Lenovo has taken the wraps off a new ultrathin, lightweight notebook for enterprise workers that analysts are already calling a worthy successor to the company’s ThinkPad X300. Leslie Fiering doesn’t usually discuss spot product announcements, but the Gartner Research vice president was willing to make an exception Monday because, she said, the X301 exemplifies where the notebook market is heading.
It’s all too easy these days for road warriors to pick up a notebook to shed a few extra pounds, Fiering noted. “It’s only when they get on the road that they realize all the compromises they’ve had to make,” she said.
“The ThinkPad X301 manages to follow the industry trend of thin and lighter for traveling workers who don’t want to carry any extra weight, while at the same time be able to carry their full office environment anywhere around the world,” Fiering added.
The Move to SSD
Housed in an inch-thick case, the X301 weighs less than three pounds. Though the machine has shed weight, Fiering noted, its 13.3-inch screen is a very workable size in comparison to the 12-inch screens on competing models.
The X301 does not employ conventional hard-disk technology. Instead, it features the user’s choice of a 64GB or 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), which Fiering says is at the high end of what ultraportable notebook manufacturers now offer.
Though SSD technology adds to the overall cost, Fiering thinks it’s worthwhile for certain classes of users. By eliminating the hard drive, “they’ve taken out a mechanical part that has a high failure rate,” she explained.
Underneath the Hood
Featuring a 13.3-inch LED backlit display and ultrathin DVR, the ThinkPad X301 mates an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with DDR3 memory (512MB, 1GB or 2GB) — a combo that achieves nearly a 20 percent improvement in performance over the ThinkPad X300, Lenovo…