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There has been much interest hovering around Lenovo's X300 for a few months now, but up to now, it's all been unofficial. Until now. As predicted, a full-featured machine will retail at around $2,799, but foregoing a few features will bring the price down a bit. The X300 has previously been compared to Apple's MacBook AIR, but it's difficult to make a direct comparison because both machines are quite different and both have various trade offs.
While the AIR is sleeker, lighter, a bit thinner and also offers better battery-life (the X300 can use two batteries to allow 8 - 10 hours worth, however), it's not as feature-rich as the X300, even at the base model. One of the biggest benefits of the AIR, though, is the ability to purchase with a standard hard drive, skipping over the expensive SSD. Although Lenovo is strictly going after the businessman, an option with a standard (and larger) 1.8" hard drive would have been appreciated.
In the X300's favor, a fully-equipped machine costs less overall when compared to the AIR's SSD offering. Extra features include a wired LAN, wireless USB, three USB ports and a DVD-RW drive. You could also upgrade to 4GB of RAM and still be under the AIR's $3,098 price point. The biggest selling-point to me, though, is that while both notebooks offer the same-sized display, the X300 has a higher resolution, at 1440x900.
But as another downside to the X300, one gripe I have is that is has a slower included CPU than the AIR (1.2GHz vs. 1.8GHz). Given that fully-configured, the X300 is more feature-rich overall when compared to the AIR, I am sure they had to cut corners somewhere, but seeing a faster processor as an option would have been nice to see at least. As it stands, no one has reviewed the notebook except for Walt Mossberg, so it's worth a look for an initial opinion.
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Lenovo has used that extra thickness to good advantage. While the MacBook Air’s extreme thinness makes it gorgeous, it left no room for an Ethernet jack, a removable battery, a built-in DVD drive or a cellphone modem. The X300 has all these things, either standard or as options, plus three USB ports, compared with just one for the Apple. The Lenovo even offers GPS location-finding, the ability to connect to new wireless USB devices and future support for a forthcoming wireless network standard called WiMax.
Source: AllThingsD
While the AIR is sleeker, lighter, a bit thinner and also offers better battery-life (the X300 can use two batteries to allow 8 - 10 hours worth, however), it's not as feature-rich as the X300, even at the base model. One of the biggest benefits of the AIR, though, is the ability to purchase with a standard hard drive, skipping over the expensive SSD. Although Lenovo is strictly going after the businessman, an option with a standard (and larger) 1.8" hard drive would have been appreciated.
In the X300's favor, a fully-equipped machine costs less overall when compared to the AIR's SSD offering. Extra features include a wired LAN, wireless USB, three USB ports and a DVD-RW drive. You could also upgrade to 4GB of RAM and still be under the AIR's $3,098 price point. The biggest selling-point to me, though, is that while both notebooks offer the same-sized display, the X300 has a higher resolution, at 1440x900.
But as another downside to the X300, one gripe I have is that is has a slower included CPU than the AIR (1.2GHz vs. 1.8GHz). Given that fully-configured, the X300 is more feature-rich overall when compared to the AIR, I am sure they had to cut corners somewhere, but seeing a faster processor as an option would have been nice to see at least. As it stands, no one has reviewed the notebook except for Walt Mossberg, so it's worth a look for an initial opinion.
<table align="center"><tbody><tr><td>
</td></tr></tbody></table>
Lenovo has used that extra thickness to good advantage. While the MacBook Air’s extreme thinness makes it gorgeous, it left no room for an Ethernet jack, a removable battery, a built-in DVD drive or a cellphone modem. The X300 has all these things, either standard or as options, plus three USB ports, compared with just one for the Apple. The Lenovo even offers GPS location-finding, the ability to connect to new wireless USB devices and future support for a forthcoming wireless network standard called WiMax.
Source: AllThingsD