Product Notes: Lenovo ThinkPad X300

February 26th, 2008

On February 26th, 2008, Lenovo introduced the ThinkPad X300, the first of a new 13-inch X-series line and Lenovo's first 13-inch notebook. With its 3.1 pound weight, it has the potential to meet the needs of many of the University's Windows-based "road warriors".

Design

The ThinkPad X300 is an extremely thin one-spindle 13-inch widescreen notebook. It uses a low-voltage (LV) Core 2 Duo processor running at 1.2 GHz and includes a 64 GB solid state drive (SSD) instead of a "normal" hard drive.

The ThinkPad X300's LED backlit display is higher resolution than the industry norm at 1440 x 900 - a resolution often seen in 14-inch and 15.4-inch displays.

The ThinkPad X300's quoted minimum weight is 2.93 pounds, but this is without the onboard optical drive, which is one of the X300's primary differentiators. Information Systems & Computing (ISC) believes that the two most common configurations will be onboard drive with either 3-cell battery (weighing 3.1 pounds) or 6-cell battery (weighing 3.35 pounds).

The ThinkPad X300 is the first ThinkPad to receive a Gold rating from EPEAT and is also Energy Star 4.0-certified.

Pros

• Highly competitive 3.1 pound weight for a 13.3-inch notebook
• It's a ThinkPad, with all the positives that implies
• Availability of solid-state drive
• High-density display allows for many open windows
• Onboard optical drive is a first for an X-series
• Trackpad is a first for an X-series
• Integrated video camera is a first for an X-series

Cons

• No option to de-content (and de-price) with a "normal" hard drive
• No FireWire (which is present on X-series 12-inch models)
• No PC Card, ExpressCard, or Secure Digital slots
• High-density display may be too dense for some
• 6-cell battery adds notably to thickness

Analysis

The ThinkPad X300 is among the first of what ISC sees as an increasingly competitive field - the under 3.5-pound 13.3-inch widescreen notebook. Before the release of Apple's MacBook Air in January 2008, most 13.3-inch notebooks (such as Apple's MacBook and Dell's XPS M1330) did not exploit the thin-and-light technologies being used in their 12-inch brethren and thus tended to weigh in the 4 to 5 pound range. It's important to remember that 3.1 pounds was a highly competitive weight for a 12-inch notebook only a few years ago.

ISC sees the ThinkPad X300 as being an interesting and class-leading choice among lightweight notebooks available in early 2008. ISC will be following up with a full review of this product as soon as it has completed testing.

Thanks to Chris Gagliardi and David Kristopovich (both of Lenovo) for their help with this product note.

--John Mulhern III, Lead for Client Technologies, ISC Technology Support Services (February 26th, 2008)