Lenovo ThinkPad U300s
Ketaki Bhojnagarwala
Despite Lenovo's success with the ThinkPad, the company still hasn't created that ‘wow' product that's really aspirational. While some companies focus on trendy looks and innovative features, Lenovo has roped in a big fan following by offering reliability and good build. However, though the company's maiden ultrabook offering, the Ideapad U300s, may look relatively bland at the outset, it surprised me by packing in a punch with its performance.
First look
Most ultrabook s are opting for the ultra-thin, tapering design. While the U300s doesn't really conform to that and goes for a more uniform thickness, it still manages to be pretty thin at just 13.99mm. The U300s is internationally available in two flavours – Graphite Gray and Clementine Orange. Although the latter makes more of a style statement, I was pretty happy with the sleek grey unit I had for review. Like the Macbook Air, the U300s is also sculpted from a single piece of aluminium, making it quite light at 1.32 kg but also quite sturdy. You won't find a big selection of ports on this one - the U300s ships with two USB ports (includes a USB 3.0), an HDMI port and a 3.5mm jack. Unfortunately, there's no SD card slot, something even the more budget friendly Acer S3 has. The ports are conveniently located at the sides, so you don't have to fiddle about to plug in your external devices.
The good news is that Lenovo hasn't compromised on the trackpad and keyboard, something a lot of other manufacturers tend to do. The island-style keyboard is becoming a popular choice among laptop manufacturers, but few get it right. Although ThinkPad users might miss the slightly sculpted keys, I found it extremely comfortable to type on the U300s' keyboard for long stints. A few keys like Shift and Tab have been downsized a bit, which takes some getting used to. My only real problem with the keyboard is the fact that it's not backlit. Lenovo says this is because backlighting adds another layer to the thickness, but having used the Macbook Air, I beg to differ.
I liked the spacious trackpad, which Lenovo says is made of unbreakable glass. It supports a number of multi-touch gestures, including pinch to zoom, two finger scroll and four finger swipe to bring up all open apps. Overall, the trackpad was smooth and accurate most of the time, barring the fact that you have to use a fair bit of pressure with the multi-touch functions.
The finish on the ultrabook is really smooth, and Lenovo has uniformly used the same finish for the palmrests on either side of the trackpad and the gaps in the keyboard.
Media and software
Unlike the Macbook Air and the ASUS Zenbook, the U300s compromises a bit on the display, which offers a 1366x768 resolution, a tad lower than the Air's 1400x900 display. I watched a few 720p videos on the screen, and while clarity and sharpness is not an issue, videos did tend to look a bit washed out, and lacked the vibrancy of the Air's display. Thankfully, the screen isn't too reflective, and it was visible from a number of ‘sideways' viewing angles, giving it the seal of approval for group-watching.
It was a relief that the speakers provided loud and clear sound quality, but at high volume levels, sound often tended to be ‘tinny'. Those were the only occasions I felt the need to use headphones.
The 1.3-meg webcam comes with YouCam software with the standard bunch of effects, but was very poor in artificial lighting. Thankfully, the laptop isn't pre-loaded with bloatware, but you do get Google Chrome pre-installed as well as Microsoft Office Starter (Trial version), both useful. There's a really handy program called Easy Notes, which lets you jot down thoughts and reminders on colour coded notes. You can bring up the program with a four finger swipe to the right, and scroll through the notes using three fingers. Another handy addition is Intel Wi-Di, which lets you wirelessly stream content up to 1080p from your ultrabook to a compatible television or monitor.
Performance
The unit I was reviewing was running a 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M CPU and had 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. There is a higher-end variant with the same amount of RAM, but a more powerful 1.8GHz Core i7-2677M CPU and 256GB of SSD storage, which will be available in India early next year. The U300s is powered by RapidDrive SSD boot technology, which promises super-fast boot speeds. My timer showed a very impressive 15 second boot – one of the fastest I've seen on any laptop so far. The U300s is also an incredibly zippy machine, and didn't slow down even when I ran Google Chrome, streamed YouTube videos and downloaded large files simultaneously. That's the kind of machine most of us would like to have – no hanging and no slow starts. The great part about the U300s is that it doesn't heat up – it actually cools through vents at the side and air dissipates even through the keyboard – though that's not visible. Battery life is pretty good too, lasting close to 5 hours. The NovaBench benchmarking score for the Lenovo Ideapad U300s hovered at 473, which seemed to be the average for the ultrabooks we tested.
Our verdict
Lenovo's first attempt at a relatively young product is pretty impressive. What it lacks for in snazzy looks is made up by solid hardware, great performance and good battery life. The price is a bit on the high side, but if you're looking for a cheaper version of the Macbook Air that can match its performance, the U300s is the best option right now. Expect to see future versions that will give the competition some serious migraines.
Love: Sturdy build, fast boot-up, good keyboard
Hate: Average screen, no SD card slot, no backlit keyboard
Rs 67,990
Acer Aspire S3
Mahananda Bohidar
There is no disputing the lure of an attractive, lightweight companion. No, I'm not telling you who you should be dating next. I'm only talking about the handful of ultrabook s that are slowly making their way into the Indian market.
Acer Inc. is one of the few players in the ultrabook market right now, which will see many more entrants in the following months.
Here are my first impressions, after playing around with the Acer Aspire S3, the company's first ultrabook.
Something new, something borrowed
Intel has laid down the skeleton around which every ‘ultrabook ' has to be designed. Aimed at taking on its capable competitor, Apple's MacBook Air series, each ultrabook has to more or less fulfil five requirements. Basically, it's not an Ultrabook if it's not light-weight, if it doesn't have quick processing and loading times, if the battery flashes red too soon and if it takes two months' salary to own.
The Acer Aspire S3 weighs in at a little less than 1.5 kg. You can pick it up with one hand every now and then, without having to worry about triggering off Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It's noteworthy that you can actually hold it up by one hand, in the first place; some models require real effort with two.
The notebook has a 13.3-inch HD LED display with a lid and bezel crafted out of aluminum. The default aspect ratio of the display is 16:9, ideal for watching movies on. During the couple of weeks I had it with me, I watched endless episodes of ‘Two And A Half Men' and a bunch of movies. The viewing angles on the laptop were pretty average. What turned out to be a real letdown was the sound quality, particularly the volume levels. This, despite the unit featuring a pair of professionally tuned speakers with Dolby Home Theater v4. The fact that the speakers are placed at the bottom of the laptop didn't help the situation at all.
Design
The Power button has found an unusual place on the Acer Aspire S3 – it sits on a slim panel right between the screen and the keyboard. The Bluetooth and battery power indicators are located to its right. It was interesting to note that all three buttons could be accessed even when the lid was shut, so it not only makes for a quick glance to check if you need to plug the power cord in but also to quickly switch the laptop on/off. The unibody trackpad on the S3 supports basic multi-touch gestures like pinch-to-zoom. It looks sleek but seems like it's acting out every once in a while – detecting multi-touch gestures when you didn't intend any.
The island-style keyboard on the laptop is well laid out. However, the keyboard, like the Lenovo U300s, is not backlit. This is a bit of an inconvenience if you want to access any of the functions in the dark, for example, whenever I wanted to lower the volume while watching a movie, with the lights off, I had to flash my phone's torchlight or lower the lid to illuminate a bit of the keyboard. Also, there's a cluster of keys on the right extreme of the keyboard that includes Page up/Down and the function button to adjust volume and brightness levels. This space seems a little cramped and takes some getting used to.
One of the biggest pluses of the Acer Aspire S3 was the fact that it barely had any heating issues. I used it for hours on end, till the battery gave way, but it never felt like that ultrabook was any warmer than it should ideally be. The company attributes this to the design principles it has adopted. All the heat generating components have been placed away from the palm rest and touchpad area, and warm air is funnelled away from the back. They have also enabled venting throughout the keyboard to keep the system cool. And, the vent-free bottom allows it to be used comfortably on a lap or pillow without obstructing air flow.
Performance
The Acer Aspire S3 runs Intel's mid-range 2nd generation Core i5 processor. The graphics capabilities are taken care of by Intel HD Graphics 3000. The laptop has a 320GB hard drive and 4GB of memory. It is currently the only Ultrabook on the market to include both a solid state and hard disk drive.
One drawback, depending on your connectivity needs, might be the limited number of ports with which this Ultrabook is endowed. Two USB ports, an HDMI port, a multi-media card reader and the quintessential 3.5mm jack are all the options you have to plug in to on this machine. Over the weeks that we used the Acer Aspire S3, we realised that the battery life this delivers outdoes many other regular laptops in the block. At medium brightness, Wi-Fi connected and multimedia playing, the laptop gave us company for close to 6 hours before we had to plug the power source in.
Response time is right on top of the priority list if you look at Intel's eligibility criteria for Ultrabook s. It was a pleasant surprise then to realise that the Acer Aspire actually took very little time to wake up from sleep, just about 3-4 seconds. The boot up time, on an average, clocked in at 27-28 seconds and with all programs turned off, it took about 8-9 seconds to power down.
I ran the NovaBench benchmarking test on the Acer Aspire S3 and it gave us an aggregate of 476 points. The software tested the unit's RAM speed and CPU, graphics and hardware performance.
One last word
I'll admit that the idea of an ultrabook holds a lot of promise. It covers up all the little niggles that one would otherwise have with a regular laptop. “It's too bulky to be carried around” or “It takes forever to boot up” will probably be sentences long forgotten if you happen to own an ultrabook in the near future. The only thing you might have to compromise on is the acoustics and the tactile experience. Almost everything else – from the battery life to portability to power – is more or less taken care of well by the Acer Aspire S3.
Love: Lightweight, long battery life
Hate: Bad volume levels, average screen
Rs 49,500
