Mossberg: "I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation"
Walt's full review of the Lenovo Thinkpad X300 is now available. As usual for the man, you also get the bonus (or burden) of a detailed comparison with Apple's competing product which in this case is the MacBook Air. For those of you who remember Walt's MacBook Air review, that quote -- "I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation" -- stands in stark contrast to Mr. Mossberg's take on Apple's beautiful but compromised ultra-portable. As Walt points out, the biggest differences between the two are the selection of ports, built-in DVD or second battery, and a removable main battery afforded by the X300's relatively thick chassis. Of course, the choice of OS is also a consideration since the X300 can't run OS X while the MBA can run Vista. Walt does lament the fact that the X300 is only offered with an SSD. As such, it's limited to a maximum of 64GB of storage and contributes to the X300's relatively high price tag. It starts at $2,500 with a stripped-down, half-sized battery and no DVD -- $3,000 gets you the more popular full-sized battery and DVD config. Walt's aggressive, full-size battery tests resulted in "weaker battery life" at 3 hours and 5 minutes compared to the MBA's 3 hours and 29 minutes. That said, the Lenovo easily trumps the MBA with 5 hours and 15 minutes of juice when configured with both a full-sized and half-sized battery. The choice seems pretty clear at this point: form or function, which will it be sir?
[Thanks, Jacob L.]
