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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.
This article was originally published in Khaleej Times. -
iPad-like tablet and mystery device by MSI at DCC
We sat down with two guys from MSI at DCC. Green Lin, Marketing supervisor MEA channel marketing, and Alan Chu, Regional sales director MEA market, showed us a tablet looking similar to Apple’s iPad, which they said would launch at Computex in June. It’s going to run Windows 7 on an Intel Atom processor, but apparently specs are not yet finalized. The other device, which was a non-functional prototype, looked kind of like a netbook but instead of where the keyboard usually is, there was a second display. They said it could be used as a regular notebook in which case the lower display would work as a virtual keyboard. You will also be able to use it in vertical mode and read a book on one screen and do something else on the other or even span Windows across the two screens, as far as I could tell. This device will roll out sometime next year, if it even makes it that far through development. It’s a bit unfair to judge the device just yet as it’s not finalized but personally I think it’s exciting that more companies are coming out with tablets. This particular one is not as good looking as the iPad but if it has more functionality, quick performance like iPad, comparable battery life and a competitive price, it would be an interesting alternative. There’s certainly something appealing about running a full desktop OS on a touch tablet, something many have commented on in terms of iPad.
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Lenovo guides us around their portable line at DCC
Bilal Hamoui, 4P Manager at Lenovo MEEP (Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan) guided us around some of their portable products at DCC. He showed the Thinkpad Edge, Ideapad S10-3T and the Ideapad Y550. Lenovo has kept many of the characteristics that made the Thinkpad such a well-known brand under IBM and the Ideapad line of consumer products is shaping up to be a reputable brand in its own right.
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Dell talked about Alienware gaming computers at DCC
Alienware, Dell’s brand of gaming computers, was on display at DCC. Pearce Clune of Dell took us for a tour of the Alienware range, with a focus on the smallest of the bunch, M11x.
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Full range of Acer products on display at DCC
Acer, a major force in the personal computer market and a dominating company in portable computing, in particular netbooks, had their entire range of products on display at DCC.
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Demo Dell Latitude XFR
At Microsoft’s TechEd in Dubai, I got a demo of a rugged Dell Latitude XFR.
