Laptops Arena

Lenovo is number four in the world when it comes to selling personal computers. They also sell servers, workstations, it management software and storage devices. Lenovo products are available for online purchase, chain retailers and other technology vendors and distributors. Lenovo stands for "new legend" as it is a compound name which comes from the "Le" (legend) and "novo" (which is "new" in Latin). The company was founded in China in 1984.

In case you never interacted with their products, you are probably wondering what Lenovo laptops are like. Are they any good? Are they expensive? Do they last long? To answer these entire questions, we did some of our own Lenovo laptops research one of their top models (to show you how innovative Lenovo can be) and here is what we've found out.

The Lenovo ThinkPad laptops are business-made gadgets (that doesn't mean you can't buy one for your home).  The Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds is one of those huge desktop replacements, made mostly for business purposes. This laptop comes with 4 GB of RAM, an nVidia Quadro FX 3700M graphics card and 250 GB of available disk space. The difference between this model and the original W700 is the "ds" which stand for "dual screen". Since the price is over $5000 you had to imagine that the W700ds really stand out bringing us something out of the ordinary. You have a secondary screen which is 10.6 inches wide and it just pops-out from inside the bigger one. Being heavy and quite thick, portability is questionable for this 17 inch notebook. Nothing special on the design part, as without that little screen popping out, it just seems like a plain black and very heavy notebook. The primary display is very clear and bright, very good contrast. The secondary display is not as clear as its big brother's but what can you expect? You can fold the small display at about a 45 degree angle so you could get a clear view of the both. This display is very useful when running graphic programs, like Adobe Photoshop. You can move all those annoying toolboxes on the secondary screen to prevent them from constantly getting in the way. It's also good for keeping your chat windows always open while you are running different other applications. The keyboard looks very computer desktop like with full sized keys. Typing is pleasant and smooth, you only have to perform short stokes and there you go. You have the standard speaker control buttons for volume and mute.

And now, we get to the best and most interesting part: the laptop's performance. The 2.53GHz Intel Q9300 quad-core processor is sure to help you get things done. As far as multimedia tasking goes, Lenovo is not that great but you can still use it for average multimedia needs. The speakers aren't that amazing, so if you are into listening music or watching movies most of the time, this is not the laptop for you. However, you might want to consider buying a good set of headphones as they will sound very clear and have plenty of power compared to the speakers. Unlike many other desktop replacements, this Lenovo laptop has 5 USB ports (even my big old computer has only 4) plus other ports for output connections, DVD writer, card reader and many more.


As we imagined, a big laptop such as the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds was sure to have a big battery. And we were right. The 9-cell battery of this laptop will only last about 2 hours if unplugged and a bit more that 1 hour for movie playback. It's OK, especially since it was meant to be put on your desk and to stay there, it's not like you were going to carry all that weight around anyway. The battery life will be shortened by 20% if you also use the small display, even if both screens are only at a middle-level in terms of brightness. Should you use both screen and run simple tasks like web surfing and checking your e-mail (probably playing Solitaire too) you will get an average of 1 hour and 45 minutes of battery life. We imagined that a laptop this big with all that hardware inside would cause some serious heat problems but we were wrong. The fan is not as noisy as we expected either and if you use this laptop in a crowded place, you may not even notice any kind of fan noise.

As a wrap up, we believe it is fair to say that the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds is your ideal office-work laptop. You can really benefit from that small secondary display and that small digitizer located right beside the touchpad (we find it uncomfortable for people who write with their left hand as this pad is located on the right), which is pretty small if you are used to big gadgets but since it is integrated that you will find it easier to use that one instead of bringing other external devices. One thing is for sure, if you are working in the design business, will not find another laptop better than this one and no one can argue with us on this matter. Although it is pretty expensive, the W700ds may prove to be a very good investment for your office, especially since you get all the right hardware performance you may need. Doing Photoshop work has never been so pleasant now that you have more screen-free space to do your job. The number of disadvantages is quite small and you will surely grow fond of working on this laptop after a while of using it.



The reviews for this laptop are positive (except for the ones that complain about the 11 pounds weight and left-handed users that find it hard to manage with the right-positioned digitizer) and we admire Lenovo for adventuring itself and building such a big laptop with two displays and so expensive that it break all barriers. We can't wait to see what other toys Lenovo can come with and we will surely let you know if it's something worth your time reading about.