Lenovo officially announced the arrival of its much-anticipated ThinkPad X300 notebook computer on Tuesday, bringing to market the company's thinnest, lightest notebook to date and giving Apple's MacBook Air an ultra-thin competitor.
Weighing in as low as 2.9 pounds, the ThinkPad X300 is about three-quarters of an inch thick at its thinnest point and features a 13.3-inch LED backlit display, a removable battery and a built-in DVD burner. The X300 also has WiMax, WLAN and GB Ethernet connectivity as well as GPS capabilities.
The notebook has a 64 GB solid state drive and Intel's Centrino with vPro technology and up to 4 GB of memory.
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| Slide Show: The X300 |
The X300 is Research Triangle Park-based Lenovo's first Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold-rated product, the highest designation for electronics products that meet EPEAT's list of environmentally-friendly requirements like using recycled materials and reducing energy consumption by generating less heat and using more energy-efficient processors.
"This is meant for our customers that value mobility, productivity and that want a notebook that is also going to be environmentally friendly and environmentally responsible," said Tom Ribble, director of ThinkPad marketing. "This is meant to be the thinnest and lightest full-function notebook in its class."
The product hits the streets just over a month after Steve Jobs launched Apple's MacBook Air ultra-thin notebook computer at the 2008 MacWorld Expo. Apple's ultra-thin notebook measures 0.76 inches at its thickest, about the same as Lenovo's thinnest measurement, but has been criticized for lacking an optical drive, having a battery that can't be replaced, and sporting a single USB port that users have found awkward.
Neil Popli, CEO of San Francisco-based Lenovo reseller Microgear, said that he thinks the ThinkPad X300 has superior features to the MacBook Air.
"MacBook Air doesn't have a multimedia drive. You can't change the battery," he said. "The whole idea is that you can carry multiple batteries if needed [Having a fixed battery like the MacBook Air] has never made sense to me," Popli said.
"I see it as a really good fit for enterprise executives. You don't need more than 64 GB of storage space. I doubt that most people have more than 64 GB on your hard drive unless you're an engineer, and in that case you probably wouldn't be using this product," Popli said. "It's not going to be a leader, it's not going to be a workhorse, but I do see a market for it definitely.
Pricing for the ThinkPad X300 begins at $2,799.
