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Lenovo 3000 C

The Lenovo 3000 C100 is a decent budget laptop that delivers competent performance and long battery life, but other laptops offer superior features for a similar price.

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The Lenovo 3000 C100 series is the company's latest entry into the home midsize laptop market. Unlike its ThinkPad brethren, the C100 is a superbudget machine; however, many comparable systems offer better value, including the HP Pavilion dv4000 and the Dell Inspiron E1505. You can configure your C100 to cost anywhere from $599 to $1,129. Processor options range from a 1.5GHz Intel Celeron M to a 1.73GHz Intel Pentium M (newer Intel Core Solo or Duo processors are unavailable). The C100 comes with 256MB of 533MHz RAM, upgradable to 2GB; 5,400rpm hard drives in capacities from 40GB to 80GB; integrated 802.11a/b/g wireless; and an internal DVD/CD-RW or DVD burner. The notebook's 15-inch display has a native resolution of 1,024x768 and is powered by integrated Intel 900 graphics. Each C100 has four USB 2.0 ports, a four-pin FireWire port, S-Video out, a 3-in-1 memory card reader, and a PC card slot. In addition to Lenovo's standard one-year warranty, the company sells reasonably priced extensions of up to three years.

Our $749 Lenovo 3000 C100 test configuration was equipped with a 1.5GHz Celeron processor, 512MB of 266MHz RAM, and an 80GB hard drive; we thought it was decent, but you can get more bang for your buck from other manufacturers. Find out more in our full review of the Lenovo 3000 C100.