Lenovo Thinkpad SL400

Usually, ThinkPads don't come cheap. You expect to pay dearly for the classy keyboard, rugged chassis, and whatever top-notch parts lie under the hood. That's not quite the case with Lenovo's SL400 series of laptops.

These affordable, all-purpose machines start in the neighborhood of $650 and yet still offer much of the look and feel you'd expect from a more expensive ThinkPad. The SL400 model we received for evaluation was at on the upper end of the series, selling for about $1223 as of October 23, 2008, and it's a fairly solid deal.

Inside lies a reasonably speedy Intel Core2 Duo 2.26-GHz P8400 CPU backed up by 2GB of RAM and a 256MB nVidia GeForce 9300M GPU. Not too shabby. In our tests, this combination performed well, garnering a score of 84 on our WorldBench 6 benchmark test suite. That's well short of the Micro Express Microflex JFL 9290, which notched a 92, but it makes a strong enough showing to finish near the top.

Lenovo rolled out the SL400 before nVidia unveiled its GeForce 9400M, which debuted in the new Apple MacBooks--and the laptop suffers for its bad timing, as nimbler graphics processors will soon appear in new all-purpose notebooks.

Still, this Lenovo is a good performer for the price. Its six-cell battery kept the SL400 working for a little over 5 hours on a single charge--that's plenty of juice to keep you at the keyboard nonstop during a cross-country flight. The laptop's layout, screen, and beefy-meets-boxy 6.1-pound case indicate that Lenovo was shooting for a "strictly business" approach here.

A matte treatment on the screen does a good job of preventing sunlight from bouncing back in your face. The 14.1-inch, 1440-by-900-pixel-resolution panel is amply bright when cranked up all the way, but it's a tad dim in its native habitat (a standard fluorescent-lit office). As a result, in most settings, you'll be tempted to crank it up to full intensity, which unfortunately muddies the colors a little. On the bright side (pun fully intended), you can adjust the brightness for Video Playback mode (or any of five other default settings--or text size) with one click on a Lenovo application in the taskbar.

The SL400 has a fairly full-featured layout for an all-purpose machine. Four USB slots-- two on the left, two on the right--adorn the machine. HDMI- and VGA-out ports cover higher- and lower-end video support. In addition, you get a fingerprint reader, a Webcam, a four-pin FireWire port, a WWAN card, and GPS. The hard-drive bay is easy to unscrew, and popping in a replacement is equally effortless. Less pleasingly, this budget-minded business laptop has a boxier, less-rigid (though still sturdy) case than most ThinkPads have.

You won't buy this notebook for hi-definition audio, either. Music sounds slightly tinny (and hollow), though it got loud enough to distract my neighboring cubemates. Video streamed from Hulu sounded fine, but not robust enough for me to forgo headphones.

One corner that remains uncut is the SL400's keyboard, which--in the tradition of superb ThinkPad keyboards--is solid and buttery smooth to the touch. There was no loud clicker-clack as I typed away on the nigh-silent keyboard, and at the same time I could readily discern every key.

Another familiar ThinkPad trend: The SL400 has both a touchpad and a touch-point navigation device; not many laptops provide both these days. A couple of multimedia shortcut keys appear on the left side of the keyboard, but alt-function keyboard combos handle basic volume controls and practically everything else (for example, Fn + down arrow is the combination for Play/Pause multimedia). The one button to rule them all: a helpful blue backlit key that links to the Lenovo Cares utility suite.

The depth and breadth of the ThinkPad's software bundle goes well beyond what you normally get at first powerup. Many laptops content themselves with a 60-day trial of MS Office or some obnoxious antivirus package. Here, you receive a beefy Lenovo Cares application suite, which provides handy shortcuts and user-friendly apps without getting in your way. Everything from the ThinkVantage GPS tool (which tethers to Google Maps by default) to the proprietary Sidebar gadgets points to a well-conceived package.

Overall, the SL400 is a sound business laptop. Though it doesn't pack the firepower of some high-end machines, it gets the job done handily. Its combination of performance and value places it near the top of our charts.

Acer Travelmate 6293

Performance-wise, the TravelMate 6293 rocks. Its battery life is Energizer really amazing. Equipped with a powerful 7200-mAh battery, the laptop lasted 3 minutes shy of 8 hours in our tests. Just stick this baby in a backpack or briefcase and walk out the door declaring Outlet Freedom Day. The results are far better than what we've seen from any other all-purpose portable on the scene. Heck, because of its diminutive size, we were this close to comparing it with a Lenovo ThinkPad X200.
The speed of the TravelMate 6293 is good too. The 2.26-GHz Core 2 Duo P8400-equipped unit with 2GB of RAM turned in a pretty impressive WorldBench 6 score of 90, so it should be able to handle any type of work swiftly, limited only by the shared video memory. Lack of a dedicated graphics card is an unfortunate characteristic of small laptops that effectively eliminates gaming; the memory is just too sparse to support 3D shooters with fancy shading.
Of course, small screens don't lend themselves to entertainment, either, but the 12.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel, wide-aspect display is fine for any other job you care to squeeze into those small quarters. It's crisp, reasonably bright, and glossy, but it won't hurt your eyes under office lights.
Topping the TravelMate 6293's keyboard are seven helpful quick-launch buttons. All are preprogrammed for such activities as setting the system password, launching the onboard backup utility, and starting your e-mail program and Web browser. A nice touch is that one button triggers the Launch Manager itself, which saved me worlds of time poking around various utilities and system-tray icons attempting to find the program that would let me reset the buttons to start my own favorite apps. Overall the keyboard is well laid out and easy to type on. The touchpad is small but zippy and easy to use. Only the mouse buttons--particularly short to make room for the fingerprint reader between them, and extremely stiff--are a distraction.
At 4.6 pounds--not including the power brick, which makes the total weight 5.4 pounds--the TravelMate 6293 is a tad heavy for an ultraportable but fairly light for an all-purpose machine. (The extra beef pushes it into the all-purpose category, since it weighs over 4 pounds.) Obviously designed for corporate jetsetters restricted by a budget, it also lacks a FireWire port (which would have been handy for fast digital downloads) and sports the older PC Card slot instead of an ExpressCard slot.
In the plus column, the laptop does have a nice, big, 250GB hard drive, plus conveniences such as dedicated Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi switches and a built-in Webcam. The storage and memory are fully user-upgradeable--great news for rapid IT deployment.
The TravelMate 6293 also includes other features important to bottom-line-conscious corporate buyers, such as a gigabit ethernet connection and a standard DVD recorder (rather than a pricey high-definition optical drive).

If you take a look at the all-purpose category, you'll see that not many machines go for under $1000--and those that do, such as the Toshiba Satellite U405-S2854 or the Sony VGN-NR485, are much bulkier by comparison. The TravelMate 6293 might not have all the cutting-edge features, but no laptop makes better use of a battery for carefree wireless computing. If work keeps you out of the office most of the day, put this $999 plain Jane at the top of your list.

Sony Vaio TT

Stylish 11.1-inch ultraportable laptop with integrated 3G
Probably the best ultraportable (a pile of) money can buy!!

Sony's T series has always represented the ultimate in ultraportable computing. The latest incarnation, dubbed the TT, epitomises everything the series stands for: it's attractive, has great connectivity and is highly portable. It doesn't come cheap, though. SonyStyle.co.uk is selling the entry-level machine for a cool £1,399, while the top of the range model commands a quite staggering £2,799.

Design
The Vaio TT is very compact in size, sitting somewhere between the largest netbooks and the smallest ultraportables. The chassis measures 279mm by 23mm by199mm and weighs just 1.3kg, making it ideal for lugging to and from business meetings.

Sony has done an exceptional job styling the TT -- it's right up there with the best laptop in any category. The entry-level TT 15V version is available in 'gold fever' or -- for an extra £10 -- red finishes. The mid-range TT 15W and high-end 15X, meanwhile, come in matte black (or Intense Noir as Sony calls it). We're particularly fond of this option since it doesn't attract fingerprint smudges or grease in the same way many rival laptops do, so it stays cleaner for longer.

Open the lid and you'll be greeted by the same Intense Noir colour scheme and an isolated keyboard with keys that are slightly smaller than the norm. However, there is a 2mm gap between each key, so if you're a little off with your aim, you're less likely to hit an adjacent key by mistake. This works well in practice, with high-speed touch typing a definite possibility for those who are capable.

Sony's got the mouse right, too. The trackpad is relatively large and smooth and has dedicated swipe zones at the far right and bottom edges for scrolling vertically and horizontally with a simple gesture. The selector buttons, which are typically very small on laptops of this type, are good too -- they're actually bigger than those you'd find on many desktop-replacement laptops and have a smooth action.

The number of ports on the TT is about right, all things considered. On the left side there two USB ports, a four-pin iLink (aka FireWire) port, an ExpressCard slot, and behind a flap labelled 'HDMI', there are HDMI and Ethernet ports. The flap, which is tethered to the chassis, looks rather unsightly when hanging loose, but at least it keeps dust and debris from two of the laptop's most important ports. On the right lives a D-Sub video output port and DVD rewriter drive, which is a huge bonus for a machine of this size.

Features
There are four off-the-shelf, and three user-configurable versions of the TT. The latter group includes the £1,380 entry-level TT 15V, the £1,888 mid-range 15W and the £2,798 high-end TT 15X. The TT 15V and 15W come with 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs plus 1GB and 2GB of RAM respectively, while the TT 15X ships with a quicker 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo and 4GB of RAM. The performance delta between these systems isn't enormous, but if you're more interested in running demanding applications than prolonging battery life, you can upgrade to the 1.4GHz model for an extra £50, prolonging battery life.

Storage isn't a primary concern on laptops of this type, since the TT is more likely to be a second PC than your main computer. It's therefore no surprise to learn the TT 15V uses a 120GB hard drive -- the TT 15W uses a 160GB model. We personally wouldn't bother buying the larger drive, since that extra 40GB will cost you £110. If you really do need extra storage, there's always the option to upgrade the drive yourself, or buy a USB hard drive or memory card. Likewise, we'd be reluctant to spend an extra £580 on the 128GB solid-state drive. SSDs theoreticaly provide quicker disk access and use less power, but they offer much less storage for your money.

All versions of the TT ship with an 8x dual-layer DVD rewriter drive, so you can watch DVD movies and make backups of up to 8.5GB in size.

Ordinary DVDs look fantastic on the 11-inch display anyway. This has a native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels, so DVDs are scaled up to match this, while 1080p video is scaled down. It is bright, has good colour reproduction, and the glossy X-Black finish isn't so glossy it prevents use outdoors.


One crucial aspect of the TT's specification is its wireless WAN capability. The mid- and high-end models come with integrated 3G modems as standard -- users simply have to insert their own 3G SIM into a dedicated slot beneath the battery to enjoy wireless Internet access wherever they please. This feature can be installed on the entry-level TT15V for an extra £135, but if this isn't your cup of tea, you can always fall back on the 802.11g/n Wi-Fi adaptor, or connect to a Web-connected mobile phone via Bluetooth.

The TT15W and TT15X both come with a fingerprint reader for logging in without entering a password. This is linked to a trusted platform module (TPM), which provides an extra level of security. It can, for instance, encrypt your data in such a way that thieves cannot remove your hard drive and extract important files. The TT15V ships with Windows Vista Home Premium, but for an extra £60, Sony will swap that for Vista Business edition, which the TT15W and TT15V use as standard.

Performance
All versions of the TT offer balanced performance. They're by no means the quickest laptops in the world, but they're fast for their size and offer long battery life. The 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU in our TT15W clocked up 2,259 in the PCMark 2005 benchmark, so it's significantly quicker than your average netbook, which tend to score approximately 1,500. We didn't expect the graphics performance to be up to scratch, and it wasn't -- it achieved just 654 in the 3DMark 2006 benchmark, which is par for the course in any laptop using an integrated Intel solution.

If there's one thing the TT should be renowned for, it's its battery life. It lasted a very commendable 3 hours 51 minutes with its CPU running at full tilt in the Battery Eater classic benchmark. In the more relaxed reader test, it lasted a very impressive 6 hours 2 minutes. That's not exactly Sony's claimed 9 hours away from the mains, but it's highly impressive nonetheless.

Conclusion
If you have the money, you shouldn't hesitate to buy the TT, no matter which version you choose. It looks phenomenal, is comfortable to use and is exceptionally portable. Netbooks offer similar functionality for a fraction of the price, but if you're not affected by the credit crunch and don't mind people laughing at you for blowing so much cash on a second computer, you should definitely join the TT club