Product Listing

Lenovo ThinkPad W700 - Old School Charm

By Aloysius Low - 5 May 2009

Plenty on Space, Features & Build Quality

Plenty on Space, Features & Build Quality

You know what they say: size matters, and the equipment of the Lenovo W700 is certainly large enough for most folks. With ample space, Lenovo has packed a ton of goodies including a full sized keyboard with a numeric number pad and a WACOM tablet into the W700's frame. Lenovo wasn't wrong in describing this ThinkPad machine as a mobile workstation and it certainly lives up to its billing. The non-reflective screen here is also speaks of functionality, as there's no need to cater to the design conscious consumer (who tends to prefer glossy screens).

The W700 opens up to a very familiar looking interior.

This brings us to our second point about this unit. It's all functionality, so don't be looking for pretty designs and patterns. It is full of old school charm however, so folks who grew up with the PC boom will definitely feel at home with the design. We kind of like it though, as it's not everyday you find a notebook sticking to what works for it best. And to be honest here, not many folks will be telling you off about your notebook's looks when you brandish this monster at the office; they'd be too intimidated to do so by its sheer size.

Generally speaking, we found using the keyboard and small trackpad to be a decent experience, though we did often mistaken the tablet for the trackpad. Audio output from the machine was decent, but this really isn't the sort of notebook that warrants speakers for entertainment so be sure to dash any such expectations. On the whole, we had a satisfactory experience with using the W700, so no major complains here.

The keyboard shares much of the ThinkPad feel and we noted minor flexing on the keyboard. Otherwise, it's always nice to type of a full sized and properly spaced out keyboard.

The trackpad is kind of tiny for a notebook of this size, but we found its response and tracking decent enough to not warrant a complaint.

Lastly, the audio speakers are located here, but don't expect entertainment quality performance.

With a built-in WACOM tablet, it is one of the key highlights of the W700 workstation. As you can guess, it's really designed for folks into graphics design. To further enforce this unit's purpose and target group, it also comes with a built in color calibrator for the screen. Calibrating the screen is really easy as all you need to do to do is close the cover, wait for the LED indicator to go off, and it's done. Far easier than what we normally have to endure while calibrating monitors for review.

The WACOM tablet is a welcome addition for the graphical designers who are using this notebook.

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