Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13: Sliced!

Needing an Edge

Lenovo's ThinkPad series has always appealed to business users for its associated features such as security, reliability and build quality. Adding to these properties, you can't deny that its matte black finish further sealed the ThinkPad's image. However that stereotyping is about to change with the brand new ThinkPad Edge line-up with its contemporary look and flashy colors, but still keeping the qualities that the ThinkPad line is fabled for.

Aimed mostly at Small Medium Businesses (SMBs), the notebooks are the first ThinkPad machines to be powered by AMD's platform, though this Edge 13 notebook comes in both Intel and AMD flavors. Besides the internal hardware and the glossy exterior, the contours of the notebook have also been tweaked to a silver-gray hue, and are actually rounded at the corners with no edges. That's some irony going by the notebook's name.

As for the notebook interior, Lenovo too has made some changes, such as incorporating a chiclet style keyboard, which makes the Edge 13 the first ThinkPad notebook to sport one.

Edgy Internals

While the exterior now looks refreshing, the interior has also undergone changes. Your usual matte screen found on ThinkPads has been replaced with a glossy screen that's often seen on the lower-end ThinkPad SL and IdeaPads series. Lenovo has stated they may consider matte versions of the screen in the future, but market forces have dictated their choice of a glossy screen for now.

The most noticeable change however, has to be the keyboard, where Lenovo has done away with its usual keyboard style and has implemented what they call an isolation keyboard. Chiclet keyboards have become really popular these days, and Lenovo's ThinkPad has also wisely jumped on the bandwagon to appeal to the masses.

Yes, the keyboard, admittedly the most famous design aspect of the ThinkPad series, has changed. Fortunately, Lenovo has managed to keep the best aspects of the keyboard intact despite the chiclet set up. Typing on the keyboard is a pleasure, and your fingers will love the added spaces and slight curve of the keys. The Function keys' role has also been swapped as they now function as multimedia buttons unless the Fn key is held down, then they work as normal F1-F12 keys.

If you're hoping the keyboard would feature the larger ESC and DEL keys that we loved on the Lenovo ThinkPad T400s, Lenovo has informed us that this wasn't implemented due to space constraints of the Edge 13's six-row keyboard.

Focusing on the trackpoint and trackpad, both generally work fine though we did once encounter a weird bug where the trackpad just locked into scroll mode. A reboot cleared the issue and we didn't see a repeat of the bug. Lastly, the notebook's audio quality was fine, and volume was decently loud; you'll find the speakers located at the bottom of the notebook near the front.

Edgy Performance

Packing an AMD Athlon Neo X2 Dual Core processor L625 (1.6GHz), 2GB DDR2 RAM, 250GB HDD, the ThinkPad Edge 13 is expected to perform much better than a netbook, but does it hold up to Intel's CULV processor platform? To see how the unit holds up, we've thrown in the Acer Ferrari One and the Acer Aspire Timeline 3810t for comparison. The Ferrari One uses AMD's Congo platform, similar to the Edge 13, while the Acer Aspire Timeline uses Intel's CULV processor platform but with the benefit of the additional discrete graphics in the form of an ATI Radeon HD 4330. The HP Pavilion dm3 was also included as a reference point for an Intel CULV class notebook without discrete graphics.

The results for the Edge 13 based on the AMD Neo X2 L625 are definitely up to spec, though not quite a fight with the Intel CULV processors just yet. Note that the Edge 13 has better integrated graphics to augment its overall system score, but the CPU scores show a pretty close matchup between the processors. Against the AMD-based Acer Ferrari One, we can see an improvement in CPU scores, though overall system and HDD scores are still in the Ferrari One's favor. The scores do draw one obvious conclusion: the best combination for performance in the ultraportable platform is probably still an Intel CULV solution paired with a discrete graphics solution as shown by the Acer Aspire Timeline 3810t, though the AMD processor has caught up somewhat. A similar results trend was seen with PCMark Vantage and confirms what we know of the platform and notebook's performance.

On 3Dmark06, the scores of the Edge 13 integrated graphics are basically the same as the Acer Ferrari One, so don't expect too much from the unit. You will be able to get some light gaming done, but that's probably about it.

Edgy Life

Notebooks live or die by their battery performance so it's safe to say this is one of the more important tests. AMD's platform doesn't hold up quite well in this department compared to Intel. However the results do show that AMD is catching up. The Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 13 lasted for 3 hours and 29 minutes on our video loop battery test, which is a pretty decent timing. Let's see how it holds up in the power consumption figures then.

As can be expected, the Edge 13 doesn't blow the Intel machines out of the water, but it does improve on the scores compared against the Acer Ferrari One. While Intel may have the power advantage for now, we'll probably see AMD catch up once they make the transition to 45nm for this range of processors.

On our Portability Index test, where we use a simple formula derived by taking battery uptime and dividing it by the product of the unit's weight and volume. The resulting score will reflect on the portability of the unit, as the higher the ratio, the more portable the unit is. That said, thanks to its adequate battery life and less than 1.76kg weight, the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 gets a decent ratio of 1.079. While that's not as high as the other Intel based machines, is still a solid score that AMD's platform can be proud off.

Edgy Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 does what it's supposed to do, a refreshing look and low cost approach to Lenovo's traditional ThinkPad line that should appeal more to the SMB folks than the bigger corporate enterprises. Sure it's not a souped up workhorse machine like some of the ThinkPad products, but it does offer enough performance for simple productivity usage. It's the first ThinkPad using AMD technology, and quite frankly, it worked well enough that we have no complains. While Intel still has the better platform for ultraportables, AMD has made a decent effort in catching up while still offering a much lower price point.

From its glossy cover to its newly designed keyboard, the Edge 13 is certainly a well engineered notebook. While we do question the glossy design, it does give the notebook more personality which the ThinkPad series usually lacks. Whether this is a worthy trade off (i.e. letting all your clients and colleagues stare at your fingerprint smudged notebook) may be up for debate on a personal level. Besides the glossy look, we quite like the newly designed keyboard and it's quite surely one of the highights of the notebook. It does well to convey the feel of Lenovo's usual excellent keyboards but using a chiclet format that most consumers have come to expect today.

Lenovo has done a great job in redefining a new trendy but professional series for its notebooks, but at what cost? The ThinkPad series has always been in the medium to expensive range depending on your model and hardware choice, but the Edge 13 goes for the kill with its cut throat price that's starting at S$1189 for the basic model. That's certainly affordable for the SMB market, but also really good for consumers looking for something different. Well, the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 is definitely that, more powerful than a netbook, but more affordable and reasonably competent as opposed to the usual ThinkPad workhorse while maintaining the build expected of this brand.

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