Notebook vendors are producing many new lifestyle products.
All the top brand name vendors now have a cornacopia of colourful notebooks for people to choose from. To really make a lifestyle choice with a notebook PC it has to be more than just colourful. It has to really fit your lifestyle.
And, Lenovo’s leather-bound Reserve Edition notebook can do that more so that any other notebook on the market.
Built to commemorate the 15th anniversary of ThinkPad, the Reserve Edition is a leather-encased notebook with Intel Centrino Pro mobile running Microsoft Vista. The leather is hand-stitched, saddle-grade premium French leather.
The unit feels like a leather portfolio case. Slightly heavier at just over four lbs. What really makes this machine work as a lifestyle choice is its outstanding battery life. I took this notebook to several downtown meetings and on two out of town assignments and I ran the battery hard but the eight-cell standard battery just would not die. Lenovo has battery stretch technology and it comes up when you are not even thinking about battery life. At one point I had the notebook on for more than seven hours before recharging and it did not skip a beat.
If Lenovo’s battery was average it could not be a lifestyle product because leather portfolio cases do not have to be recharged. They just work for what they are. The Reserve Edition had to exceed the average battery life of most notebooks for a leather bound product to fit into someone’s lifestyle.
This notebook is meant to be carried on its own. This is what I did during testing. I always left the charger at the office or in my hotel room. This notebook does not need a notebook bag, which cannot be welcomed news for Targus or Kensington.
If you want to get noticed or make a statement of some kind, this product will do the trick. Every single place I took the Reserve Edition, it turned heads.
Recently at one meeting in Toronto, two people were showing off their Apple iPhones and a crowd gathered around them. I powered up the Lenovo Reserve Edition and within seconds the group turned is collective attention to the leather notebook and forgot about the iPhone.
The biggest question I received was if the leather was real. After touching it they too realized it was genuine.
The next big question was on price. The Lenovo Reserve Edition is a premium priced product at $5,000, which includes a 36-month Executive Support Staff service.
With a $5,000 price tag, security has to be rock solid and the units’ fingerprint biometrics system is very good. It was very easy to set up and operate. The biometrics scanner is just part of Lenovo’s Client Security Solution, a hardware-software program that manages passwords and encryption keys. This notebook also provides excellent wireless performance except sometimes I needed to turn on the wireless radio to gain access. This could be a glitch with the Vista.
It does have its challenges. For example, the DVD recordable drive is an attachment. Another attachment is an 80 USB portable hard drive.
The price may be an issue, but Lenovo is only producing 5,000 units, so for those people who are looking to make a lifestyle choice or want to make a statement with their notebook, this will make sense to them.
This review is courtesy of PCWorld.ca. For the latest reviews and comparisons on laptops, notebooks, desktops, printers, software, consumer electronics and more, visitPCWorld.ca.
