Lenovo 3000 V200 Ultraportable Notebook

The Bottom Line
The Lenovo 3000 V200 pushes the limits in terms of being an ultraportable. Sure, it packs in a lot of features such as the DVD burner and large hard drive, but to keep it under four pounds it needs to use a 3-cell battery pack that limits its battery life.

Pros

* Large Hard Drive
* Two Full Gigabytes Memory

Cons

* Limited Battery Life Without Added Bulk
* Lacks J-Key Pointer Of ThinkPad Designs

Description

* Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 Dual Core Mobile Processor
* Two Gigabytes PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
* 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* 8x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
* 12.1" WXGA (1280x800) Display With Intel GMA X3100 Integrated Graphics and 1.3MP Webcam
* v.92 56Kbps Modem, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless and Bluetooth
* Three USB 2.0, One FireWire, ExpressCard/54, 5-in-1 Card Reader, Fingerprint Scanner
* 12" x 8.9" x 1.3" @ 4 lbs.
* Vista Ultimate, Corel Small Business Center, Norton Internet Security

Guide Review - Lenovo 3000 V200 Ultraportable Notebook

The Lenovo 3000 V200 is essentially an update to the previous V100 model. On the outside, they look almost identical. There are really just a few internal changes along with the new Vista operating system.

This means that the chassis of the V200 has the same good and bad aspects of the V100. While the keyboard layout and feel is quite strong, it still isn't up to the same level that Lenovo offers in the ThinkPad series of notebooks. Like it doesn't use the J-key pointing stick. Instead users are left with a standard touchpad that has an mediocre response. It also has the same weight issues that restrict its battery life.

In order for the system to weigh only four pounds, it is necessary to use a smaller 3-cell battery pack. This limits the amount of power the system has when on batteries and as a result have less than average battery life. A 6-cell battery pack is available, but this extends out from the back of the case increasing the size and the weight to 4.4 pounds. This pushes it beyond the size and weight of most ultraportables.

Beyond these items though, the Lenovo 3000 V200 offers some very strong performance, especially for its price. The Core 2 Duo T7300 and 2GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory allow it to run applications under the Vista Ultimate operating system without any problems. The 160GB of storage space is also much larger than what most ultrportables have to offer.

So where does that leave the 3000 V200? It certainly is a strong ultraportable system especially considering its price, but the battery issue really defeats the purpose of it being an ultraportable.