Lenovo ThinkPad X100e Ultraportable Review
Software and Accessories
There aren't ,many extras arriving with new notebooks these days, and while that used to be the exception, now it's the rule. Lenovo's following along here, serving up no bonus gear whatsoever in the box. The machine itself ships alongside a removable 6-cell battery, an AC power cord, an AC power brick and a few user guides. Of course, with a starting price of under $500, we aren't really upset with Lenovo for leaving the extras out, and we can't really blame them. We appreciate the bargain-bin price tag; here, that's good enough.
Click To Enlarge
On the software front, we found one of our first gripes. Windows 7 Professional is a great OS, but why the 32-bit version? Lenovo bills this as a "professional" machine, and when we hear the word "professional" in 2010, we're thinking 64-bit. There's no excuse for not including a 64-bit operating system here; if you upgrade to 4GB of RAM, only ~3.25GB will be seen by the pre-installed OS. That's not appealing, obviously. We would've loved to have a 64-bit copy of Win7 Pro here, and we think performance would've benefited all the way around.
Click To Enlarge
Moving onto pre-installed apps, we found Adobe Reader 9 Lenovo ThinkVantage Tools, Symantec's Norton Internet Security, Skype, a Microsoft Office 60-day trial and Lenovo's own taskbar (with wireless manager). Overall, there's not too much bloatware loaded on, but we would have rather seen the Internet Security suite left off and on an included CD for consumers to install at their own discretion. We are no fans of those "pop-ups" asking us to finish an installation or register a product that we never sought to begin with. Boot-up didn't seen to be hindered too much by the pre-loaded apps, though.
;)
Click To Enlarge
On the software front, we found one of our first gripes. Windows 7 Professional is a great OS, but why the 32-bit version? Lenovo bills this as a "professional" machine, and when we hear the word "professional" in 2010, we're thinking 64-bit. There's no excuse for not including a 64-bit operating system here; if you upgrade to 4GB of RAM, only ~3.25GB will be seen by the pre-installed OS. That's not appealing, obviously. We would've loved to have a 64-bit copy of Win7 Pro here, and we think performance would've benefited all the way around.
;)
Click To Enlarge
Moving onto pre-installed apps, we found Adobe Reader 9 Lenovo ThinkVantage Tools, Symantec's Norton Internet Security, Skype, a Microsoft Office 60-day trial and Lenovo's own taskbar (with wireless manager). Overall, there's not too much bloatware loaded on, but we would have rather seen the Internet Security suite left off and on an included CD for consumers to install at their own discretion. We are no fans of those "pop-ups" asking us to finish an installation or register a product that we never sought to begin with. Boot-up didn't seen to be hindered too much by the pre-loaded apps, though.
