Lenovo IdeaPad U110 (59-014845) PC Notebook

I needed a new laptop.  My trusty 15.4” Gateway 6020GZ was showing its age, and I was ready to jump into the world of small laptops – even possibly a netbook.  So, I began by reading reviews of the best laptops with a screen smaller than 13 inches.  I travel fairly frequently and wanted a laptop that could comfortably sit on my lap on an airplane, and the battery would last the roughly 4.5 hrs it takes to fly between the coasts.  Also, I wanted it to be small and light, again because I would be lugging it through the airport.  
I found that there are quite a few sub 13” laptops out there – and the prices vary widely between the more than $2k charged by some to the sub- $300 charged by most of the netbook manufacturers.  The netbook world is a cut-throat area right now – and changes are coming fast and furious.  They almost universally have the Intel Atom processor, which is a single core processor with hyperthreading, rather than a dual core processor.  Based on the first hand experience I had with a friend’s netbook, it was powerful enough to run Windows XP and do word processing and web browsing, but that’s about it.  Contrast that with the processor in most Intel-based laptops, the Core 2 Duo, and it really is a night and day difference.

I should state that I consider myself a “power” user – though I must admit lately it seems my computers are waiting on me more than I wait on them.   Nevertheless, my daily computer is a Quad core monster, and I have gotten used to the speed and “snappy” response time.  The netbook did not deliver this (for obvious reasons).  However, the netbooks with 6 cell batteries deliver outstanding battery life (more than 7 hours in some cases) and great portability. 

The second factor in favor of a laptop instead of a netbook – the keyboard layout.  You see, most of the netbooks have smaller than “normal” keyboards.  I have fairly long and “stocky” fingers, so this was a concern for me – and after a little use, I found it to be a real problem.  So, I narrowed my search to only those laptops with near full-size keyboards. 

The third factor was screen size and resolution.  Here, it is a balancing act.  The small screens are portable and utilize less battery power, however, are harder to see and may not display webpages correctly.  The larger screens make the computers heavier and suck more juice.  In the end I decided that a full “laptop” was a better choice for me, as opposed to a netbook.  However, I still wanted a small, ultra-portable size.  

So, why did I choose this Laptop, and what do I like or dislike about it?

Processing Power and ergonomics:

This laptop comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, at 1.6 Ghz - # L7500 – but it is a “low voltage” version – which helps battery life.  That’s not to say it’s a speed champion – but noticeably faster than the atom-based netbooks out there.  It also received positive reviews against some of the other ultraportable laptops, which typically use one of Intel’s Ultra low voltage processors, which are slower. 

The fan on this unit is always running, but not audible at all.  The computer comes with 3GB of ram and 120 GB hard drive.  The only downer on quickness side is that the hard drive spins at a relatively slow 4200 RPM.  This makes accessing data slower – but once the computer and programs are loaded up (into memory) it’s very quick.  It comes with Windows Vista Home Premium – a good fit for this computer.  I ended up putting XP professional on it – because that is a better fit for my business uses.  XP is very quick.  All of the various device drivers and required software are available from Lenovo’s website, for either Vista or XP.

The keyboard is a little strange – but very comfortable.  The keys themselves are flat, and the entire keyboard, touchpad and touch-sensitive strip at the top of the keyboard are shiny, giving the laptop quite a striking appearance.  There are small spaces between the keys, but the keys have a good feel and return well.  The enter key and right shift key are well placed and sized.  In fact, the only real complaint I have with the keyboard is that the home and end keys are found at the bottom right, as fn alternates to pgup an pgdown, above the left and right arrows.  A typical setup, but not ideal in my opinion.  Also, the backspace key is a little smaller than I’d like – but not a big deal. 

Screen and video quality:

I would rate the screen as “good” – it has a high resolution, plenty of brightness, but lots of reflections.  There is a reflective screen, with a reflective protective screen on top of it.  The resolution is 1366 x 768.  Another factor that is not ideal is that the addition of the protective screen gives the appearance of a graininess, which should have been avoided.  Everything is still readable, you just get a little bit of rainbow effect because of it.  If you are going to use this as your everyday computer, you will want to plug into a separate, external screen.  

It is an LED – lit screen, which is a good thing, as it should help on battery life as well as service longevity.  The video card is Intel’s GMA 3100.  It is sufficiently fast for everything I need, but a gamer would want more. 

Battery Life, connectivity and items included:

Battery life is another very high point of this laptop.  The laptop comes out of the box with two batteries – a 3 cell battery, which in my experience lasts between 1 and 2 hours; and a 7 cell battery which is good for 4+ hours.  The included Lenovo power management software is as good as I’ve seen – allowing control of screen brightness, sleep, hibernate and even processor speed  in both plugged in and battery mode.  There are 4 power settings – performance, balance, low battery and super energy saver.  
Additionally, the power “brick” is the smallest I’ve ever seen.  It is approximately the same size as a deck of cards (maybe slightly longer than that). 

There are ample external connections, including VGA out, 3 USB 2.0 mini-firewire, multi-format memory card reader, Expresscard/34, Ethernet, wifi (a+g), Bluetooth, and a USB 2.0 external DVD burner.   That’s right – there is no built-in DVD or CD player / burner, but Lenovo includes an external USB-based version.  It’s a pretty nice touch in my opinion – it allows the computer to be that much lighter for travel purposes, but including the USB version really helps accessibility for when you need it.  So, in the box, you get the computer, 2 batteries, the external DVD burner, a padded pouch for storage, the power “brick” and wires, and documentation. Note that there are no operating system restore disks included – they have that on a special partition of the hard drive. 

Design, weight and dimensions:

The computer is very small and light – dimensions are 10.8" by 7.7" by .72"-.88" (it’s thinner up front and gets thicker near the back).  And it weighs just 2.42 pounds (and 2.92 pounds with the larger battery). 

Since this is a “consumer” grade laptop – rather than Lenovo’s professional product offerings – they apparently freed up the designers to make it look a little more trendy.  The entire outside is covered in a vine-looking imprinted pattern.  On the bottom, a similar pattern is punched through the chassis, to allow air entry.  On the top of the keyboard, there are touch-sensitive quick launch buttons, also with a vine theme.  The entire computer has a solid feel, due to the materials used (the chassis is based in magnesium). 

In addition to the sturdy feel, Lenovo also ships the laptop with hard drive shock absorbers and extra software to make sure a sudden fall won’t wipe out your data.  They call this Hard disk Active Protection.   There is also software to use your face as your login password – a nice idea, but I have not used it.  I’d just rather type…
The computer has speakers, but I consider them very tinny sounding – but I suppose that really isn’t a priority for Lenovo as they were designing the laptop. 

After using this laptop for about a month now, I must say I am very impressed.  It allows me to be productive while I’m on the road, is small and light, but does not have the limitations that netbook would have brought me.  Instead, it really is just a very small full power computer.  It really is the best of both worlds.  The only real negative that continues to bother me is the shiny screen.  The price has come down on these lately, and they can be had for less than $1500 or so – a pretty good deal in my opinion.