LENOVO THINKPAD W700 REVIEW

W700 leaps with a new professional approach

If Lenovo's looking at any solitary market with this piece of equipment, it's indisputably photographers: in no doubt, if you labor in any kind of intend the W700 could be an enormous workstation buddy, but with abundant storage space, an outstanding screen, a built-in digitizer, and an on-board color calibration coordination, Lenovo is obviously taking a undeviating shot at the comparatively closed and narrow-minded pro photo market.

Design
We've teasingly tagged the W700 "the workstation intended to make customary people feel small," and the name suits. With a trail measuring a munificent 16 by 12 inches, laboring with the W700 in reality on your lap is not actually advised. And disregard trying to take it on a plane – we're not certain that the Lenovo would fit in the overhead booth of a local jet, much less on the miniature tray table. Similarly, finding a casing for the W700 will almost positively necessitate shopping at the notebook bag equal of "big and tall" stores.

Performance
Lenovo furnished us with a high-spec (and, consequently, high-cost) review piece, maximizing the W700's graphics prospective. Our investigation mock-up came with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9300 processor, 4 GB of DDR3 memory, and the raised NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M graphics processor option. File storage space is courtesy of a couple of 160 GB, 7200 RPM hard drives configured by evasion in a RAID 0 arrangements that accommodates a single 320 GB storage space.

Sprinting a Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit OS environment further increases our test system's capabilities on the graphics end and offers some key upgrades (most particularly, enhanced color management integration) when evaluated to older XP systems.
Numerous connections are another reason users buy large desktop-replacement laptops, and in this consider the W700 delivers. The ThinkPad's 5 USB ports and Fire wire are positively not too much to ask for, and out support the W700 provides a nice array of alternatives for making output associations as well.

The W700 sports a 9-cell lithium-ion battery. With a display this size, we weren't anticipating much in terms of power pack longevity – though the question of how often you'll be taking this notebook away from a desk, and thus away from a power vent, is a fair one.

Overall
The reality that the ThinkPad W700 exactly addresses every one of the anxieties – and numerous others – will likely make it the computer unit that a lot of mobile graphics pros have been lingering for, even with its profound price tag. After all, the production increases afforded by a mechanism like this ThinkPad, a notebook competent of taking on serious graphics production chores, will be priceless for many companies and users.

Pros
+ Quad-core presentation proffers a desktop experience
+ Rock-hard Lenovo keyboard, touchpad
+ En suite digitizer a handy accumulation

Cons
- Exhibit doesn't quite meet supercilious expectations
- Speaker acoustic builds everything sound like a Paul Harvey broadcast
- Supplied pen is undersized, feels low-priced

Value For Money

Our Rating