Hot Air

An email I received today from Lenovo about the newly released ThinkPad X300 states the following:

“The no-compromise, ultraportable, 13.3″ widescreen notebook with an optional integrated DVD drive and 3 USB ports, starting at just 2.9lb. Everything else is just hot air.”

Let us compare this final, taunting sentence with the X300 review from CNET, which states that, in every benchmark test they performed, the MacBook Air beats not only the X300, but also the Toshiba R500 and the HP Compaq 2710p. In one way, this is not a surprising piece of news given that the Air uses a regular, desktop-class Core 2 Duo processor, running at 1.6-1.8ghz, and not a low-power version (e.g. the SL7100), running at 1.2ghz, as in the X300. However, the fact remains that Lenovo is marketing itself as superior to the MacBook Air, when in reality it is inferior in terms of performance. There are a number of reasons you may buy a X300 over an Air, especially if you need a DVD burner or are especially rough on your laptops (that hybrid roll cage looks impressive). I like ThinkPads. I use one daily as part of my work. If I’m going to buy a PC laptop it’s going to be a ThinkPad. But the Air is currently a better performing machine, which is a significant fact in the current explosion of subnotebooks.