PS: I wrote this blog entry inside TANGS display window.

The Lenovo U350 is the latest notebook by Lenovo running on the new Intel Core 2 Solo chip 1.4ghz. Its rather slim and light at 32.8 X 2.8 X 1.7-2.49 cm and 1.6kg. The U350 looks beautiful. There is some simple yet nice design on the casing which makes the notebook very elegant. The arm rest area is metallic and gives it a very sleek look. The U350 comes with WIFI, bluetooth, 3 USB port, 1 HDMI port, 1 ethernet port, multicard reader, headphone jack and microphone jack. It has a 2 GB DDR3 RAM and 320GB harddisk. Battery life is about 10 hours for 8 cell and 5 hours with 4 cell. (The retail unit will come with a 4 cell battery)

One thing that is sadly missing is an optical drive. Which is a waste because the laptop comes with a 13.3 inch screen with aspect ratio of 16:9.

The keyboard reminds me of the Lenovo Y650 with the Delete, Home, End, PgUp and PgDn button at the right most corner. This arrangement is a little weird and new users keep pressing the wrong keys in the beginning. It takes a while to get used to this keyboard arrangement. But the keyboard is pretty comfy to type with. The touchpad comes with multi-touch. But I was surprised that Lenovo didn’t use a textured touchpad.

And like most Lenovo laptop, the Lenovo U350 comes with the Onekey Recovery, energy management and Veriface (for using webcam to login). I personally quite like the Onekey Recovery. In fact, I think all notebook should come with this feature. The Lenovo U350 will retail at S$1399.

Overall, the Lenovo U350 is a pretty good budget laptop. Its suitable for people who need more computing power than a netbook, yet don’t see a need to get a high powered notebook. Vista might be slowing down this notebook a little. But not to worry, you will get a free Windows 7 upgrade when it is release.

In Short:
A budget laptop for those who need slightly more computing power than a netbook

Likes:
Low price
Slim and lightweight

Dislike:
No Optical drive
Keyboard arrangement

Thanks to the folks from Intel, Lenovo, TANGS and Ogilvy for putting me inside the display window for 24 hours with this laptop.

Related posts:

1. Review: The Lenovo Thinkpad X300
2. Review: Lenovo Ideapad S10-2
3. Review: Lenovo S10
4. Review: Lenovo IdeaPad Y650
5. Lenovo Thinkpad X300 first look