Lenovo Thinkpad Edge continues IBM’s tradition

When Lenovo bought IBM’s PC division in 2005 I had concerns that the great line of Thinkpad notebooks had come to an end. I am very happy to say that I was wrong and one of the latest Thinkpads from Lenovo, the Edge, proves that yet again. Lenovo has kept the brand alive through not just good design but also quality construction.

I tried the 15.6-inch model, which is top of the range with 13.3 and 14-inch models available as well. One curious thing is that Lenovo apparently decided to make all of the displays the same resolution (1366 by 768 pixels) despite the difference in physical size. This unfortunately makes the larger size less attractive.

With the Edge Lenovo takes the IBM Thinkpad heritage and tries to make it a bit cooler. In design you clearly see it’s a Thinkpad but the display cover is brightly colored so it could even fit in a college dormitory. Lenovo also shows an almost Apple-like attention to detail in some elements of the design. For example, the dot in the “i” in Thinkpad on the lid lights up when the computer is on.

In performance there’s plenty for most business-oriented users: Intel Core i5 2.27GHz processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, and ATI Radeon 4500 graphics card with 512MB VRAM.  Although it won’t make much difference for many users it’s nonetheless good that Lenovo put Windows 7 Professional in the Edge. Especially corporate users should benefit from that.

Looking around the outside of the Edge you’ll find three USB ports, an optical drive (dual layer DVD burner), audio connection, SD card slot, HDMI out, VGA out, Ethernet and eSATA. One USB port sits on the back of the Thinkpad and it’s the only powered one, meaning you can charge your USB device from it. Although it’s typical that not all USB ports are powered it would be nice if they were. The SD card slot is well hidden on the front and you have to turn the computer over to find it. I think Lenovo could have made it more accessible.

The keyboard is a joy to type on and the multitouch trackpad works very well. I never really liked or understood the trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard but I know many Thinkpad enthusiasts swear by it.

The extended battery on the review Thinkpad gave me almost six hours of effective use with battery-saving mode enabled. That’s a very respectable amount of usage for typical tasks.

All in all the Lenovo Edge 15-inch continues the best of the Thinkpad tradition, throws in some exciting styling and decent performance. Although the screen resolution is disappointing this is a solid business notebook and the look will get your colleagues talking around the water cooler.

The missing apple in your car

Apple Inc. has conquered many areas of our personal and professional lives. Indeed, our homes are increasingly full of Macs: we use iPods for listening to music, iPhones for making phone calls and of course the iPad is making itself known in areas we couldn’t even imagine just a short while ago.

But there is one area where Apple is still conspicuous with its absence and that is the car. I guess we could venture to speculate that Steve Jobs just isn’t that interested in cars and is thinking that Apple shouldn’t be bothered. Perhaps that’s true but we regularly see photos of his fancy Mercedes captured in various places in Silicon Valley.

There can be no doubt that the automotive industry is huge business with around 60 million cars sold worldwide in 2009. Increasingly, electronics is playing a part of that to the point of being a critical part of the purchasing decision. I recently talked to a manager at AGMC, the BMW agency in Dubai and the Northern Emirates and he said that customers are looking at what digital and electronic gear is on offer when deciding what to buy. It’s safe to assume that will only keep growing in importance.

Fact remains that Apple is really nowhere to be seen in terms of the electronics that’s built-in to cars. There are plenty of options for connecting an iPhone or iPod to a car’s system but Apple offers nothing that car manufacturers can put in from the factory. In contrast, Microsoft is very active with their Automotive platform, which goes into Ford’s Sync. Sync you can get in select Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models. Recently I had the pleasure of test driving a Ford Taurus with Sync and although it was a good experience I can’t help but feeling that Apple could do better.

However, I doubt that Apple will venture into car-electronics even though they could do amazing things in this space. A friend of mine put a Mac mini in his Mini Cooper some years ago. With a small touch sensitive LCD screen in the dashboard, he could control most of the car’s system from the Mac. For sure, it was a great way to start a discussion at parties but it was also surprisingly functional and useful. More recently people have mounted iPads in cars, which may not be as useful but pretty cool nonetheless.

Arguably the automotive industry is one of the few remaining areas that Apple Inc. has left to conquer. Whether they will or not, only some minds in their Cupertino campus knows. I will just say, “watch this space” as there may be some interesting developments ahead.

This article was originally published in Khaleej Times.