's latest release models have been tested to military specifications, designed to withstand a range of environments, including heat, high altitude, shock and dust. Drop the X201 and life still (we hope) goes on.
The X201 and X201s will be released in early March.
