Lenovo Thinkpad X301

Full Review

The Thinkpad is a famed celebrity in the world of business notebooks, and our time with the Lenovo Thinkpad X301 was memorable on several counts. True to Lenovo's tradition, the X301 sports excellent build quality. Despite its slim design, it's rugged as a brick. Its 13.3-inch non-glossy screen can display 1280x800 pixels. For connectivity options, the Thinkpad X301 has all the standard communication ports, and also a DisplayPort tucked away at the back. On top of being slim and a lightweight at 1.4-kg, the Thinkpad X301 manages to incorporate a DVD writer in it—something which the Apple MacBook Air and Dell Adamo XPS misses out on—a commendable achivement.

True to Lenovo's tradition, the X301 sports excellent build quality. Despite its slim design, it's rugged as a brick.

Convenience is paramount to the Thinkpad X301 experience. Whether it's the Wi-Fi toggle button to switch wireless on or off, the ThinkVantage launcher next to the hinge, or the excellent trackpad navigation, things just work on the Thinkpad X301 and they work very well. Of course, the X301's trademark red trackpad nestled amidst the keyboard makes mouse navigation on the screen as easy as it can get on a laptop. Also, its keyboard has the right tactile feel and the keys are well spaced out, making this the best keyboard among the bunch.

The Thinkpad X301's three-cell battery lasted for just 2 hours 9 minutes BAPCO's in Mobile Mark 2007, which is frankly a disappointment. Draft-N Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet is supported on the X301, which is based on a 1.4-GHz Core 2 Duo SU9400, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 64GB SSD drive. It doesn't win any performance medals with a WorldBench 6 score of 64, and a PC Mark 05 score of 4622. Also its screen isn't up to par with the likes of Samsung X360 and Asus U6V Bamboo laptop, for e.g., but it has very good onboard speakers, one of the best in the category. Overall, the Lenovo Thinkpad X301 is one of the best ultraportable in terms of build quality, but its performance is average.

Bottom Line

The guys at Lenovo get three things spot on with the Thinkpad X301: its exceptional build quality, trackpad navigation, and the keyboard. If these things are high on your list of an ultraportable, the Thinkpad X301 is for you.