BUY the IdeaPad U150 Laptop Computer - 690968U - Red - Intel Pentium- Dual-Core SU4100
LENOVO $649.00
see all pricing for the IdeaPad U150 Laptop Computer - 690968U - Red - Intel Pentium- Dual-Core SU4100
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
- Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 Processor (1.30GHz, 800MHz FSB, 3MB L2 cache)
- 4GB DDR3 SDRAM (1066MHz)
- 320GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
- 11.6-inch diagonal WXGA (glossy, 1366x768)
- Intel X4500M integrated graphics
- Intel 5100AGN, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- Dimensions: (LxWxH) 11.4 x 7.5 x 0.5-1.35 inches
- Weight: 2.97 lbs. (not including weight of AC adapter)
- 6-cell 57Wh battery
- One-year standard warranty
- MSRP: $749 (configurations starting at $649 at Lenovo.com)
Lenovo is best known for the ThinkPad line of business notebooks that the company inherited from IBM, but the new IdeaPad line of consumer-oriented laptops has managed to generate some buzz thanks to unique designs and a modest price. The Lenovo IdeaPad U150 continues that trend by offering an attractive 11-inch notebook that rivals the Dell Inspiron 11z and the HP Mini 311. Like most 11-inch notebooks currently on the market, the U150 walks the fine line between a full-featured notebook PC and an Intel Atom-based netbook. The U150 is larger and more powerful than the typical $400 netbook, but lacks the impressive features and size of a standard laptop with a high-end Core 2 Duo processor in the $650-$900 price range. That said, the U150 certainly offers an attractive design with a combination of matte black, glossy black, and glossy silver plastics.
Screen and Speakers
The 11.6" screen on the U150 is average, providing decent color and contrast but suffering from noticeably shallow viewing angles. Most thin-and-light notebooks come with low-quality TN display panels, but this display produces somewhat "pastel" colors using our test image. For standard activities like browsing the web or typing documents you don't really notice the color shift, but when viewing pictures or watching a dark movie the softer colors are a bit distracting. Vertical viewing angles are good until about 10 degrees forward or back when colors start to show visible shift. Horizontal viewing angles are a little better as colors remain essentially unchanged except at very steep angles. The screen backlight works very well under bright office lights, but the screen isn't quite powerful enough to overcome reflections off the glossy screen outdoors under direct sunlight.
The nearly full-size keyboard is great for typing and is about as good as you can expect on a notebook with an 11-inch chassis. The space bar is a little small and the tilde key has been shrunk to fit, but overall the keys feel like they are the size they should be. The editors in our office are evenly split between those of us who prefer the "Chiclet-style" keyboards that provide additional space between the keys and traditional keyboards like this one that offer larger keys. Honestly, keyboard preference is largely a matter of personal taste, so keep in mind that there are 11-inch notebooks with traditional keyboards and notebooks with Chiclet/island keys. The keyboard itself is quite firm and free of any flex even under heavy typing pressure. Each key emits a soft "click-clack" when pressed and isn't too disruptive for classroom typing. Key wiggle or travel is minimal and each key top is solidly attached to the scissor mechanism below. In short, the keyboard on the U150 is one of the nicer ones we've seen on an 11-inch notebook.
Ports and Features
Port selection is surprisingly good on the IdeaPad U150. You get VGA and HDMI-out, gigabit LAN, audio in/out, and an SDHC card slot, and three USB ports (two standard ports and one combo USB/eSATA). The eSATA port allows you to use much faster external hard drives with this notebook, and we're glad that Lenovo used a combo USB/eSATA port for those customers who need USB and don't use eSATA.
The front-mounted SDHC-slot is spring loaded, and unlike the card slot on the larger U350, this one allows the card to sit flush in the slot. When you fully insert a standard SDHC card into the slot it doesn't stick out. Don't expect to see a built-in optical drive in this notebook, so if you plan on reinstalling the OS or playing DVDs you will need to pick up an external USB optical drive. Multimedia keys are limited to a mute button and a direct access button to the Lenovo "OneKey" recovery software suite used for creating a system backup or recovering from a system crash.
System performance with the Intel SU7300 CULV processor is quite reasonable for most daily tasks such as web browsing, checking email, editing documents in Microsoft Office, or even basic photo editing. That said, we would have liked to see Lenovo overclock the SU7300 processor to 1.73GHz the same way ASUS and Alienware have done with some of their recent notebooks. Most programs take noticeably longer to load or access information compared to faster Core 2 Duo processors, but the SU7300 does offer the benefit of greater battery life compared to more powerful CPUs. Our test configuration comes with 4GB of memory and a reasonably fast 320GB hard drive, so this laptop certainly isn't as sluggish as most Intel Atom-based netbooks and packs enough performance for average PC users.
HD video playback works reasonably well thanks to the Intel X4500 integrated graphics, and the HDMI port lets you connect this notebook to your HDTV. That said, the U150 does suffer from some lag when we tried watching HD video while multitasking with a web browser and Microsoft Office. As previously stated, if this system included an overclocked version of the SU7300 dual-core processor then the lag might not have been an issue.
Having said all that, here is a quick look at the synthetic benchmarks so you can see how the IdeaPad U150 performs compared to other notebooks.
Wprime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):
PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):
3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):
HDTune storage drive performance test:
Heat and Noise
While most of the external surfaces of the IdeaPad U150 stayed within normal ranges, we did notice one hot spot next to the system RAM on our review unit. While the temperature wasn't horribly uncomfortable during periods of short use, the bottom of the notebook might get a little too hot for some users if you keep it on your lap for more than an hour at a time. Noise levels were about average for a computer of this size, but the fan might get on your nerves if you are used to a completely silent notebook. The U150 tends to keep its fan running all the time, either to keep case temperatures low or to keep the processor under a certain temperature range. Fan noise was only a little louder than the noise level of a hard drive, but if you have really good hearing it sounds like a distant hair dryer running in the background.
Battery life with the 6-cell battery and the SU7300 is quite good. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, Windows 7 set to the "balanced" power profile, and wireless active the system stayed on for 5 hours and 22 minutes before going into standby mode. Power consumption during this test floated between 9 and 10 watts. You can probably get more than six hours of battery life from this notebook if you lower the screen brightness to 30% or less and disable wireless when you're not online.
BUY the IdeaPad U150 Laptop Computer - 690968U - Red - Intel Pentium- Dual-Core SU4100
LENOVO $649.00
see all pricing for the IdeaPad U150 Laptop Computer - 690968U - Red - Intel Pentium- Dual-Core SU4100
The Lenovo IdeaPad U150 offers a terrific balance of portability and value combined with enough performance to satisfy most consumers. Compared to similar 11-inch ultraportables like the Dell Inspiron 11z, the U150 delivers a better keyboard and touchpad for a modest increase in price. On the other hand, the IdeaPad U150 looks a little underpowered and expensive compared to the new Alienware M11x, which offers superior graphics horsepower, a backlit keyboard, the addition of DisplayPort, and better build quality for roughly the same price.
Bottom line: If you need a basic netbook alternative with HDMI and eSATA then the IdeaPad U150 should probably be at the top of your shopping list.
Pros:
- Good value
- Includes eSATA!
- VGA and HDMI video output
- Average performance
- Weak plastic construction