Lenovo's IdeaPad U110 barges into arty high-end subnotebook party
Lenovo's IdeaPad U110 slips into an attractive but rarefied niche: the high-end, art-covered subnotebook. Occupying a space just below the popular 13.3-inchers like the MacBook, it's the Sony Vaio TZ's traditional turf — the newcomer's intricate etchings go toe to toe with the Vaio Art and Graphic Splash editions. Even design-neutral Fujitsu recently put a strange pattern on the lid of it's own entry in the 11-12 inch pack.
"It's a distinct looking notebook," said Michael Kuptz, a VP at Lenovo's consumer business group. "... People immediately gravitate toward the piano style keyboard, the screen, the texture."
I got a hands-on myself at CES, and can vouch for Kuptz' talking points: with the U110, Lenovo's definitely getting well out of IBM territory.
With an 11.1" widescreen display, 2 or 3GB of RAM, up to 120GB of hard drive space, stereo speakers and, on the extended battery, 8 hours of waking life, it's capably specced, though it's high time that WWAN was an option on all subnotebooks, especially expensive ones like this.
It has no optical drive, however, making it lighter than other recent models at its size, lighter even than the MacBook Air: 2.3 lbs. This gives it a certain distinction, in that it's about as light as the Asus Eee, and as small as you can go without shrinking a keyboard, but is a reasonably powerful laptop. Just remember to get an XP downgrade disk.
Ethernet, 802.11n and optional bluetooth round out the deal.
I found that the keyboard, with its slick, shiny surface, presents a mild learning curve. The model at CES was slathered in fingerprints, though it had been pawed by countless attendees before I got my hands on it: let's hope it comes with a nice cloth.
At $1,900 and up, the U110 is pricier than the TZ, Fuji's P8010 and other similarly-featured subnotebooks. It comes in black and whore red.
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Could someone clarify what a "piano style keyboard" is, or provide a pointer to an explanation? Quick websearch didn't find that phrase in conjunction with Lenovo, and indeed mostly found MIDI devices.
Basically, it's just their marketing phrase for "shiny black plastic."
It *is* pretty, albeit with that greasy-fingers problem. The flatness wasn't, to my recollection, altogether successful. It feels much better than such overdesigned keyboards usually are--each key has a subtle curve that allows for touchtyping--, but would take a bit of getting used to.
Honestly, I like whore red.
Widescreen display, no optical drive..WTF? Widescreen is inferior in every way except for watching DVDs, which this thing can't do.
It comes with an external USB optical. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
Mappo's kind of right about the no built in optical. Except that widescreens are great for watching divx rips too, not just dvds.