At the recent CES 2010 convention
Lenovo made lots of waves with their new laptop releases, one of those is the
ThinkPad Edge. This laptop computer is the cheapest Lenovo ThinkPad product
ever released. It's essentially a 13.3" ultra-portable laptop with a slim
and lightweight physique. Unlike the other ThinkPad notebooks this laptop
actually has a appealing design and color choices, it is available in Red and
Black.
This ThinkPad is called the cheapest
because it comes with a starting price of just $550. At that price though you
do have to sacrifice the unmatched sturdiness of ThinkPad notebooks, In the review
we'll see just how much you have to give up. The model we'll be looking at will
have a price of $899.
320GB (5400RPM) Seagate Momentus 5400.6 Hard Drive
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
No Optical Drive
0.3 megapixel webcam
VGA and HDMI Outputs
USB 2.0 x 3
RJ-45 (Ethernet 10/100/1000)
Headphone / Mic Input Jacks
SD / MMC / MSPro Multimedia Card Reader
Stereo Speakers
Gesture-Enabled Multi-Touch Trackpad
3.6 Pounds (with 4-cell battery installed)
Removable 4-Cell or 6-Cell Li-ion Battery (Up To 7.8
Claimed Hours of Computing)
13.07" x 8.97" x 0.66"-1.23"
(Dimensions)
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Price (as tested): $899
Price (starting): $549
Conclusion
The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge was a great idea by Lenovo, a
low-priced ThinkPad notebook. However their idea does have some faults as well
as positives. All the negatives of this notebook all lead back to its size and
price. For example this laptop doesn't come with a built-in optical drive you
have to buy a standalone drive, this negative comes from the ThinkPad Edges
small size which just doesn't allow room for a built-in optical drive.
This laptop is very mobile and lightweight, to support this
feature Lenovo basically threw in every possible Internet connectivity
possible. You can get regular Wi-Fi a/b/g/n or if that isn't you can connect to
the AT&T or Verizon CDMA internet and your other option is WiMAX connection
which can get you 4G speeds if it's available in your area. These options alone
make this a great buy if you're a business person who is always on the move.
Even with the cons of this notebook I can recommend it due to the portability,
build quality and power.
Pros
Small and lightweight
Strong battery life if you get the Intel CPU, the battery
lasts between 5 hours and 7.8 hours
Lots of storage space with the 320GB hard drive
Fast Dual Core CPUs from wither Intel or AMD, with this
laptop I recommend taking Intel due to battery life.
