The Z series don’t have a very glossy appearance unlike Y series but yet it manages to look nice. It has a nickel chrome and shiny black theme which looks appropriate and most suitable for home users. The lid and the frame surrounding the screen are black but the palm rest has a nickel plated matte metal brushed finish. The laptop has a good built and being a 14 inch laptop it is quite sleek and compact. The Z460 has a chiclet type keyboard with generous spacing of keys and the keys are slightly concaved which eases typing. The touchpad and mouse buttons function well and the only disappointing thing is that enter and shift keys are a bit small.

The new 14-inch Lenovo IdeaPad Z460 is the latest addition in Lenovo’s IdeaPad series of laptops for home. Unlike Lenovo IdeaPad’s Y-series of home entertainment laptops, the new Lenovo IdeaPad Z460 laptop is aimed at customers interested in a stylish, trendy looking laptop under Rs. 34,480.

The lid and the screen frame are black, while the wrist rest has a brushed metal (matte) nickel plated finishing, pretty neat for an entry-level multimedia laptop. What’s worth the praise is the solid build quality, and also, being a 14-incher this one’s quite light in weight, a very good pick for daily use. What’s even more reassuring is the chiclet keyboard, which is quite comfortable to type on, the keys are spaced well and are slightly concave which makes typing quite a breeze.

Specifications

• Weight: 2.4 kg
• Chipset: Intel HM 55
• Processor: Intel Core i3-350, 2.27 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache
• RAM: 2 GB DDR3
• Graphics: Intel HD
• Network: Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi N and Bluetooth
• HDD: 320 GB
• Optical Drive: DVD Writer
• Screen: 14-inch glossy (1366×768)
• Battery Test: Over 2.5 hrs and still running (to be updated)
• Price: Rs 34,480

The hallowed Think branding finally spread out to the land of AIOs earlier this year and we just had to wrap our paws around some of that signature matte black plastic to see what’s what. The ThinkCentre A70z represents Lenovo’s most direct assault on the eco-conscious office manager’s checkbook, coming as it does with minimal packaging, built out of recycled and recyclable materials, and significant energy savings relative to orthodox desktops.

In our time with it, we found the A70z to be a well built and capable little rig, but the question you most probably want answered is whether the premium branding we associate with the tank-like ThinkPads can be trusted to deliver a similar superiority in hardware and construction in the all-in-one arena. Click past the break for the answer.

When IBM gave up on making regular computers back in 2005, some computer purists worried that the magic of the ThinkCentre and ThinkPad brands was gone and that the legendary solidity and build quality would also disappear.

The ThinkCentre A70z looks like a simple all-in-one PC, it’s a desktop system with PC internals built into the screen, rather than sitting in a separate box. It has the standard Lenovo ThinkCentre color scheme, gray/black high-quality plastics with a matte finish. There’s a speaker bar located below the screen and a Webcam above the screen. There’s a notebook-style DVD burner on the left side, 3 USB ports, and headphone/microphone jacks on the right. The back of the unit is clean and organized, below the kickstand there are three more USB ports, the Ethernet port, and a serial port. While serial ports are rare on consumer desktops, they still may be needed on business desktops for older peripherals like magnetic card readers and bar code scanners.

For the last few years we have heard the term “desktop replacement” used to describe notebooks 15.4-inches and larger. Recently, most especially this year, we are finally starting to see notebooks that can be described as workstation replacements. These aren’t renamed gaming computers either–when companies like Lenovo and HP release portable workstations, they really mean it. In this article we’ll be checking out Lenovo’s ThinkPad W700, which is not only the largest ThinkPad ever (it’s their first 17-inch model ever) it is also the first ThinkPad to come with a quad-core processor. Those two features are just a start because the W700 significantly changes what we expect from a notebook, as well as a ThinkPad.

Build quality with the W700 is everything Lenovo is known for, with tight fitment all around and an impressively small measure of panel flex for a laptop this large. A bit of time hauling the W700 has confirmed initial impressions: while large notebooks rarely rival their smaller counterparts in terms of ruggedness, this is one heavily built, robust laptop in spite of its size.

Under the lid sits an eye-popping 17-inch display with 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution. Color reproduction and viewing angles on this screen are excellent, thanks to the use of wide gamut technology, which allows the panel to display 72 percent of the NTSC color gamut (most notebook screens display around 45 percent of the NTSC gamut). Above the display is a 1.3-megapixel webcam which uses Roxio’s Media Import application (included) to display and capture video and photos. The camera is adequate for video chats and e-mailing photos but its image quality was fairly grainy.

For users who require a consistent and reliable degree of color accuracy, the W700 contains a built-in color-calibration device. Using a small sensor embedded in the keyboard deck and Pantone’s huey Pro color-control software, the device scans the screen while the lid is closed and sounds three tones when the calibration process is complete. We calibrated the screen in just under a minute and immediately noticed a marked improvement. Colors appeared much bolder and the panel displayed much deeper black levels than before the calibration

It has a brilliant keyboard; its keys are full-sized, sturdy and produce crisp bounce-back. The only inconveniences are the Delete and Control keys, which aren’t positioned in the far corners of the keyboard but three and two keys further in, respectively.

The touchpad is Teflon-like in its slipperiness, offering no resistance to your finger as it pushes the pointer across the screen; its accuracy is impeccable. It doesn’t mistake single-clicks for double-clicks, for example. Its left and right buttons are also very soft and easy to press while navigating.

From the outside, the Lenovo Ideapad Y430 we right now have looks exactly like the Y510. It has the same weave-textured cover, sloping hinge design, edgy corners, and matte black color. Yet once you open the cover, you will immediately see the difference between the two. The most apparent is the location of the Dolbyenhanced built-in speakers as these are now located in front. In addition, the Y430 has no external battery level bar unlike on the Y510, which leaves you with the on-screen battery indicator and the power LED in front to know when it is time to charge.

The bezel on the Y430 that contains the thermal keys has a duller look compared to the one on the Y510. Monotonous looking or not, I still find this set of buttons handy for allowing immediate access to and playback of multimedia files. The volume control located on the right saves one from using the function button or dragging the cursor in order to control the sound levels, while the small button nearby switches the thermal keys between playback functions and preset audio enhancements.

It has 2GB of DDR2 RAM, which is enough to handle Windows Vista Home Premium and also facilitate multitasking, and you also get an NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS graphics adapter. Its score of 1823 in 3DMark06 means it’s not good for playing many current games, but it will run a lot of older games.

After prolonged use, the bottom-left of he unit, where the CPU, chipset and memory reside, get warm, but not enough to be uncomfortable when using the unit on your lap. Nor is the laptop loud, thanks to its dynamic fan, which isn’t an annoyance even while it’s at its fastest setting.

While cheap netbooks are all the rage these days, just a few months ago the attention was being lavished on expensive, high-end thin and light notebooks.  Namely the 13.3″ screen Apple MacBook Air and Lenovo ThinkPad X300.  Fast forward several months and several hundred stock market points lower and expensive laptops don’t seem quite as appealing, which might be why the recent release of the Lenovo ThinkPad X301 was mostly a silent entrance on stage left.  Still, if you’re a CEO that happens to still have a job these days and you like to have the latest and greatest in ultra-mobile computing technology, cost not being a concern, the ThinkPad X301 could be a fit.

Design of Lenovo ThinkPad X301 follows the same business philosophy that was established by IBM, although we would like to see some advances in that department. Chassis is made of magnesium alloy and in combination with roll-cage made of carbon-fiber results in notebooks rigidity and low weight. Unusual for this class, there is optical device and along with DisplayPort connector and later one is only external difference compared to ThinkPad X300 . There are not many monitors with DisplayPort connector but they will appear in the near future in larger numbers. There are also 3 USB ports (two on the left side and one on the back side). VGA and Ethernet connectors are placed at the back side along with WiFi/Bluetooth switch. On the front side are only speakers that produce clear and quality sound and they are much better than speakers on X200 model. For navigation you can use TouchPad or TrackPoint – combination that is common for Lenovo. Full sized keyboard is exceptional so typing is real pleasure with no noticeable bending.

Additional button that stands out is blue ThinkPad Vantage button and it calls preinstalled applications with lot of options from which most useful to us was option of connecting to Lenovo site and downloading and updating of drivers and software. One more very useful preinstalled application is Power Manager 2 that allows very fine power consumption tuning that has option for screen power off if “Windows Is Shutting Down” message is recognized.

The keyboard deck and outer shell utilize a new rubberized soft touch paint which helps provide a more secure grip and a more comfortable feel. The X301 has all the regular connectors and ports with three USB 2.0, Ethernet, microphone and headphone jacks, DisplayPort, and a VGA connector. Unfortunately, no memory card slot is included with this laptop, which means you’ll have to use a USB card reader device or adapter to read from memory cards.