Lenovo finally sent us its first non-ThinkPad notebook which also happened to be its first Core 2 system in our Labs. It doesn’t have the metallic feel of a ThinkPad but the rigid plastic is certainly tough — the lid flexes only a little when under force and should protect the screen very well. Nothing on the chassis bends or creaks when you pick it up either.
The 3000 series is aimed, curiously, mostly at business but multimedia buffs too. The glossy, 15.4in LCD is bright enough, well-lit, has good viewing angles and the 1280 x 800 widescreen resolution helps fit more than one document on a screen at a time. Our test HD movie looked good due to little lag, although colours were a little subdued. Despite two largish speaker grilles at the sides, sound has little bass and doesn’t get particularly loud.
Below the screen is one of the best keyboards we’ve ever used. People who type a lot will warm to its near-perfectly weighted, velveteen ergonomics. The trackpad mouse and buttons are also comfortable and accurate.
We’re fans of the icons around the (top) sides of the chassis which show you where various ports are. These include four USB 2, mini FireWire, VGA, S-Video, modem, a Type II PC Card slot and a SD/MMC/MS/xD media card reader. However, Ethernet is only 10/100 and there’s no Express Card slot. A dual-layer DVD-RAM writer and VGA webcam are included though. Inside is 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and BlueTooth 2: these can be usefully turned off by a switch at the front. There’s also a fingerprint reader.
Under the bonnet is a 1.66GHz Core 2 T5500 processor though there’s only 512MB of RAM to back it up. Consequently, its (decent) score of 0.97 should have been higher, but the memory-intensive tests used in our PhotoShop and Multitasking benchmarks caused it to drop points. The hard disk has a modest 80GB capacity. Lenovo uses Nvidia’s GO 7300 graphics across the range. These aren’t powerful enough for games but will help Vista upgraders make the most of the flowery ‘Aero’ interface. That said, it steals 128MB from the system RAM meaning you’ll certainly need more memory to use it with Vista.
The standard six-cell battery almost lasted a reasonable 3hrs under intensive use and 4hrs under light use. A nine-cell upgrade is available for $279 but this will further limit portability by pushing the weight beyond an already-heavy 2.9kg.
We’re huge fans of Lenovo’s ‘ThinkVantage’ features (dubbed ‘Lenovo Care’ on the 3000 series). These allow users to simply backup and restore their data in the event of a problem, while also saving network profiles so that you don’t have to manually enter different IP addresses when at home or work.
It all amounts to a decent notebook which is decent value at $1825. However, some features are missing and the one-year RTB warranty is measly in comparison to competitors. There are better multimedia notebooks available at a similar price (see below). It also can’t quite match the all-round performance and customisability of Dell’s competitor, the D620 (see
A-List). But frequent typists and offices wanting Lenovo’s support features would do well with the 3000 series.
