The ThinkPad X300 is the most recent addition to the Lenovo line of notebooks. The ultraportable segment of laptops is hot these days and the X300 is another machine on the block. It is Lenovo’s answer to competitors like the Macbook Air and Asus Eee pc. It is lightweight at just over 3lbs and 1.1 inch thick when closed. The ThinkPad x300 has a 13.3-inch WXGA screen, which is bright and of excellent quality and is LED backlighted. The viewing angles are good, but are narrower than the Macbooks and a maximum resolution of 1280×800 is supported. It has a great design and solid build and is designed to withstand accidental drops and abuse. The full-sized keyboard is very comfortable. A decent sized touchpad with scrolling areas is also present on this little beauty.

The standard configuration consists of an Intel Core 2 Duo SL7100 with 1.2 GHz speed, 64GB SSD [solid state drive] which really improves the durability and performance of the laptop and can have 1-4 GB DDR2 SDRAM memory depending on your configuration. The X300 has Intel X3100 integrated graphics on board. It has a microphone, stereo speakers, integrated web cam and fingerprint reader. Further options are there for wireless USB or mobile broadband. It is a high-end laptop and costs around $3,300 at this time. Compared to MacBook Air, it has better features, but performance in certain tasks is below par. The cost is also higher.The MacBook Air is thinner, but as it has fewer ports, no removable battery and no optical drive – the X300 beats it on practicality. This notebook lags behind a little in the area of connectivity. It has only Ethernet, 3 USB ports MIC/Headphone and VGA. It also has an inbuilt genuine GPS system. The things which are absent include a modem, PC/ExpressCard slot, memory card reader as well as a FireWire port. The connectivity and wireless options include Wi-Fi, UWB and bluetooth among others.

It gives options, which the MacBook Air doesn’t, such as wireless USB and mobile broadband. You can replace the hard drive and battery, in case of future upgrades. As mentioned earlier, the SSD increases its performance a lot. Performance is mixed, while it is quite enough for common tasks like Internet browsing, word processing or e-mail. It can multi-task easily plus easily run all your standard business applications, but it is not a gaming machine, as the X300’s integrated graphics aren’t great for playing 3D video games on, especially compared to some other laptops. The solid-state drive speeds up boot up times and things like running virus scans or loading programs. When it comes to processor-intensive work however, the MacBook Air’s faster processor makes it speedier than the X300. The X300 is also slower compared to somewhat larger laptops like Sony VAIO VGN-SZ780. The sound is very good on the X300. There is a choice of 3-cell Lithium-Polymer battery [4.3 hours quoted battery life] or a 6-cell one [6.5 hours quoted life]. Battery life is decent, and under normal usage conditions, it runs up to 3 1/2 hours on the 6 cell battery, which is good among notebooks of its class. Overheating is not a problem, thanks to the special low powered processor. Limited storage space is a problem and only about 40-45 GB is available on the solid-state drive 64GB after system essentials are taken into account. This space is quickly filled if you are like the average user. The Macbook Air has a similar issue.

The ThinkPad is a good choice if you are a windows user and want a new light thin and sleek ultraportable laptop. It’s meant to be the ultimate laptop for the business traveler, thanks to being so slim and ultraportable. It is feature rich with excellent wireless options, great keyboard and screen and not to forget the inbuilt optical drive. It is more practical compared to the Macbook Air. But the Lenovo X300 is neither the best performer, thanks to its underpowered processor nor the cheapest. It is a great ultraportable notebook with a superb design, excellent for business tasks but not for 3D intensive activities like Gaming. Due to its price it falls out of the reach of the average person, but is a great choice for a businessperson on the move.