4 New Notebooks: NVIDIA Ion Included

1. Lenovo IdeaPad U350

The number of notebooks with Intel low-power processors is growing. Lenovo sent us one of their models, the U350. With a 13-inch display and without a DVD player, it’s aimed at a mobile clientele. The manufacturer’s slogan is “Outside it's slim. Inside, it's packed.”

First impressions, design

The U350’s shell is a mixture of several styles. It has imitation brushed aluminum around the keyboard, a gloss-black screen bezel, and a matte-black diamond pattern on the lid. It’s hard to assign a clear identity to these design choices, but as a whole we liked its looks and build quality.

The Function (Fn) and Ctrl keys on the lower left are inverted on this model, as on all Lenovo models. This is a keyboard configuration detail that we just can’t see the point of. Lenovo explains it by the existence of keyboard shortcuts that use the “Fn” key. But we feel that the inversion generates a lot of errors for people who type without looking at the keyboard. For example, “Ctrl + C” (Copy) becomes “Fn + C,” which doesn’t do anything. There’s no backlighting and no number pad (but that’s to be expected on a 13”). The keys are firm and responsive. But the keyboard does tend to flex slightly in the middle.

The touchpad (which is multipoint) is good-sized. Its matte, grainy surface gives it a nice feel. But the click buttons below it are too mushy, and they’re noisy to boot.

The Webcam handles colorimetry well with faces if lighting conditions aren’t too bright (otherwise, the brightest parts of the image burn). There’s a problem with proportion that we’ve already noticed with other Lenovo notebooks – in MSN, faces are vertically distorted. We still have no explanation for this odd phenomenon. And as for the sound, it’s a disaster. You have to yell into the microphone to be heard.

The machine is noisy. The noise level, even at idle, is never below perceptible. There’s a constant background noise from the fans. It doesn’t get a lot noisier during intensive use, but it’s always there.

The connectors are arranged along the edges of the notebook. On the right are 2 USB ports, 2 mini-jacks, and an SD card reader. On the left: 1 VGA, 1 HDMI, 1 RJ45 (network), and 1 additional USB (for a total of 3). There’s no e-SATA, FireWire, or ExpressCard port. There is a switch on the left that activates Wi-Fi.

Under the computer, a lot of the space is taken up by the battery. The remaining area is used for a large access cover under which are the RAM (2 GB, Samsung) and hard disk.

Processing power
Vista Index: 3.2. Detail: Processor 3.6 - RAM 5.1 - Graphics 3.,2 - Game Graphics 3.3 - Main hard disk 5.4.

Notebooks using Intel CULV processors have low power consumption (between 17 and 20 Watts on average here). However, their performance is significantly below that of traditional portables. Compared to the index of 100 assigned to the Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi3640 (Intel T9400), the IdeaPad U350 scored 31. Read that to mean it’s an average of three times slower running the same tasks.

Another “problem” is that the processor is single-core. In practice, that means that switching from one application to another is slower if the second app is running as a background task. More generally, latency is higher when multitasking – launching two applications, Web browsing and video encoding for example, simultaneously.

It’s possible to play HD video (1078)with software that can use the graphics chip to do the decoding (Power DVD, for example). Otherwise the processor is too weak to handle the task and playback is afflicted with stuttering.

Games

If you stick to Flash and 2D games, you’ll have no problems. But don’t expect to play Crysis or other resource-hungry 3D games.

Audio

The IdeaPad has a lot of ideas about audio, but as is often true they’re not applied well. The effects offered adulterate the sound more than anything else. The sound from the headphone jack is particularly susceptible to noise from hard-disk access.

Mobility, Battery life

Since it weighs 300 grams more than its direct competitor, the MSI X340, and has a battery capacity specified at 41Wh (31.82 Wh for the MSI), we’re entitled to expect better battery life from the U350. We clocked 3 hours of continuous video play (display set to 100 nits, Wi-Fi disabled and headphones plugged in). That’s a very good result, on a par with the Dell XPS 13.

PROS	CONS
- Good looks - Light - Good build quality - Can play heavy HD video with the right software - Sharp Webcam	- CPU Performance - Poor display - Constant background noise - Distorted Webcam image - Sound in headphones disturbed by disk accesses
Falling somewhere between a netbook and a "traditional" notebook, the IdeaPad U350 is a competition to the MSI X340 and Acer 5810T – notebooks suitable mostly for office applications and occasional photo retouching or video editing if you aren’t in too much of a hurry.