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Lenovo 3000 V100 0763 (Core 2 Duo 2 GHz review: Lenovo 3000 V100 0763 (Core 2 Duo 2 GHz

Lenovo 3000 V100 0763 (Core 2 Duo 2 GHz

Michelle Thatcher Former Senior Associate Editor, Laptops
Tech expert Michelle Thatcher grew up surrounded by gadgets and sustained by Tex-Mex cuisine. Life in two major cities--first Chicago, then San Francisco--broadened her culinary horizons beyond meat and cheese, and she's since enjoyed nearly a decade of wining, dining, and cooking up and down the California coast. Though her gadget lust remains, the practicalities of her small kitchen dictate that single-function geegaws never stay around for long.
Michelle Thatcher
6 min read

When we reviewed the small-business focused Lenovo 3000 V100 almost a year ago, it was among the first of a group of laptops we came to describe as "bulky ultraportables"--laptops that sought to incorporate the hefty feature set of a thin-and-light in a case bordering on ultraportable in size. Since then, the field has become a bit more crowded, with not only the entertainment-oriented Dell XPS M1210 but also the Toshiba Satellite U205 offering a comparable set of features in a similar design. But the Lenovo 3000 V100's $999 starting price still makes it one of the least expensive models in its class. And the fact that Lenovo has updated the V100 line with the latest Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives, and the option for Windows Vista warranted a second look. Based on our $1,699 review unit, we'd say that the Lenovo 3000 V100 has kept pace with the times, continuing to provide all the features you'll need for work (and some play) in a highly portable package.

7.0

Lenovo 3000 V100 0763 (Core 2 Duo 2 GHz

The Good

Low price; high-end components; solid performance and decent battery life; comfortable keyboard; wide-aspect display; integrated optical drive; solid assortment of ports and connections, including media-card reader; fingerprint reader; robust system-management and help utility.

The Bad

One-year warranty inferior to some business models; small trackpad and shallow mouse buttons; few dedicated multimedia controls.

The Bottom Line

If you can carry a little extra weight in an ultraportable, the Lenovo 3000 V100 is a well-appointed business laptop that offers solid performance for a competitive price.

The V100 is the smallest Lenovo 3000 laptop available; like its siblings, the C200 and the N100, the V100 is silver on the outside and dark gray on the inside. Its steel hinges and relatively sturdy construction reflect its ThinkPad heritage, though it doesn't have the ThinkPad's drain holes, shock-mounted hard drive, or keyboard light. The V100 weighs 4.5 pounds (with the optional six-cell battery, which extends about a half inch from the back of the laptop) and measures 9 inches deep, 12 inches wide, and 1.1 inches thick, so it's a bit larger than both the Toshiba Satellite U205 and the Dell XPS M1210. Total travel weight with the V100's modest A/C adapter is 5.1 pounds, striding the line between ultraportable and thin-and-light. There are certainly lighter laptops on the market, including Lenovo's own ThinkPad X60s, but the V100 is reasonably portable for regular travel.

Because Lenovo doesn't currently offer a wide-screen ultraportable ThinkPad, the Lenovo 3000 V100 fills an important role in the company's laptop lineup. Like the XPS M1210 and the Satellite U205, the V100 features a 12.1-inch wide-screen display with a sharp 1,280x800 native resolution and a glossy finish that's great for watching movies but can become distractingly reflective in bright environments (unfortunately there's no option for a matte-finish display). An optional 1.3-megapixel Webcam is built into the display bezel, making it useful for Web videoconferencing from the road.

Corresponding to the V100's wide-aspect display is a wide, comfortable keyboard that harkens back to the laptop's ThinkPad lineage. Like all Lenovo 3000 laptops, the V100's trackpad feels a bit small, and the trackpad buttons don't provide as much travel as we'd like. Next to the trackpad sits a tiny fingerprint reader, which lets you securely log on to your computer, network, and favorite Web sites with just a swipe of a finger. Above the keyboard are three handy external volume controls and a button to launch Lenovo's MediaNow application (the extent of the V100's dedicated multimedia controls), plus a button that summons the useful Lenovo Care system-management and help utility. Along the front edge, two speakers emit hollow but passable sound, while the right edge of the case holds a handy hardware on/off switch for the system's built-in Wi-Fi radio.

In part because of its bulky size, the Lenovo 3000 V100 includes a few more ports and connections than you'd find on a typical ultraportable. There are VGA, four-pin FireWire, and three USB 2.0 ports (thankfully spread out around the case to prevent cable crowding), plus headphone and microphone jacks. In addition to an ExpressCard/54 slot, you'll find a five-in-one media-card slot that supports Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, and xD formats. Networking connections include modem, Ethernet, and 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi; our test unit's price includes an optional Bluetooth radio. WWAN is not available, even as an option. Unlike many ultraportables that jettison the optical drive to save weight, the V100 incorporates an optical drive; ours included a DVD burner. For the sake of comparison, the $2,329 XPS M1210 has all of that plus one more USB port, an S-video connector, an extra headphone jack, and WWAN connectivity, making it a bit more well-rounded than the Lenovo when it comes to entertainment features. But the Dell is targeted toward high-end home users, while the Lenovo focuses on--and succeeds at--meeting the needs of small business users.

Lenovo offers a number of fixed configurations of the V100 on its Web site; priced at $1,699, our Lenovo 3000 V100 test system includes a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor (the middle of the Core 2 Duo lineup), 2GB of fast 667MHz RAM, a roomy 120GB hard drive spinning at a middling 5,400rpm, and Mobile Intel Express 945GM integrated graphics. When it came to CNET Labs' mobile benchmarks, those components helped the V100 keep pace (and in some cases overtake) a $1,899 Toshiba Tecra M5 with a nearly identical configuration save its Nvidia Quadro dedicated graphics. The Lenovo 3000 V100 also bested our similarly configured, $2,329 Dell XPS M1210 on all but the Multimedia multitasking test. For typical business use, the Lenovo 3000 V100 clearly packs an impressive amount of bang for the buck.

The six-cell battery on the Lenovo 3000 V100 (which constitutes $140 of its price) lasted a respectable two hours and 28 minutes in our resource-intensive DVD battery drain tests; you can expect longer life during typical Windows use. The Tecra M5's battery, by comparison, dropped out before the two-hour mark, while the HP Compaq 6515b's battery lasted two hours and 31 minutes. The Vista version of the Dell XPS M1210, equipped with a nine-cell extended battery, held out for three hours, 49 minutes on our tests.

We think the Lenovo 3000 V100's one-year warranty is too brief, though it is the norm for low-cost systems (pricier business laptops, by comparison, are almost always covered for three years). Fortunately, upgrades for longer terms and onsite repairs are reasonably priced. The company's support Web site includes a handful of troubleshooting topics, as well as the expected driver downloads; the site lacks interactive features, such as customer forums or the chance to chat in real time with a technician.


Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Lenovo 3000 V100
1,142 

Adobe Photoshop CS2 image-processing test
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Lenovo 3000 V100
296 

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Lenovo 3000 V100
209 

Microsoft Office productivity test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Lenovo 3000 V100
1,148 

DVD battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Lenovo 3000 V100
148 

Find out more about how we test laptops.
System configurations:
Dell XPS M1210 Windows Vista Ultimate Edition: 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB nVidia GeForce Go 7400; 120GB Hitachi 5,400rpm SATA/150
HP Compaq 6515b Windows Vista Business Edition; 2.2GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-64; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 128MB ATI Radeon Xpress 1270; 120GB Toshiba 5,400rpm SATA/150
Lenovo 3000 V100 Windows Vista Business Edition; 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo T7200; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 32MB Mobile Intel Express 945GM ; 120GB Hitachi 5,400rpm
Toshiba Tecra M5-S4333 Windows Vista Business Edition; 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 128MB Nvidia Quadro NVS110M; 120GB Toshiba 5400rpm SATA/150

7.0

Lenovo 3000 V100 0763 (Core 2 Duo 2 GHz

Score Breakdown

Design 8Features 8Performance 7Battery 6Support 5