New Notebook Model

he U110 comes with two batteries—an 18-Wh, four-cell model and a 57-Wh, seven-cell unit. The weight of the laptop varies, depending on which battery you use. To maximize battery life, you'll need both batteries with you. Swapping out one for the other is easy (no tools required). With the 18-Wh battery, the weight is a travel-friendly 2.4 pounds, about as light as the ASUS Eee PC 4G or the Toshiba Portégé R500 (SSD) with an optical drive. Replacing the 18-Wh battery with the 57-Wh unit brings the weight up to about 3 pounds, the same as the MacBook Air and the X300. The tiny AC adapter, which resembles a slightly thicker RAZR phone, is one of smallest I've ever seen; at just half a pound, it helps keep your travel load down. Together, this adapter and the extra battery weigh about as much as a standard adapter. In essence, by choosing the U110 over a laptop with a standard adapter, you're getting the extra battery "weight-free."

When you open the lid, the differences between the U110 and X300 become more apparent. Although the keyboard looks nothing like the traditional ThinkPad keyboards, it's very close to full size (97 percent) and is very comfortable to type on. It's reminiscent of those on the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC and the Editors' Choice–winning Sony VAIO VGN-SZ791N, which have barely any space between keys. Lenovo also decided to slap a coat of gloss across all the IdeaPad's keys, the palm rest areas, and the touchpad and mouse buttons. Details like this give the IdeaPads their own identity without compromising functionality. By contrast, the interior of the X300 is completely matte, sporting a look that means business.

The IdeaPad's 11-inch widescreen also receives a glossy treatment, which extends beyond the screen to the trimmings. This technique gives the IdeaPad a snazzy feel—almost like that of a miniature HDTV—without producing intolerable glare. (The HP Mini-Note's 9-inch screen comes with a similar glossy treatment.) Although the IdeaPad's screen is bright and colorful, it's significantly smaller than the 13-inch ones on the MacBook Air and the Lenovo X300, and it has a funky 1,366-by-768 resolution. It's the same screen as the one on the Sony VAIO VGN-TZ150N, with the same resolution—but at least the Sony laptop has an internal optical drive.

Lenovo does include an external dual-layer DVD drive. It's a little bulky, though; together with the AC adapter and the extra battery, that makes three accessories you may have to lug along with you. Maybe Lenovo left the optical drive out of the U110 because it didn't want to put it into direct competition with the X300. Still, the U110 is insanely portable when you don't need to bring along the external drive.

The U110 has an impressive range of features that you won't find on the MacBook Air. These include three USB ports, a FireWire port, an ExpressCard 34 slot, Ethernet, VGA-out, and a 6-in-1 card reader (MMC, MS, MS Pro, SD, SD Pro, xD). It doesn't, however, integrate a cellular modem, like the 3G options found on the X300 and the Sony TZ150N. Lenovo wants to give you reasons to buy the X300; hence the U110 doesn't offer solid-state drives (this might be a blessing, given their current exorbitant prices). Instead, you get a 120GB hard drive with a slow rotational speed (4,200 rpm).

The U110 has received two out of the three environmental certifications we take into account, namely Energy Star 4.0 and RoHS. It hasn't received an EPEAT rating yet. EPEAT certification requires the laptop to meet certain environmental criteria and the company to demonstrate that wastes and toxic chemicals have been eliminated from the system's production. Running a low-voltage processor is an energy-efficient slam dunk. Using a P3 International Kill A Watt meter, the U110 registered 13 watts during idle state, 1W less than the Energy Star requirement. At maximum strain, however, it consumed 2W more than the ThinkPad X300 and the Fujitsu LifeBook P8010. Despite the good energy readings, I'll put PC Magazine's Green Tech Approved seal on hold until Lenovo gets its EPEAT certification.

The U110's performance numbers are impressive. Its SYSmark 2007 Preview Overall score was better than that of the X300 and the Air by 6 percent and 31 percent, respectively. The 1.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 is essentially the same processor found on the Air, but it looks as if the U110 is actually running at 1.6 GHz—rumor on the forums has it that the Air's processor is running at a reduced speed. That's the only explanation I can think of to account for the Air's lower SYSmark 2007 Preview scores.

Helped by 2GB of RAM (expandable to 3GB), the U110's scores on Photoshop CS3 scripts, video-encoding tests, and CineBench R10 dramatically higher than those of the MacBook Air, the X300, and pretty much every ultraportable in the 3-pound range. Performance would have been more impressive had the U110 incorporated a faster hard drive, but I understand that size constraints would allow only a 1.8-inch form factor.

Great battery life is an absolute must on an ultraportable. The 18-Wh battery is feathery light, and the 1 hour 35 minutes it scored on MobileMark 2007 tests was utterly atrocious—hence the need for the extra battery. With the 57-Wh piece, the U110 achieved a respectable 4 hours 25 minutes. With the two batteries you get over 6 hours of battery life—but that means carrying both batteries.

I only wish the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 could be a little cheaper. Still, for its price, you get a handful of accessories that you wouldn't normally get with an ultraportable. Too many accessories can be a bad thing, but you can leave the external optical drive and the four-cell battery at home. Despite a sluggish hard drive, the U110 is tops in performance against many others in its weight class. Its features are solid, and the design is eye-catching. Lenovo took a long time to launch a consumer line, and although the U110 inherits little from the ThinkPad line, I really like the direction Lenovo has taken with the IdeaPads.

Superior tech support