Lenovo, which started life as part of IBM, is probably best known for its all-black ThinkPad business laptops, but it also has a range of portable PCs aimed at consumers. The Lenovo 3000 V200 is an ultraportable from the Family range.
Odd, then, that it runs Windows Vista Business rather than Vista Home Premium. This gives you more advanced backup features, which you probably won't need, but doesn't come with Windows Vista Media Center, which puts a lot of the fun into today's consumer PCs.
While the operating system is aimed at corporate users, the V200's screen isn't ideal for the office. It has a reflective surface that's prone to reflections from harsh office lighting. However, the glossy coating makes contrast deeper and colours more vibrant, so it's ideal for viewing photos or DVDs. The 12.1-inch display is in widescreen format, which again is ideal for media viewing, as well as working on large documents such as spreadsheets or with applications that have a lot of palettes to fit in. The laptop's tiny speakers won't give you the full cinema experience, but they sound reasonably clear.
While the V200 doesn't feel quite as bomb-proof as most ThinkPads, it's still a quality item. There's little flex in the base, and the plastic lid and keyboard surround, while rather shiny, feel tough. The silver lid also adds a bit of levity to the rather retro orange and black interior. The keyboard is top-notch; it doesn't flex at all, and the keys have loads of travel. Their click action divided opinion; some of us in the labs found the lack of feedback tiring, while others thought it made typing quicker. The trackpad is highly accurate, and the buttons are easy to use thanks to their long travel and progressive feedback. To the right of the trackpad is a fingerprint scanner, so you can use your fingerprint to log into Windows instead of a password. There's also a 1.3 megapixel webcam mounted above the screen.
Full powerThere aren't huge numbers of connections, but they're sensibly placed and evenly spaced. With three USB2.0 ports, on the left, right and rear, you shouldn't need an extra USB2.0 hub in normal use. There's also a mini FireWire port to connect your MiniDV camcorder (or a fast external hard disk) and an ExpressCard slot for extra expansion, as well as an SD card reader. There's built-in WiFi to connect to your home wireless network or at hotspots, and Bluetooth to synchronise with your phone or PDA. Unlike with some ultraportables, you get a dual-layer DVD writer built in, and there's a fair amount of room on the 120GB hard disk.
This is a reasonably fast laptop. Its Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 sits in the middle of Intel's mobile Core 2 Duo range, and provides plenty of power for everyday tasks as well as enough juice to cope with processor-intensive applications such as video encoding. However, the standard 1GB of RAM is the minimum we'd recommend to run Windows Vista smoothly, and the V200 loads so many programs on startup that memory is at a premium. Its overall score of 154% in our general 2D benchmark was still impressive, but we've seen better from laptops at this price, especially with a more generous 2GB of RAM. The V200's integrated graphics couldn't run our 3D game test.
The 3000 V200 weighs just 1.8kg, which should make it ideal to take on the road, but this is where a fatal flaw becomes apparent: battery life is mediocre. With wireless networking enabled, the V200 could only manage two-and-a-quarter hours in our light use test. DVD playback petered out after one hour and 45 minutes, not enough to get to the end of most films. Overall, we prefer Samsung's similarly priced Q45 (Web ID: 122308).
System Specifications
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 (2GHz)
RAM: 1GB DDR2
Graphics: Intel 965 Express
Drives: 120GB SATA hard disk, DVDRW DL
Screen: 12.1-inch widescreen TFT (1280 x 800)
Ports: 3x USB 2.0, 1x FireWire, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, modem, PC Card, ExpressCard, D-sub SIZE 305 x 246 x 32mm
Weight: 1.8kg
Warranty: 1 year return to base
Delivery cost: £9.99
Battery life (light use, Wi-Fi on): 2h 18min
DVD movie playback: 1h 18min
Time to recharge (to 95%): 1h 28min
Verdict
From the ThinkPad people, a family laptop that's all business. The screen and keyboard are great, but battery life isn't, and Vista Business is an odd choice.
Author: Chris Finnamore
Computer Buyer Online