Thinkpad Edge
Those looking for a decent cheap laptop that’s portable and powerful with a great (albeit new design for Lenovo) keyboard really may need to look no further. I was looking for a thin/light that was better to use everyday compared to my MSI Wind U100 netbook and easier to carry everywhere compared to my Gateway 7905u gaming monster. Looking at the Dell Vostro v13 (very nice by the way) and the Thinkpad Edge, I was intrigued by the lower cost AMD-powered option that Lenovo had but couldn’t find any benchmarks for it. Since it was significantly cheaper than the Intel version, I took a gamble on it. If you check out the Engadget and Gizmodo reviews, it looks like the Intel version is a pretty good ~1600 or so on the GeekBench overall score. I haven’t installed anything yet (besides Chrome) so I closed all apps and ran GeekBench. Two runs produced a 1567 and a 1598 score which is pretty darn good considering this is the 3gig RAM version with the 5400rpm hard drive. A quick swap to a 7200rpm or SSD would help boost performance even more!
To clarify the stats on mine: AMD Athlon Neo X2 L325 dual cores @ 1.5ghz, 3gigs RAM, 250gig 5400rpm hard drive
I don’t want to rehash what’s already been well-said at the other review sites, so in short:
- Great choice for a thin/light laptop with adequate power for day-to-day usage
- Aesthetically pleasing (to me, at least!)
- Good value since the AMD versions can be had for < $600 with free shipping from some places
I may update this later as I add VMware and probably dual-boot Linux or FreeBSD to let you know how those work out!