Lenovo ThinkPad X200

14 Aug 2008 22:59

It lacks some basic features such as a touchpad and an optical drive, but the 12.1in. ThinkPad X200 offers strong performance and the longest battery life we've seen. With a variety of connectivity options and a roomy keyboard, the X200 makes a great ultraportable for mobile professionals.

What the ThinkPad X200 doesn't offer — a built-in optical drive, a touch pad — will surely be a clear deal-breaker for some users. And you'll have to carry some extra weight to get a full day's worth of battery life. However, the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 makes sense for frequent travellers who want an ultraportable that's both long-lived and powerful enough for a full day's work in a variety of applications.

Even from across the room, there's no mistaking the X200's heritage: its rectangular black case (wrapped around a magnesium chassis) is all ThinkPad. By virtue of its new wide-aspect display, it features a slightly larger footprint than its predecessor, the ThinkPad X61s. In fact, the X200 now looks like a miniature version of the 13.3in. X300. Though the X200's weight starts at 1.36kg, our ThinkPad X200 review unit tipped the scales at 1.68kg with its 9-cell battery. We think the extra weight is worth it (read on for the results of our battery benchmarks) but acknowledge that some road warriors might prefer the sub-1kg weight of the Toshiba Portégé R500.

With the ThinkPad X200, Lenovo brings a wide-aspect ratio to its most portable system. The 12.1in. wide-screen display features a sharp 1,280 by 800 native resolution that's more common on 14.1in. or even 15.4in. displays. The resulting text and icons are probably about as small as you can go for comfortable everyday use. Given the ThinkPad's business focus, we appreciate the matte screen finish, which avoids reflections in brightly lit office environments.

Another advantage to going wide with the ThinkPad X200 is that there's plenty of room for the keyboard. Whereas Lenovo's previous ultraportable, the standard-aspect ThinkPad X61s, had (of necessity) a slightly compact keyboard, the ThinkPad X200's wider case can accommodate the same keyboard used on Lenovo's 14- and 15in.ThinkPads. The difference in size is noticeable; on the X200 we never felt like we were typing on an ultraportable system.

Navigation, however, is still a bit limited. With its last few ThinkPad models, Lenovo has tried to accommodate both fans of the red TrackPoint pointing stick and those who prefer a touchpad by including both options. The ThinkPad X200, however, features only the TrackPoint and three mouse buttons (the centre acts as a scroll button); touchpad fans, of which there are many, will feel left out.

Above the keyboard are basic volume controls as well as the very helpful blue ThinkVantage button, which launches a suite of system maintenance, power management, connectivity and other utilities. All the other classic ThinkPad touches are here, including the nifty keyboard light tucked beneath the lip of the lid and a fingerprint reader below the keyboard for quickly logging in to Windows and a corporate network.

As with the ThinkPad X61s, the ThinkPad X200's slender case does not have room for a built-in optical drive. This may be a deal-breaker for some, but we like having the option of paring down our system to the bare essentials for travel; users who rely on optical media would be better off purchasing Lenovo's UltraBase dock, which includes a DVD burner, or opting for the ThinkPad X300, which incorporates both an optical drive and a larger screen.

Otherwise, the ThinkPad X200 offers the basic ports and connections a business traveller will need, plus one more USB port than average and the option for built-in WWAN and GPS. There's also a 1.3-megapixel Webcam above the display.

Our ThinkPad X200 review unit is built on Intel's brand-new Centrino 2 platform, with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor and integrated Intel GMA X4500 HD graphics. The new CPU gives the ThinkPad X200 an advantage over the low-voltage, lower-speed processors that power other ultraportables. On our benchmarks, the ThinkPad X200 outperformed the Toshiba Portégé R500 and the Apple MacBook Air, and it showed notable gains over the ThinkPad X300. The ThinkPad X200 also easily outpaced a number of netbooks, including the admittedly less expensive MSI Wind U100, making it a far better choice for mobile professionals whose work extends beyond web surfing and keeping up with email.

One of the key promises with Intel's new P-series processors is extended battery life, and the ThinkPad X200 delivers. Its 9-cell battery lasted an astonishing 6 hours 23 minutes on our video playback drain test, which is the longest battery life we've seen to date. It even bested smaller systems, such as the Asus Eee PC 901 and the Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium. Anecdotally, we got about 6 hours of battery life from the ThinkPad X200 while simultaneously working on documents, surfing the web and wirelessly streaming music.

The preloaded suite of ThinkVantage applications helps users troubleshoot problems, and Lenovo's support web site includes the expected troubleshooting topics, driver downloads and user guides.

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