THE Lenovo ThinkPad X300 notebook computer is extremely light. At 1.3 kilograms (with a three-cell battery), it is even lighter than the featherweight Apple MacBook Air!

And the basic black design, already a trademark of the ThinkPad series, adds to the slim profile.
The X300 has some nice features such as a 13.3-inch light-emitting-diode-backlit, 1,440-by-900-pixel screen and composite F1 material chassis form factor. The body construction also is solid – the internal chassis and roll cage use an advanced carbon fibre. Although the machine may seem too light to take any punishment, it actually is capable.
And its lid is covered with a black rubber-like resin, just as the palm rests near the keyboard, nice to touch but sweaty palms will leave their mark on the notebook.
The Intel dual-core 1.2-gigahertz (GHz) central processing unit comes in a tad low, as far as specifications are concerned, but for most business applications, thanks to Lenovo’s optimisations, the X300 responds satisfactorily.
For example, the 64-gigabyte solid state drive (SSD) storage does make a difference in performance as boot-up time is less than 30 seconds. The 1.8-inch SSD delivers twice the performance of 2.5-inch hard drives used in older ThinkPads. It also weighs less, uses less power and offers better shock resistance.
The 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor also means that it uses less power in the long run and builds up less heat.
The X300 isn’t an on-the-road gaming rig, though, compounded by the Intel Xtreme Graphics adapter and poor battery life from the three-cell battery. Just surfing the Internet and doing some word processing, with screen brightness set to medium, the machine did not even manage two hours. Compare that to the rated 4.3 hours, granted that it depends on the wireless connections and applications used.
Also annoying is when the screen blinks out to save on power and you coax it back up, the screen brightness is set to dim. It does not seem to remember the earlier brightness setting. And of course, this is at Lenovo’s Maximum battery life preset setting.
(For longer notebook usage, you can choose to remove the optical drive and slot in another battery.)
Having said that, the X300 is easy to tote around and use, thanks to its full-sized keyboard, trackpoint navigation, touchpad and fingerprint reader. Plus, the integrated Web camera along with the built-in condenser microphone allow Skype calls to be made.
Besides that, the glossy bottom bezel area and glowing blue ThinkVantage and power buttons add a nice touch, and the surprisingly decent sounding speakers located at the corner come seamless. Even the heat vent grills are painted black to blend into the whole package.
The X300 offers more ports and an optical drive when compared with the MacBook Air: three USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, audio-out, microphone-in, monitor-out and Kensington lock slot. But there isn’t any expansion port, PCMCIA, ExpressCard or media card reader.
All in, the X300 should appeal to business users who constantly travel, but comes off lacking in some departments. And priced at a premium above the RM9,000 range, some would have expected more. But the notebook is quite a marvel – build quality is not compromised, plus plenty of new technologies such as the new SSD storage medium, which is smaller and faster than older Serial ATA hard disk drives.

Product: ThinkPad X300
Manufacturer: Lenovo
Enquiries: Think Products Malaysia (Tel: 03-76818000)
Price: RM9,588


Specifications
Dimensions: 12.4mm by 9.1mm by 0.7mm
Weight: 1.3kg (with a three-cell battery), 3.3kg (with a six-cell battery and DVD burner)
Processor: 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7100 (800MHz FSB, 4MB cache)
Operating system: Windows Vista Business
Graphics adapter: Intel X3100
Memory: 2GB
Hard disk drive: 64GB SSD
Optical drive: Ultra-thin DVD burner
Connectivity: Intel 4965AGN (802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi), Bluetooth 2.0 EDR