Laptop Thoughts: Lenovo X100e: Small, But Still a ThinkPad

"First things first: regardless of pricetag, Lenovo's ThinkPad X100e is a pretty nice ultraportable. Performance is solid if unexceptional, and the Radeon HD 3200 can even handle some mild gaming if you ask it nicely. What you're really looking at with the X100e is the superior keyboard and build quality, and these things really go a long way."

AnandTech's review pretty much parallels my own experience with the Lenovo X100e, both love it and hate it. Love it: it provides the illusion of true "Thinkpadedness" by offering arguably the best keyboard in its class, coupled with a very good trackpad, and the ubiquitous trackpoint nestled within the keyboard. Millions of Thinkpads have been sold just for the superior keyboard experience and solid build quality. It's also light and easily transportable. Hate it: the AMD processor is a generation old (Athlon Neo MV-40), somewhat slow, and heats up the left side and bottom nicely. The screen is perfect for writers and authors, handling text and simple graphics with aplomb, but with rather small onscreen standard fonts (at 1366x768) make it less than ideal for more intensive graphics activity and light gaming. And battery life disappoints: I get barely more than three hours of untethered usage. And then there is that heat.

All that being said, the X100e can be easily upgraded with an SSD to improve performance, along with adding additional RAM. But still, the "older" AMD platforms come out second-best in comparisons with anything (current generation) Intel inside, and the cost quickly increases with upgrades. That takes me back full-circle to the keyboard and trackpad, still amongst the best in the business. Lenovo's online outlet may be a good choice for finding a reasonably-priced (refurbished) X100e, many with the "newer" AMD Turion Neo X2 processor. I really do like my X100e, but wish that the processor were a bit more robust, and that the heat problem would go away (SSD?).