CNET editors' take
- Reviewed on: 02/23/2006
- Updated on: 11/15/2009
When Lenovo took over IBM's PC business, there was some hand-wringing about what would happen to the beloved ThinkPad. Would users' favorite features, such as the best-in-class keyboard, eraser-head TrackPoint, and robust support package, be cannibalized in favor of a lower price? Today, just more than eight months after the purchase was completed, ThinkPads--with some wide-screen modifications--are still going strong, and Lenovo has co-opted some of the ThinkPad's key strengths into the new Lenovo 3000 line of budget systems for small business. While the new series' design looks distinctly different from Lenovo's current laptops, the first model in the series, the midsize C100, reads like that of a pared-down ThinkPad, with low- to midrange components and a suite of utilities based on Lenovo's ThinkVantage technologies. The Lenovo 3000 C100's price is similarly pared down; the least expensive C100 configuration costs a very budget-friendly $599.
Upside: The Lenovo 3000 C100 offers component options that range from bargain bin to midrange: Celeron or Pentium M processors (sorry, no Core Duo here); 5,400rpm hard drives from 40GB to 100GB; 256MB to 1GB of swift 533MHz RAM; and optical drives, including CD-ROMs and DVD burners. In addition to a ThinkPad keyboard, the C100's silver-and-black case incorporates pretty much every feature a business user will need, including four-pin FireWire and four USB 2.0 ports, a 3-in-1 flash card reader, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections, and optional Bluetooth. The laptop is backed by the same service and support as ThinkPads, and it will feature the new Lenovo Care suite of utilities (based on the company's ThinkVantage technologies) that streamline maintenance tasks, provide automatic updates, and offer one-button system recovery.
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