April 30, 2012 at 10:45Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, or Ultrabook Adventures
Today I hit exactly one month since I switched to the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s ultrabook. Initially, a detailed “just a review” of this model was supposed to appear here. However, recalling the adventures experienced with the ultrabook, the author of these lines decided to significantly change the format of the post. Of course, I will tell you about him - and a lot. But I will show even more. In the end, not every computer can visit wineries near Cannes and the ancient city of Jaffa in 30 days.
At the beginning, a few words about the configuration of the IdeaPad U300s. It runs on a dual-core Intel Core i7-2677M processor (second generation, or, more simply, Sandy Bridge) with a nominal frequency of 1.8 GHz. True, with frequencies here everything is pretty tricky: the main part of the time the CPU runs at 800 megahertz, and under load it can accelerate right up to 2.9 GHz. So figure it out - what frequency is considered nominal. It's nice that the processor fits into the TDP of 17 watts, which allows the ultrabook not to overheat and cost a quiet cooling system. Unfortunately, some other ultrabooks of the first wave, one hour after the start of work, can be found by sound even somewhere at the airport, if some kind soul damps all the light there. U300s behaves very intelligently, and the cooler is quiet and turns on infrequently. Most of the heat is dissipated by an aluminum casing,
Also on board are 4 gigabytes of RAM DDR3-1066 and 256 gigabyte SSD (a certain model based on the JMicron JMF616 controller). The latter reads data at an average speed of 240 MB / s, which, you see, is a lot for an ultraportable computer. Perhaps he should say thanks for the amazing swiftness of the ultrabook, which, however, will be discussed below.
Ultrabook screen resolution - standard 1366x768 pixels with a diagonal of 13.3 inches. The type of matrix, as you might guess, is TN. In my own laptop, which we had been together for a year and a half, was 1440x900 with a diagonal of 12.1 inches, and at first I was afraid that working with an ultrabook screen would be uncomfortable. I emphasize that it is precisely to work: write articles, process photos on the road, etc. etc. A month later, I admit fears in vain: yes, of course, I would not have refused 1600x900 on the same diagonal, but the current resolution is quite enough for comfortable work. By the way, the Lenovo ultrabook screen does not tremble with a small tremor when you type on it intensively. It’s also a plus to him, because some of his brothers are sinned with this ...
Since we are talking about disharmonies, it's time to recall two things that I absolutely did not like about the U300s.
The first is the lack of an Ethernet port. It seems that the anachronism is useless for anyone, but our editorial office has the old security standards, and it is proposed to use only a wired connection for working computers. The same misfortune awaits in many hotels: as they held the shoelaces there in each room, they forgot about the problem. What? What is Wifi like? No, we don’t know, dear guest. Drink better tea and go to bed, and do not bother your head with sophisticated spells. The problem is solved by purchasing a USB-Ethernet adapter, which costs about $ 30. It seems like I bought it once and forgot it, but "secondly" pops up here, namely just two USB ports on board. In one, the wireless mouse receiver constantly sticks out in me, in the second - when I am at work - an adapter for Ethernet. Do you want to connect something else (for example, a flash drive), if you please pull out something.
In fairness, Ethernet ports are rarely found in ultrabooks of other brands. Say thanks to Apple, who buried this standard in the MacBook Air, without forgetting, however, to include the appropriate adapter in the range of all Apple Store. But the USB ports could be at least three, since there is enough free space on the sides. But alas. It’s good that one of the two ports supports USB 3.0.
But, probably, there are enough dry details - let's talk about travels. I was brought to Cannes on business, and during the flight, a quote from Zhvanetsky about “I urgently needed to go to Paris for business” turned around in my head. Cannes themselves is a small town, and at the same time it blows with pathos and gloom. Of course, there is no airport there, so the plane flies to Nice, and from there it is already necessary to get there by wheeled transport or by helicopter. The beauty of an ultrabook is that it is very thin - only 15 millimeters. Yes, and he weighs about 1300 grams, so that the backpack is not felt at all. At the airport, sometimes you even doubt whether to turn on the tablet or open the ultrabook? Of course, the iPad is ready to work anyway faster, but it also has more functionality, anyway. And then I opened the lid, counted to three, and now you have a real computer. Moreover, it is not only the speed of awakening from sleep that surprises, but also full inclusion, too. It seems to be used to the fact that rebooting is a noticeable and a little majestic process. And then a raz, 20 seconds - and everything works again. Unusual!
Ultrabook and iPad 2
If you move away from Cannes for a couple of kilometers, continuous vineyards begin. The nature of those places contributes to the ripening of grapes of different varieties in the best possible way, and this is not only a delicious berry, but also the opportunity to make a lot of wine for sale. To be, you know, what to drink coffee with croissants on rainy winter evenings. I was amused that some vineyards stretched along very busy tracks. The wine from there, one must think, turns out to be especially invigorating. He climbed into a winery located far from civilization in one of the many medieval castles. True, the castle in those days was called something like a modern cottage of medium size. But, you see, on bottles the word “castle” looks somehow more solid.
At the end of March, the vines have not yet awakened from winter sleep, and therefore there is no particular pastorality in the landscapes. But you can embarrassingly throw an ultrabook onto fertile French clay and hold it for twenty minutes under the hot sun to check if it hangs? No, I did. Only the screen is quenched in the name of energy conservation.
For greater reliability, I piled it for half an hour on the branches of a local elm, and also without unpleasant consequences. The screen, however, in bright sunshine is not very suitable for work. But, on the other hand, who would think to work in such conditions?
If you really wanted to do something useful, and in your pocket there is something like a mobile 3G router, distributing WiFi Internet at decent speed through WiFi, you can settle down at such a waterfall and work for several hours.
IdeaPad U300s batteries last for about six hours in Word + ICQ mode, or for five honest hours when processing photos. For an ultrabook, and indeed for an ultra-mobile computer, this is a very good result. Given that everything works very, very fast.
In general, the speed of this ultrabook pleasantly surprised. My own laptop also uses Core i7 (though of the first generation), and the SSD there is quite decent - enterprise-class, at 256 GB. However, the U300s are so much faster that even the hell takes it at first - well, why, why? As I wrote above, a great merit in this belongs to the fast SSD. However, the remaining components clearly get along well with each other. You know, when Photoshop 12.1 starts on a freshly loaded system in 9 seconds, and then starts in 2-3, it makes an impression. Yes, and filters, including rather complex ones, are superimposed with such ease, as if inside not two cores, but at least four. Again, I want to use the word "unusual." You seem to take something thin and light in your hands, preparing to make certain compromises for this, but you don’t have to go. The computer in the hands is more than real.
The next few photos taken in the cellar of the winery, I will leave without comment. It seems that if Athos, escaping from the chase, had locked himself in such a cellar, and with an ultrabook, d'Artagnan had arrived in time and would not have pulled him out of there a month later.
From the glamorous Cannes we will be transported to the ancient Jaffa. The city is so ancient that Tel Aviv next to it is not even a teenager, but a newborn. It is no joke, the first mention of Jaffa dates back to 1440 BC, and by the time described in the Gospel, he had already managed to become quite old. As an entourage for a photo shoot, I chose Old Jaffa Hostel - a very peculiar hybrid of a hotel and a hostel, located in an old building. Local models often resort to take pictures there, but the ultrabook posed clearly for the first time in this establishment.
WiFi is everywhere in the hostel, so you can go online without any tricks and do the usual things. When the latter is tired, you can raise your eyes and look at old photographs that hung the walls. In one of the corners there is a special selection of photographs depicting people who got married after meeting at the hostel. Some even send photos of children. Very dramatic.
We go out to the balcony and look at the real oriental bazaar, where you can buy absolutely everything - from an old armchair to a bronze bauble, which stands like a headset by the master Gams. This photo was made possible by a balanced arrangement of elements inside the ultrabook. He very confidently stood on the railing, despite the very strong wind.
On the sea, to which from this place about five minutes walk, there was a real storm. By the way, the sea is also visible from here.
The hostel ultrabook met his great-grandfather - ThinkPad, running on the first-generation Centrino platform. It was with her that the time of truly mobile computers began. And one must - one of them works fine so far. By the way, it was not in vain that the first version of Centrino was designated by the code word Carmel - it was developed here on the Promised Land (not all, of course, but a significant part). And among its developers was my Saratov classmate, who left for Israel at a very tender age. Indeed, the world is small.
Among the hostel’s antiques, a real telephone machine accepting coins was cluttered. It still works great, and I have been struggling with myself for a long time - toss a shekel into a slot and call a friend in the good old fashion, or, without further ado, talk absolutely free on Skype from an ultrabook? Given that it was in Israel, guess which option was chosen? :)
So what do I have to tell you?
The ultrabook in general and the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s in particular are an unpleasant thing and very suitable for moving in space. I miss Ethernet and one more (and better - two) USB ports, as well as a fingerprint scanner, which creates the illusion of additional information protection. But, as I already wrote, the current ultrabooks are a kind of dolls of real ultrabooks. Soon, very soon, the models on Ivy Bridge will be knocked down - even faster, more economical, equipped with a variety of sensors and with new interesting features. They, of course, ruthlessly eclipse the IdeaPad U300s and its counterparts. But even what is now, is ready to serve people actively moving in space faithfully. And the best ... It, of course, will always be. And this is hardly a bad thing.
By the way, on May 8, together with IdeaPad we will fly to Shanghai, where HP will show new models of its ultrabooks. And there is not far to Computex.
At the beginning, a few words about the configuration of the IdeaPad U300s. It runs on a dual-core Intel Core i7-2677M processor (second generation, or, more simply, Sandy Bridge) with a nominal frequency of 1.8 GHz. True, with frequencies here everything is pretty tricky: the main part of the time the CPU runs at 800 megahertz, and under load it can accelerate right up to 2.9 GHz. So figure it out - what frequency is considered nominal. It's nice that the processor fits into the TDP of 17 watts, which allows the ultrabook not to overheat and cost a quiet cooling system. Unfortunately, some other ultrabooks of the first wave, one hour after the start of work, can be found by sound even somewhere at the airport, if some kind soul damps all the light there. U300s behaves very intelligently, and the cooler is quiet and turns on infrequently. Most of the heat is dissipated by an aluminum casing,
Also on board are 4 gigabytes of RAM DDR3-1066 and 256 gigabyte SSD (a certain model based on the JMicron JMF616 controller). The latter reads data at an average speed of 240 MB / s, which, you see, is a lot for an ultraportable computer. Perhaps he should say thanks for the amazing swiftness of the ultrabook, which, however, will be discussed below.
Ultrabook screen resolution - standard 1366x768 pixels with a diagonal of 13.3 inches. The type of matrix, as you might guess, is TN. In my own laptop, which we had been together for a year and a half, was 1440x900 with a diagonal of 12.1 inches, and at first I was afraid that working with an ultrabook screen would be uncomfortable. I emphasize that it is precisely to work: write articles, process photos on the road, etc. etc. A month later, I admit fears in vain: yes, of course, I would not have refused 1600x900 on the same diagonal, but the current resolution is quite enough for comfortable work. By the way, the Lenovo ultrabook screen does not tremble with a small tremor when you type on it intensively. It’s also a plus to him, because some of his brothers are sinned with this ...
Since we are talking about disharmonies, it's time to recall two things that I absolutely did not like about the U300s.
The first is the lack of an Ethernet port. It seems that the anachronism is useless for anyone, but our editorial office has the old security standards, and it is proposed to use only a wired connection for working computers. The same misfortune awaits in many hotels: as they held the shoelaces there in each room, they forgot about the problem. What? What is Wifi like? No, we don’t know, dear guest. Drink better tea and go to bed, and do not bother your head with sophisticated spells. The problem is solved by purchasing a USB-Ethernet adapter, which costs about $ 30. It seems like I bought it once and forgot it, but "secondly" pops up here, namely just two USB ports on board. In one, the wireless mouse receiver constantly sticks out in me, in the second - when I am at work - an adapter for Ethernet. Do you want to connect something else (for example, a flash drive), if you please pull out something.
In fairness, Ethernet ports are rarely found in ultrabooks of other brands. Say thanks to Apple, who buried this standard in the MacBook Air, without forgetting, however, to include the appropriate adapter in the range of all Apple Store. But the USB ports could be at least three, since there is enough free space on the sides. But alas. It’s good that one of the two ports supports USB 3.0.
But, probably, there are enough dry details - let's talk about travels. I was brought to Cannes on business, and during the flight, a quote from Zhvanetsky about “I urgently needed to go to Paris for business” turned around in my head. Cannes themselves is a small town, and at the same time it blows with pathos and gloom. Of course, there is no airport there, so the plane flies to Nice, and from there it is already necessary to get there by wheeled transport or by helicopter. The beauty of an ultrabook is that it is very thin - only 15 millimeters. Yes, and he weighs about 1300 grams, so that the backpack is not felt at all. At the airport, sometimes you even doubt whether to turn on the tablet or open the ultrabook? Of course, the iPad is ready to work anyway faster, but it also has more functionality, anyway. And then I opened the lid, counted to three, and now you have a real computer. Moreover, it is not only the speed of awakening from sleep that surprises, but also full inclusion, too. It seems to be used to the fact that rebooting is a noticeable and a little majestic process. And then a raz, 20 seconds - and everything works again. Unusual!
Ultrabook and iPad 2
If you move away from Cannes for a couple of kilometers, continuous vineyards begin. The nature of those places contributes to the ripening of grapes of different varieties in the best possible way, and this is not only a delicious berry, but also the opportunity to make a lot of wine for sale. To be, you know, what to drink coffee with croissants on rainy winter evenings. I was amused that some vineyards stretched along very busy tracks. The wine from there, one must think, turns out to be especially invigorating. He climbed into a winery located far from civilization in one of the many medieval castles. True, the castle in those days was called something like a modern cottage of medium size. But, you see, on bottles the word “castle” looks somehow more solid.
At the end of March, the vines have not yet awakened from winter sleep, and therefore there is no particular pastorality in the landscapes. But you can embarrassingly throw an ultrabook onto fertile French clay and hold it for twenty minutes under the hot sun to check if it hangs? No, I did. Only the screen is quenched in the name of energy conservation.
For greater reliability, I piled it for half an hour on the branches of a local elm, and also without unpleasant consequences. The screen, however, in bright sunshine is not very suitable for work. But, on the other hand, who would think to work in such conditions?
If you really wanted to do something useful, and in your pocket there is something like a mobile 3G router, distributing WiFi Internet at decent speed through WiFi, you can settle down at such a waterfall and work for several hours.
IdeaPad U300s batteries last for about six hours in Word + ICQ mode, or for five honest hours when processing photos. For an ultrabook, and indeed for an ultra-mobile computer, this is a very good result. Given that everything works very, very fast.
In general, the speed of this ultrabook pleasantly surprised. My own laptop also uses Core i7 (though of the first generation), and the SSD there is quite decent - enterprise-class, at 256 GB. However, the U300s are so much faster that even the hell takes it at first - well, why, why? As I wrote above, a great merit in this belongs to the fast SSD. However, the remaining components clearly get along well with each other. You know, when Photoshop 12.1 starts on a freshly loaded system in 9 seconds, and then starts in 2-3, it makes an impression. Yes, and filters, including rather complex ones, are superimposed with such ease, as if inside not two cores, but at least four. Again, I want to use the word "unusual." You seem to take something thin and light in your hands, preparing to make certain compromises for this, but you don’t have to go. The computer in the hands is more than real.
The next few photos taken in the cellar of the winery, I will leave without comment. It seems that if Athos, escaping from the chase, had locked himself in such a cellar, and with an ultrabook, d'Artagnan had arrived in time and would not have pulled him out of there a month later.
From the glamorous Cannes we will be transported to the ancient Jaffa. The city is so ancient that Tel Aviv next to it is not even a teenager, but a newborn. It is no joke, the first mention of Jaffa dates back to 1440 BC, and by the time described in the Gospel, he had already managed to become quite old. As an entourage for a photo shoot, I chose Old Jaffa Hostel - a very peculiar hybrid of a hotel and a hostel, located in an old building. Local models often resort to take pictures there, but the ultrabook posed clearly for the first time in this establishment.
WiFi is everywhere in the hostel, so you can go online without any tricks and do the usual things. When the latter is tired, you can raise your eyes and look at old photographs that hung the walls. In one of the corners there is a special selection of photographs depicting people who got married after meeting at the hostel. Some even send photos of children. Very dramatic.
We go out to the balcony and look at the real oriental bazaar, where you can buy absolutely everything - from an old armchair to a bronze bauble, which stands like a headset by the master Gams. This photo was made possible by a balanced arrangement of elements inside the ultrabook. He very confidently stood on the railing, despite the very strong wind.
On the sea, to which from this place about five minutes walk, there was a real storm. By the way, the sea is also visible from here.
The hostel ultrabook met his great-grandfather - ThinkPad, running on the first-generation Centrino platform. It was with her that the time of truly mobile computers began. And one must - one of them works fine so far. By the way, it was not in vain that the first version of Centrino was designated by the code word Carmel - it was developed here on the Promised Land (not all, of course, but a significant part). And among its developers was my Saratov classmate, who left for Israel at a very tender age. Indeed, the world is small.
Among the hostel’s antiques, a real telephone machine accepting coins was cluttered. It still works great, and I have been struggling with myself for a long time - toss a shekel into a slot and call a friend in the good old fashion, or, without further ado, talk absolutely free on Skype from an ultrabook? Given that it was in Israel, guess which option was chosen? :)
So what do I have to tell you?
The ultrabook in general and the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s in particular are an unpleasant thing and very suitable for moving in space. I miss Ethernet and one more (and better - two) USB ports, as well as a fingerprint scanner, which creates the illusion of additional information protection. But, as I already wrote, the current ultrabooks are a kind of dolls of real ultrabooks. Soon, very soon, the models on Ivy Bridge will be knocked down - even faster, more economical, equipped with a variety of sensors and with new interesting features. They, of course, ruthlessly eclipse the IdeaPad U300s and its counterparts. But even what is now, is ready to serve people actively moving in space faithfully. And the best ... It, of course, will always be. And this is hardly a bad thing.
By the way, on May 8, together with IdeaPad we will fly to Shanghai, where HP will show new models of its ultrabooks. And there is not far to Computex.