The ThinkPad Takes On The MacBook Air 433
An anonymous reader writes "Walt Mossberg has an early look at the ThinkPad X300, Lenovo's answer to the MacBook Air. He says the ThinkPad is almost as skinny and light as the Air, but has many of the ports and features lacking on Apple's machine. The biggest downside: it costs much more and will be limited to a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage. 'Unlike the Apple, which can be ordered with a higher-capacity, lower-priced hard disk, the new ThinkPad will only be available with the expensive, limited capacity solid-state drive. So it will start at between $2,500 and $2,800-up to $1,000 more than the Apple's base price.'"
The thinkpad pretty much spanks the Air (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The thinkpad pretty much spanks the Air (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mossberg has seen it... (Score:5, Informative)
I think only a Slashdot Poll could answer this definitely.
Further anecdotal evidence, though: I've had a Lenovo T61 now for about two months, after having had a Pre-Lenovo T40 for more than four years, which had been my sturdiest Thinkpad up to that time. So far, I see no difference in the build quality of both machines, but only time will really tell.
Re:The thinkpad pretty much spanks the Air (Score:5, Informative)
Thin matters only to a subset of professionals (Score:3, Informative)
I feel Lenovo and Apple are aiming to two different sorts of professional users. Apple is geared more towards the writers and mobile creatives, and the workflow the MacBook Air is supposed to fit into is one where the user has a larger "mothership" computer that he can sync with, or already works in a MacBook-friendly environment. The Lenovo looks and feels more like a device that tries to be as light as possible but still be a "full-featured" notebook computer.
So what is the difference between the two? Apple's notebook looks and feels like it was designed around a task, a need, and Lenovo's laptop looks more like it was designed around the tech specs.
Re:I disagree, the Thinkpad is beautiful. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The thinkpad pretty much spanks the Air (Score:1, Informative)
The Thinkpad uses a 1.2GHz ULV processor - significantly slower than the Air. And the Thinkpad weighs just OVER 3 lbs, so the difference may be negligable, but it's not
So if you're running any long processing task, the Air will spank the Thinkpad, as long as it's not bottlenecked by that hard drive.
Re:I disagree, the Thinkpad is beautiful. (Score:3, Informative)
The MBA (and MBP) aren't silver-painted plastic (except for the touchpad), they're anodized aluminum. I'd rather have a natural metal finish than yet more black plastic, although ThinkPads are about as nice as non-Apple laptops get.
Largely agree with you on the glossy screens, though.
Re:But There's No Illusion of Thin (Score:5, Informative)
Wake up (at 4am) and quickly check e-mail and print boarding pass. Off to the airport. Check e-mail again while waiting to board. Get on plane. Cruising altitude reached, so out comes the laptop and start working on that presentation (here's where battery life and being able to replace that battery when it dies comes in). Arrive at destination, and off to client. Arrive at client and walk straight into meeting. Hook up laptop up to projector (here' where all of those external ports come into play). Meeting finishes. You do some more things at a guest cubicle. You break out a mouse for comfort (1 usb port) then someone comes by with a document on a memory stick (need another usb port, but the Air is all out of 'em) They want you to view a presentation that's on DVD or VCD (here's where that optical drive comes in handy and not so you can watch a hollywood movie - there's no time for that). End of day, go back to hotel. You need the internet. No wireless here, so it's gotta be wired (yeah that wired ethernet port really comes in handy right about now). Go to sleep.
So let's recap. What is really important to a globetrotting exec? Versatility. You need lots of standard ports (VGA, lots of USB, etc.) and an optical drive, which Air doesn't have. You need reliable battery life. This means that when the battery is dead, as in won't hold it's charge, you can replace that battery. My 1 year old Dell already has 32% health, which means 1 hour of battery life. Tomorrow when I'm actually in the same state as my office, I'll pick up a new one and off I go. Air does not have a removeable battery. And at the end of the day, you need durability. Usually I'm not checking my laptop (or anything) with the airlines, but it gets crammed in to overhead bins, kicked under the seat, thrown into TSA x-ray bins, dropped, bumped, etc. ThinkPads are known for their durability. I can't speak for Mac on this, so I won't knock the Air for this, but it is a concern for the globetrotter. In closing, your CEO is not a good example of the globetrotting exec. A real globetrotting exec demands much more from their laptop.
Re:The thinkpad pretty much spanks the Air (Score:3, Informative)
The new Lenovo ones about the same in volume as a MacBook power supply with a different design. The big part is in the middle of the cord, so as to keep the end the size of a say a lamp plug. It's black and boxy, not unlike the machine itself. No appreciable weight.