Ultraportable: Lenovo ThinkPad X61
Ultraportables make all sorts of sacrifices-such as accepting anemic CPUs-in order to break into the welterweight computing class. Not Lenovo's ThinkPad line. Durable, svelte, and geared up for business, these PCs perform under pressure. In fact, a number of Lenovo's notebooks regularly creep into the Top 10 in the ultraportable category.
The ThinkPad X61 isn't the fastest notebook you can find, but thanks to a Santa Rosa class Intel CPU (a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7300), it still managed to crack the top four in our WorldBench 6 test suite, scoring 75-not too shabby for an ultraportable machine; it comes in close behind the Lenovo 3000 N200 and Dell's more potent XPS M1330. The only ultraportable that scores better, the Micro Express JFT2500, blows away the X61 by a huge 17 percent margin.
The problem is that there's a wide gap between ultraportable performance and endurance. Every machine that clocked a high score in performance fared miserably in battery tests-and vice versa. For example, the JFT2500--the fastest ultraportable we've tested--sits nowhere near the top of the battery-life pack. That honor goes to the ASUS U2E, which ships with both a standard and a 6-cell extra-life battery that lasts an absurd 7 hours, 11 minutes in our tests. The ThinkPad X61 also comes with an extended-life power supply, but it runs about an hour less than the U2E by comparison (6 hours, 14 minutes, to be precise). Still, 6 hours is a good amount of time to survive our battery stress tests.
However, as I said from the beginning, this month's quest is for that best middle ground, and the X61 delivers in spades as a well-rounded machine in its category. It's aging a little (it came to market last year), but you can't argue with the X61's success. And considering that this tricked-out 12.1-inch portable notebook line starts at a little over $1000, it also happens to offer a lot for your money.
--Darren Gladstone
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