Lenovo V200 Ultraportable First Thoughts Review (Video)

Lenovo today released the V200 12.1" screen notebook that includes the new Intel Centrino Duo (Santa Rosa) platform, it's one of the first ultraportable form factor laptops to incorporate this new platform. The great thing about the V200 is that you get a fully fledged (as in not low voltage) Core 2 Duo processor, optical drive, web camera and generous selection of ports in a stylish and usable form factor. Following is a quick first take on the Lenovo V200.

Lenovo 3000 V200 12.1" screen ultraportable notebook (view large image)

Build and Design

The Lenovo V200 is basically the same as the proceeding V100 in terms of build and design. The rear of the V200 has a rounded shape that's different and I think fair to say stylish in its look.

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The build is mostly plastic in nature, but is not flimsy by any means. It strikes a balance between being a budget built notebook and a more rugged ThinkPad offered by Lenovo.

The keyboard is full sized and definitely very nice to use. Again not quite on par with a ThinkPad keyboard, but certainly approaching that kind of quality.

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The V200 doesn't use any type of latch to close the lid, just a firm hinge closing mechanism that works well.

Below is a video with comparison of the Lenovo V200 12.1" notebook to the Lenovo ThinkPad R61 15.4" notebook so you get an idea of how it stacks up:

Ports and Features

When shopping for an ultraportable notebook you'll find that about half the laptops in this category have an optical drive, while the other super slim variety does away with the optical drive in favor of making the system as thin and light as possible. The V200 falls on the side of having an optical drive, I personally think this is very handy to have.

The port selection of the V200 is very good. Above this line view a video that tours the ports on the notebook, and if you prefer to read here's a quick rundown of what you get:

• 3 USB 2.0 ports (one on the left, one on the right, one on the back -- nicely spread out)
• Monitor out port
• ExpressCard 54 slot
• IEEE 1394 / FireWire port
• Headphone / line-out port
• Microphone in port
• Ethernet LAN port
• Modem port
• SD card slot reader

You also get some nice dedicated hardware buttons such as wireless on/off on the right side, volume up/down buttons, volume mute, Windows Media quick launch button and Lenovo Care application quick launch button.

To top these features off you get integrated biometric security via a finger print reader and an integrated 1.3MP web camera that is of impressive quality.

Performance

You can configure up to a 2.20GHz Core 2 Duo T7500 processor with the V200 and it comes with the new Intel X3100 integrated graphics solution.

Our Lenovo V200 had the following specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB
• 12.1 inches WXGA VibrantView TFT with integrated 1.3MP camera (1280x800)
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
• 2GB PC2-5300DDR2 SDRAM
• 160GB 5400rpm Serial ATA
• 8X Max DVD Recordable (Dual Layer) PATA Fixed Media Bay drive
• Integrated fingerprint reader
• Bluetooth Version 2.0 + EDR,Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
• Dimensions Width 12.0" x Depth 10.2" x Height 1.25"
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

The Core 2 Duo T7300 performed impressively when calculating Pi to 2-million digits of accuracy using Super Pi

Super Pi Comparison Results

Though the V200 is of course not intended as a gaming notebook for 3D-performance, we ran 3DMark06 on the machine and found that it actually holds its own and compares with last generation low-end dedicated graphics solutions

3DMark06 Comparison results

Overall the initial take on the Lenovo V200 is very positive, but the honeymoon is only several hours old, so we'll be back in the coming weeks with a full rundown and review of this notebook -- stay tuned!