Product Listing

Lenovo IdeaPad U350 - Sexy, Sleek Ideas

By Aloysius Low - 20 Aug 2009

Internal Ideas

Internal Ideas

The Lenovo IdeaPad U350 comes slightly underpowered with a single core Intel Pentium SU2700 that's clocked at 1.3GHz with just a 2MB L2 cache. Sounds a little slow to us, and we'll find out how it holds up on the next page during our performance benchmarking section. To make up for the slower processor, Lenovo has included 3GB of DDR2 memory on the unit, though we don't think that will help too much. Lastly, if it's storage you're needing, the U350 comes packed with a 250GB hard drive, which should be plenty for most folks.

The back panel opens to reveal easy access to the HDD and SO-DIMM slots.

Comparative Ideals

To see how the notebook stacks up we've thrown in scores from the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T and the ASUS UX30, both of which are ultrathin machines too. We must point out that the review unit of the ASUS UX30 goes head to head with the Lenovo IdeaPad U350 with its similar light weight and specs, though the local retail version of both the U350 and UX30 are equipped with a dual-core processor like the Acer machine. Confused? Don't worry; just refer to the table below.

Notebook Comparison Table
  Satio Aino Yari
Display 3.5-inch (640 x 360 pixels) 3-inch (240 x 432 pixels) 2.4-inch (240 x 320 pixels)
Connectivity Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, TV out, A-GPS, USB support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, USB support Bluetooth, A-GPS, USB support
Camera 12.1MP 8.1MP 5MP
Weight 126 grams 134 grams 115 grams
Dimensions 112 x 55 x 13.3mm 104 x 50 x 15.5mm 100 x 48 x 15.7mm

Battery Life and Portability Index

The 4-cell, 14.8V 41WH battery that powers the Lenovo IdeaPad U350.

In battery life uptime testing, the Lenovo IdeaPad U350 does slightly better than the ASUS UX30 here, with a running life of 158 minutes, or just over 2.5 hours. This still pales in comparison to the Acer Timeline, but the Acer unit does pack a heavier battery compared to the 4-cell of the U350.

Power consumption wise, the unit does lag behind the Acer model too with a higher power draw at 15.59W. While it's still a low figure inline with other ultraportables, we were hoping for power consumption figures lower than the Acer unit. All the more since the processor used is a single-core unit and not even a dual-core processor used on the Acer Timeline. So raking specs and battery life uptime, we think the Lenovo IdeaPad U350 is a bit poor on the power optimization.

On the portability front, after churning our formula pitting battery uptime figures against the weight and volume of each notebook, the Lenovo IdeaPad U350 does fare decently with a ratio of 1.047. Still, it's not as good as the ASUS or Acer machines as both scored a much higher ratio compared to the U350. It looks like power optimization is poor on the U350 even despite its sexy figure. Let's see what the benchmark numbers reveal before we draw our conclusions of the notebook in general.

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