The good: Record-breaking battery life; strong performance for an ultraportable; comfortable full-size keyboard; wide-screen display with a sharp resolution; WWAN and GPS options.

The bad: Nine-cell battery adds significant weight; lacks an optical drive; includes pointing stick but no touchpad.

The bottom line: It lacks some basic features you may require--touchpad, optical drive--but the 12.1-inch ThinkPad X200 offers strong performance and the longest battery life we've seen. With a variety of connectivity options and a roomy keyboard, the X200 makes a great ultraportable for road warriors.

Read full review of the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 »

By Michelle Thatcher, CNET.com
Oct 2, 2008

We were a little surprised when Lenovo announced an X series laptop with a 12.1-inch wide-aspect display; after all, the similarly sized ThinkPad X300 had won over many hearts and minds when it was introduced earlier this year. But the new ThinkPad X200 does nicely round out Lenovo's ThinkPad family. It's slightly smaller and--with a starting price of S$2,942.50 (US$2,118.58)--significantly less expensive than the 13.3-inch ThinkPad X300, and it offers more hard-drive space (albeit, in the form of a spinning, not solid-state, drive). More importantly, its new Centrino 2 components provide better performance than other ultraportables, plus (with the nine-cell battery) the longest battery life we've seen to date.

What the ThinkPad X200 doesn't offer--a built-in optical drive and a touchpad--will surely be a clear deal-breaker for some users. And you'll have to carry some extra weight to get a full day's worth of battery life. However, the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 makes sense for frequent travelers who want an ultraportable laptop that's both long-lived and powerful enough for a full day's work in a variety of applications.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design

Even from across the room, there's no mistaking the X200's heritage: Its rectangular black case (wrapped around a magnesium chassis) is all ThinkPad. By virtue of its new wide-aspect display, it features a slightly larger footprint than its predecessor, the ThinkPad X61s. In fact, the X200 now looks like a miniature version of the 13.3-inch X300. Though the X200's weight starts at 1.46kg, our ThinkPad X200 review unit tipped the scales at 1.7kg with its nine-cell battery. We think the extra weight is worth it (read on for the results of our battery benchmarks) but acknowledge that some road warriors might prefer the sub-1kg weight of the Toshiba Portege R500.



With the ThinkPad X200, Lenovo brings a wide-aspect ratio to its most portable system. The 12.1-inch wide-screen display features a sharp 1,280 x 800 native resolution that's more common on 14.1-inch or even 15.4-inch displays. The resulting text and icons are probably about as small as you can go for comfortable everyday use. Given the ThinkPad's business focus, we appreciate the matte screen finish, which avoids reflections in brightly lit office environments.

Another advantage to going wide with the ThinkPad X200: Plenty of room for the keyboard. Whereas Lenovo's previous ultraportable, the standard-aspect ThinkPad X61s, had (of necessity) a slightly compact keyboard, the ThinkPad X200's wider case can accommodate the same keyboard used on Lenovo's 14- and 15-inch ThinkPads. The difference in size is noticeable; on the X200 we never felt like we were typing on an ultraportable machine.

Tags: Toshiba Portege, Intel Core 2 Duo, IBM ThinkPad, Keyboard, Intel Corp.

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