Lenovo takes on the MacBook Air with its X300 ultra-portable
Topping the MacBook Air in features but not price, Lenovo has announced its answer to the ultra-portable laptop, the ThinkPad X300.
At 0.75-inches thick, and 2.9 pounds in weight, Lenovo's Thinkpad X300 shaves a tremendous amount of girth from the company's traditionally boxy laptops. Precisely what class this model belongs to is somewhat mysterious because of this.
The X300 is equipped with an Intel Centrino processor with vPro technology, a 1.8-inch solid state hard drive with up to 64GB of storage, a 13.3-inch LED backlit WXGA+ high resolution display, 3G wireless, gigabyte Ethernet and even WiMax connectivity.
Unlike Apple's lightweight offering, Lenovo's latest falls into the "full-featured" category, which means it comes with an optional 7mm slim DVD burner, a feature which many users require if only for a sense of comfort. Supplied to further ease consumers' minds, the X300 comes standard with a fingerprint scanner, I/O port disablement and 32-byte password protection for enhanced security.
"It's a real study in contrast going back and forth between the X300 and the MacBook Air. While they're both in the same core category of device from a 50,000 foot view, they really will appeal to different market segments and purchase funnels," remarked JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg.
LG's 13.3-inch UMPC will provide more competition to the X300 and MacBook Air later this year. The Korean company's own P300 U has a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T7500 processor, 2GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M graphics card. That unit weighs slightly more than the X300 or MacBook Air, at 3.9 pounds. Neither price nor release date have yet been confirmed by LG.
Lenovo's X300 starts at $2,799 USD and is available immediately through Lenovo's Web site, and through business partners. While the MacBook Air with solid-state hard drive runs more than that, Apple's base model with a traditional drive starts at only $1,799 USD.
