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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Real Computer Masquerading as a Netbook, November 12, 2008
After 5 years of lugging around a Dell D600 (14", about 5.5 lbs.), my primary concern in choosing a new laptop was ultraportability. I seriously considered one of the new netbooks (like the Asus Eee) until I came to my senses. I need a real computer. I liked the Dell, but I travel a lot, and after years of loading up the hard drive, upgrading programs, etc., it was getting really slow.
I figured I would have to make some sacrifices to get the smallest possible computer, but it really hasn't worked out that way. This is a fast, feature packed computer in a very compact package. I have loaded it with MS Office, AutoCAD, and Adobe Creative Suite and have had no performance issues. The days of opening Photoshop and then taking a coffee break are over. Amazing how it all fits into this small package. The keyboard is impressive, full size, and has a great feel. I was worried about the lack of a touchpad, but the trackpoint is pretty responsive and, besides, I use a mouse 95% of the time.
I don't mean to pile on to the Vista bashing bandwagon, but probably the second most important reason I bought the X200 was the fact that it came with the XP "downgrade." Actually, I don't know anything about Vista, so I won't criticize it. I have an office network running Windows Server 2003 and all the other machines run XP Pro, and I simply wasn't interested in experimenting. Actually, I have always wanted to buy the latest hardware and use it with an older OS; the speed is truly impressive.
To be sure, the size does mean some compromises. There is no optical drive, but a $90 external USB unit solves that, and I hardly ever use it. My generic unit plugged right in and required neither setup nor external power. I only needed it to load software, and I don't plan to travel with it. With thumb drives, CDs as a data medium are getting almost obsolete. Obviously, the screen is small at 12.1", but it has good resolution at 1280 x 800. Of course, that means that icons and text are pretty small, but I haven't found it too eye-straining yet. In fact, I have a desktop with a 19" screen on my desk, but I use the laptop most of the time.
A few minor drawbacks: all of the ports are on the sides, so the power cord and network cable are visible when I'm plugged in at my desk. The Dell had them behind, where they belong, in my opinion. I suppose it makes sense to have the USB ports on the side for convenience, but with the mouse plugged in to the right side, the cord did tend to get in the way. Lenovo makes a nice Bluetooth travel mouse that works beautifully and has the same matte black finish as the X200 - problem solved. And, one less thing to plug in while on the move.
Overall, I'm delighted. Yes, it's small, but that's the point. Despite its light weight (right at 3 lbs. with the 4 cell battery,) it feels and performs like a solid, quality product.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best portable laptop your money can buy at the moment, September 3, 2008
Well I spent a bit more than most and added the option of the 64GB Samsung Solid State Drive. From the reviews I read, the drive is the best in the market right now. Anyway, I first did some justice to my laptop and uninstalled Vista Home Premium and installed Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 3. Once I installed all the drivers, the laptop is very quick even with only 1GB of RAM installed. The wi-fi strength can be spotty at times because of the placement of the antennas, but it's something I can live with. The 3 usb ports is what got me looking further into buying this laptop as other laptops with a similar size like the Mac Air only has one usb port. And I don't really like bringing around a trendy looking laptop so the "dull", general Lenovo look works fine for me. I also love the full sized keyboard on this small laptop. It's a lot easier typing on this compared to the Dell 700M that it replaced. I ordered the 6 cell battery just get give me more time if I'm away from a power source. The video card on this laptop is capable of playing HD content like Blu-ray discs, but you need to order the docking station that includes a blu-ray drive on it (I think it was an additional $800). I felt I didn't need that as I'll be using my main desktop to view movies anyway. And that price to pay is a bit to steep. I choose getting an SSD drive over blu-ray since my desktop is already capable to playing blu-ray with a much large lcd display. The audio is nice since has to be capable of playing HD content too. Overall, I'd rate this a 4.5 out of 5 stars. Very portable and light even with the 6 cell battery I have installed. This laptop can be bought as a steal if you order with just a regular hard drive. The drops the price down significantly and to a very affordable level. Makes you really think twice about competition and what it has to offer.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astounding value and superior power-to-weight ratio, November 10, 2008
Pros: Processor, Memory, Input/Output compatibility, Keyboard/peripherals, Display resolution, Weight, Battery
Cons: comes with Vista and there's an extra charge for XP "downgrade"
Simply thrilled with this purchase. Did 6 weeks of research after my Dell Inspiron 600m finally died (motherboard failure). The key factors for me were processing power, clock-speed, brightness of screen, battery life and weight (I travel a lot). I was looking closely at the ultraportable category, including the X300, Hewlett-packard, Dell, Apple AirBook.
I was surprised to read a PC Magazine review that informed me that the August 2008 version of the X200 was faster and lighter than the X300 (paradoxical, in the sense that most higher-up model numbers are typically superior to the lower model number -- not the case here, given that Lenovo was already out with the X300 and didn't want to create a new X400).
With the new Intel Dual-Core technology onboard, this is a fast, resilient, bright, superlite, superbly-engineered machine that handles my spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and web-surfing activities with elegance and ease. It has plenty of ports for input and the keyboard is the most receptive from a tactile perspective as any machine I've ever owned.
True, this is not a cheap machine. I paid almost $2,000 for my top-of-the-line configuration after about $1,000 in savings during ThinkPad's 17th anniversary event. And there are some critics who harp about how this ThinkPad has the same look as it did from the beginning, including a steadfast refusal to drop the iconic red pointer-button in favor of a me-too touchpad. Some may swoon over the AirBook, but I prefer the two deccades of engineering behind the ThinkPad and Lenovo's commitment to improve upon IBM's well-established top-tick quality for the ThinkPad brand.
A few caveats: 1) you should always use a well-trained salesperson to help you maximize your savings. There are a myriad of coupons and special offers that are coming and going, and the salesperson helped me save over $1,000 with a code I didn't have access to. 2) I despise Microsoft Vista (even though I've been a huge fan of Microsoft products over the years), so I paid $75 to DOWNGRADE to Windows XP. As a result, this laptop blazes through its processes and is up and running within 20 seconds of my booting up the machine. I highly recommend this downgrade. 3) As is the case with most ultra-portables, there is no built-in DVD player. I had to order the not-inexpensive UltraBase to load all my programs (you can achieve the same with a portable DVD drive). It was an additional cost, but that's one of the gotchas about ultraportables -- and in this case worth the additional money.
And I also opted for a much bigger HD, by foregoing the solid state HD everyone is raving about. The 64 GB size is just too small, despite its touted benefits and reliability.
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