Pro IT Zone

In this year I have really noticed that the Ultra Portable Notebooks war has increased. Apple was the first to lauch the famouse MacBook Air and a couple of days later Lenovo launched the ThinkPad X300 that soon will replace the ThinkPad X6x Series.

The MacBook Air really looks pretty, but as I said on several posts before I won’t really buy it, thats because of the lack of ports and expansion possibilities that it has.

The new Lenovo X300 by the other way includes a lot of features, ports and other stuff really necessary for the daily work.

Many notebook manufactures during this year made funny videos making parodies to the MacBook Air ad. On this post you will find the video of ThinkPad X300 making fun against the MacBook Air.

2008 is going to be a great year for technology. With only three months big announcements have been made, especially in the notebooks area. Many PC vendors have made great announcements and the processor chip makers are going to make news soon.

Recently Lenovo launched their new ultraportable notebook and has declared the war to Apple against their MacBook Air. I made some reviews on the Apple MacBook Air on a post couple of days ago. I know that the announce of the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 was also made a couple of days before, but I wanted to study both notebooks very well before making a comparison… a true “Mano A Mano”.

For this Mano A Mano, I’m going to compare both technologies, design and a couple of more things. Kodachi (the Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300 codename) promises to be a great product, the same as the MacBook Air, both focuses mainly to users that are frequent travelers to need processing power and portability.

Lets get started with some of the comparisons:

	ThinkPad X300	MacBook Air	Advantage
Mobility	92cu”(1.5L) .73 - .92″ (18.6 - 23.4mm) thin 2.93 lbs. (1.33kg) w/3 battery, 4.3 hours 3.12 lbs. (1.42kg) w/ 6 battery, 6.5 hours 3.51 lbs. (1.59kg) w/ 6 and 3 battery, 10 hours	53cu” (0.87L) 0.16-.76“ thick (4 – 19.3 mm) 3.0 lbs. (1.36kg) Battery Life – 5 hours Battery is not user replaceable	ThinkPad – lighter, max battery life, choice of batteries Apple – thinner at the thickest point
Core Technology	Intel Core 2 Duo SL7100 LV 64 bit 800MHz (965GMS) to 4GB 667MHz DDR2 memory 13.3″ WXGA+ (300 nit) LED Backlight	Intel core 2 Duo 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz (965GMS) Max 2GB of 667MHz on Board (Not upgradeable) 13.3″ WXGA (300 nit?) LED Backlight	ThinkPad – max memory, higher resolution panel Apple – better CPU performance
Graphics & Storage	Intel Integrated GMA X3100 SATA 64GB Solid State Drive (optional FDE available) No Turbo Memory (not needed with SSD) 1 Fixed Bay (7 mm)	Intel Integrated GMA X3100 SATA 64GB Solid State Drive or 80GB 1.8” 4200rpm No Turbo Memory (not needed with SSD) No optical	ThinkPad –optical drive, FDE option Apple – HDD option for capacity
I/O and Audio	No IR, no PS/2, 3 USB 2.0, no Serial, no Parallel, no S-Video out, no Firewire, 0 PC Card slots, 0 Express Card slots; no media reader, yes mic, yes camera, No HDMI	No IR, no PS/2, 1 USB 2.0, no Serial, no Parallel, opt. S-Video out, DVI, no Firewire, 0 PC Card slots, 0 Express Card slots; no media reader, yes mic, yes camera, No HDMI	ThinkPad – 3 USB, stereo speaker w/higher quality Apple – DVI port
Manageability	USB Port Replicator No image compatibility Rescue & Recovery, ImageUltra, Away Manager, other ThinkVantage Technologies	External USB Options Apple iLife Suite – optimized for consumer, not commercial	ThinkPad – manageability tools Apple– iLife suite
Security	Std. TPM v1.2 chip, Opt. Fingerprint, No Smart Card Reader; no Full Data Encryption HDD, BIOS disable of all ports, password manager	No TPM chip, No Fingerprint, No Smart Card Reader; no Full Data Encryption HDD, no PW manager	ThinkPad – A lot better security features
Connectivity/Wireless	Intel 802.11n, USB Modem Opt. GPS, Opt. Wi-Max, Yes UWB, Yes Bluetooth Integrated Wireless WAN option 1GB Ethernet (Intel – Centrino Pro Available) Access Connections software	802.11n Wi-Fi,  USB Modem No GPS, No Wi-Max, No UWB, Yes Bluetooth No Wireless WAN option NO Ethernet (USB option)	ThinkPad – Everything
Ease Of Use	ThinkPad Utilities, UltraNav, 7 row keyboard, wireless on/off switch, ThinkLight, individual battery control, super quiet design, superior thermals	6 row keyboard with reduced travel, touchpad only, backlight keyboard, Ambient Light sensor, Apple machines run HOT	ThinkPad – 7 row keyboard + TrackPoint, Superior Thermals Apple– backlight keyboard, ALS
Quality	Roll Cage: Hybrid CFRP top, Mg bottom, EPEAT GOLD Stainless steel display hinges; 2 display latches; Yes shock mount HDD Yes spill resistant keyboard	Design!, EPEAT Silver No Shock Mount HDD, Yes Accelerometer No Spill Resistant Keyboard	ThinkPad – dual latches, stronger hinges, stronger case, EPEAT Gold Apple – design is widely considered better

As you can see both models have their own advantages and disadvantages. I personally think that both are well constructed and are made for different needs. It is clear that the ThinkPad X300 has more technical  and features advantages than the MacBook, but the main problem of the ThinkPad X300 is the price. The MacBook Air is a cheaper than the X300, and this is because the X300 uses a Solid State Drive which today it is more expensive than the traditional disks.

Another advantage that the MacBook Air has is that it uses Mac OS X Leppard, which is less propense to get infected by a virus or a malware, Windows Vista with all its security features can easily get infected without an antivirus.

The choice is yours, I hope that the information post here can help to make a better purcharse.

Well I have to tell… I’m the happy owner of a ThinkPad X60 Tablet PC. Probably is not the latest model in Lenovo’s Tablet PCs but to tell the truth I don’t have any complaint about it.

It has passed one year since I got it and the performance still the same, pretty good for all the work that I have done with it. When I got it, at the begging it use to have 1GB of factory installed RAM, but because of my demanding needs on my work I upgrade it to 2GB.

I have run many test with it installing several operating systems, from the factory installed Windows XP 2005 Tablet PC Edition, to Windows Vista Business, Ultimate and Enterprise Editions, Ubuntu and Kubuntu Linux, and even the hacked version of Mac OS.

With the Windows Versions I didn’t have any problems running it. With the Linux versions I had to do a little of research finding the appropriate drivers and I liked very much the performance with those operating systems, but unfortunately I had to uninstalled them because most of the applications that I use at my work are Windows based, and I have to emulate Windows environments with CrossOver Office or Wine because sometime apps may become slower or reduce their performance, but regarding the drivers and if I only used it a home or in a enterprise environment with no Windows Based apps, everything works fine. With Mac OS… everything sucked! Of course, Mac OS is not designed to run other systems than Mac PCs or notebooks, but it let me installed fine after making some minor changes on the BIOS, like only working with one processor instead of two and changing the SATA interface to compatibility (EIDE emulation).

One day a friend told me that working with Tablet PCs was incredible; especially because they can help you reduce time and be more productive, and that’s true. You can comfortably grab it as a notebook and start writing with your own had, I use Microsoft OneNote 2007 to do this and later I copy and paste what I have handwritten and past it into a Word file or even to my Lotus Notes client to send an email.

What I liked is that the system with time starts to learn and recognize better your handwriting so margins of recognizing unwanted letter become fewer. Windows Vista has a better recognition feature than Windows XP 2005 Tablet Edition, but I like more the gadgets found on Windows XP 2005.

It includes an Ink Desktop where I can take quick notes or when I’m bored to draw a little bit and then erase it.

Working with Tablet PCs is something fun and productive, I highly recommend to have one, especially if you are a frequent traveler or a mobile user as I am, and it is better the experience with a ThinkPad Tablet PC, because the cover is made of Magnesium which will make it harder and lighter to carry protecting your data and screen from unwanted drops which may break it.

Some interesting things happened today. IBM has granted a product manufacturing license to Lenovo for one and two socket tower and rack servers.

Lenovo will now manufacture a select subset of x86 based servers (from the current System X Servers family) and they will focus mainly on the small and medium business. Lenovo will also provide configuration and management tools suitable for the small business.

In this way both companies will benefit each other in a great way, this will help Lenovo to expand their current product set available for the Americas and EMEA and IBM will expand their products into the market sectors that they were not reaching.

Since the acquisition of the Personal Computer Division from IBM, both companies have benefit each other positioning their technology, Lenovo using best technology available in personal computing, expanding operations and products to the countries were they didn’t have presence making it the third biggest PC vendor in the world, and positioning into the enterprise market; IBM entering to the SMB market, speeding product manufacturing, cost improvement for consumers. Both companies made the perfect match.

Two or three years ago some rumors were said that probably IBM will sell to Lenovo the System X Servers division. I must clarify that I’m not saying that this is going to happen; it is something that could be, but for the people who said those rumors this will give them more to say and think. That will be something that we will have to wait and see want negotiations are the “Big Blue” and the Chinese Company doing.

Just as I posted a couple of days ago, Lenovo launched the new IdeaPad notebooks oriented to the Home and Home Office users. One of the things that really impressed me about this annoucement is that Lenovo is now including a security feature which is the VeriFace face recognition.

This security feature was available in the Lenovo 3000 Y Series that were only available for India, this technology is available for the United States with the new IdeaPads.

The interesting thing about this new technology is that is makes your face your password. You can easily log into the system using this new feature and also you can consolidate and manage your passwords easily.

In the market you can find different kinds of software used for face recognition security. Most of them use texture mapping, in which a person’s skin is texture, analized and then matched. Other software which is the most used maps some face characteristics like distance between the eyes, mouth and nose width, etc.

The new VeriFace technology from Lenovo works in a particular way. When you sit infront of the camera, the system will generate two white dots that will follow your eyes, this will be show at your screen, then it will make the validation and let you log in the system.

Different profiles can added and each user will recognized and the logged into their profile. This will make things easier and safer, you will be able to protect your data, files and passwords from others. Also tests have been made to check how safe the software is and if it could be easily hacked. Some of the tests included trying to access the system by using high resolution pictures, but the software detects when a picture is being used and doesn’t lets the access. Also the software is smart enough to recognice between a human face and an animal face, animals can’t be enrolled to the system.In conclusion I think this is a big evolution in biometric security that will help users to make things easier and to worry less about their data protection.Below you will find the TV ads off the Lenovo 3000 Y Series with face recognition technology that was available in India.