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ZIFFPAGE TITLEAt A Glance
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ZIFFPAGE TITLEFull Review
Within a three-month time span, Lenovo has launched three notebooks under its own brand: the Lenovo 3000 C100, the N100 and now the newest, the V100, the lightest of the three. With a 12-inch widescreen and an extended 56-Wh six-cell battery, the 4.4-pound V100 is a borderline ultraportable; and at just $1,649 direct, its one of the more affordable lightweights in this weight class.
The full-size keyboard provides one of the best typing experiences money can buy. I just wish Lenovo could have also found room for a TrackPoint rather than offering the V100s hit-or-miss touchpad. The V100s prize feature, however, is its built-in DVD+R dual-layer DVD burner—a luxury in a notebook this small. With it, you wont need to remember to carry around an external optical drive, as you do with the 3.2-pound Gateway E-100M. By comparison, the 3.6-pound HP Compaq nc2400 has a built-in optical drive and weighs less than the V100. Dont expect the speakers to be any good on a unit this small, but the V100s built-in fingerprint reader and Webcam help to make up for it. The tiny system also has three USB ports, a FireWire port, and VGA output.
Small businesses will appreciate the bundled management applications such as the Lenovo Care application, which is a toned-down version of the robust and feature-rich ThinkVantage suite.