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Performance And Battery Life

Like the MacBook Air, the ThinkPad X300 incorporates Intel's new small-form-factor Core 2 Duo CPU, though with a slightly slower clock speed. That slower speed is at least partly to blame for the ThinkPad X300 trailing behind the MacBook Air on the multimedia multitasking portion of CNET Labs' performance benchmarks. Fortunately the ThinkPad's 2GB of RAM helped it keep up with the MacBook Air on our Photoshop test, where it also scored well ahead of the Toshiba Portege R500. As with any Core 2 Duo system, the ThinkPad X300 proved more than adequate for typical business productivity tasks, including Web surfing, media playback, and running office applications. We were able to conduct a full morning's work while streaming music over the wireless connection without any stuttering or noticeable performance issues.





In anecdotal testing of the ThinkPad X300 with the six-cell battery, we were able to get between 3 and 4 hours of battery life, depending on our usage and screen brightness settings. On CNET Labs' DVD battery drain test, the ThinkPad X300 died out after 3 hours 43 minutes, just 20 minutes before the MacBook Air. That's obviously not enough juice for a full day of work away from the desk, but it is nearly an hour longer than the Portege R500's battery life. Here's another place where the ThinkPad X300's built-in DVD is an advantage: You can purchase an additional three-cell battery that fits inside the drive bay to extend your mobile computing time. Also an advantage: The ThinkPad X300's removable battery, which is remarkable only because users cannot replace the battery in the MacBook Air.



System configurations:

Lenovo Thinkpad X300
Windows XP Professional SP2; 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7100; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 384MB Mobile Intel 965GM Express; 64GB Samsung Solid State Drive

Apple MacBook Air - 1.6GHz / 13.3 inch
OS X 10.5.1 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 144MB Intel GMA X3100; 80GB Samsung 4,200rpm

HP Compaq 2710p
Windows Vista Business Edition; 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage U7600; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 148MB Mobile Intel 965GM Express; 80GB Toshiba 4,200rpm

Toshiba Portege R500
Windows XP Professional SP2; 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage U7600; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB Mobile Intel 945GM Express; 64GB Samsung Solid State Drive

Service And Support

The laptop comes with three-year international carry-in warranty at the Lenovo service center. The system battery, however, has only a one-year carry-in warranty. For Singapore users, an alternative to making a trip to the service center is to send it via the postal service for free during the warranty period. On Lenovo's support Web site, you can register your warranty after which the site will automatically detect your machine configuration and offer the appropriate support. A knowledge database is available for simple troubleshooting. Updated drivers, manuals and software upgrades can be downloaded as well. If the issue requires a professional assistance, a telephone helpline is available during working hours from Monday to Friday which will dispatch a technician onsite if required.

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