Rob Enderle writes some strong praise for the Lenovo X301 — arguably the “perfect” notebook PC. I personally favor the X200 as I have no need for a touchpad, but Rob offers up a strong comparison of where Lenovo stands vis the competition. A tough, but fair critic, Rob’s assessment is great validation for Lenovo:
“I started using the new Lenovo ThinkPad X301 early last week, and Forbes had branded its predecessor the “Perfect Laptop.” What is fascinating is that Apple has on its board Al Gore, the most powerful “green” politician in the world, and Lenovo originated in China, a place that has a very poor environmental record. However, it is Lenovo that is the Greenpeace poster child and Apple its apparent enemy.
“Apple came out with the MacBook Air — an incredibly thin, sexy and largely impractical notebook, while Lenovo brought out the ThinkPad X300, which shared the Air’s size but otherwise was almost the polar opposite. The X300 wasn’t anywhere near as attractive but was a product you could truly live on, being vastly more practical. The X301 improves on the X300, having more performance and the option of an amazingly fast 128-GB hard drive. I’m a huge fan of these solid state drives; they are dead quiet, use little power and have blindingly fast read rates. Unfortunately, they are also very expensive, but darned if they aren’t worth it.
“If you replace the optical drive with a bay battery, battery life jumps from a marginal 3+ hours to 7+ hours, and if you carry a spare battery, as I have been doing, you jump to 10 hours or more. This helps make the product vastly more practical, and it contains built-in AT&T (NYSE: T) Latest News about AT&T or Verizon Latest News about Verizon WAN capability as well, so you can assure connectivity.
“The MacBook Air is arguably the most attractive notebook in the market, while the X301 is the closest to overall perfection. The market tends to favor appearance over practicality at the moment, but the true perfect laptop would be one that was as good looking as the Air and as practical as the X301. We’ll see if Apple or Lenovo gets there first.
E-Commerce News: Tech Buzz: Apple vs. Dell vs. Lenovo: Got to Love Choices.
Has there been any public data about how these two puppies are selling or their relative market share? I’d be fascinated to see which is ahead. I do think the Air is overly compromised but it has insanely great build quality and durability.
I have never understood criticism of the ThinkPad’s basic black look with red accents. After all, every woman understands the value of a little black dress with accessories. It’s not boring. It’s subtle and understated. Classic elegance.
On the other hand, there *is* something about that pink S10…
I much prefer the X200s with the 1440×900 display in a 12″ package, weighs about 3 lbs with 10+ hour battery life with WiFi. Unless you’re doing something like database where you’re hitting the disk all the time, SSD doesn’t make any difference while working, much lower capacity, etc. Displayport on the X301 is nice, tho.