Lenovo N200 Review

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by Kevin O'Brien

The Lenovo N200 is a mid-range consumer laptop aimed to compete against the Dell E1505, Toshiba A200/205 and other laptops in that category. The N200 model is a refreshing update to the previous N100 line, with enhancements such as the Santa Rosa chipset, double the dedicated video memory, express card instead of PC-card, and Windows Vista.

Lenovo N200 (view large image)
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The N200 model I am reviewing is the 0769A9U laptop. It is loaded with the following features:

• Model: N200 0769-A9U
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz T7500
• Chipset: Intel 965 Express
• Memory: 2048MB DDR2 PC5300 (A single 2GB stick)
• Hard Drive: 160GB Hitachi(HTS541616J9SA00) SATA
• Screen: 15.4&quot; WSXGA+ 1680x1050 Glossy
• Optical Drive: LG GMA-4082N DVD-/+R/-RAM
  • 8x DVD-/+R
  • 4x DVD-/+RW
  • 2.4x DVD+R DL
  • 3x DVD-RAM
  • 24x CD-R
  • 24x CD-RWX
• GPU: 256MB nVidia 7300 Go
• Network/Wireless: Intel Wireless 4965AGN, Broadcom 10/100 Ethernet Card, Modem and Bluetooth
• Inputs: 84 Key Keyboard with Two Button Touchpad with Scroll Bar
• Buttons: Power, Lenovo Care, Power Up and Down, Mute, and WiFi/Bluetooth On/Off Switch.
• Slots: ExpressCard/54
• Battery: Six Cell (Mine has the 9 Cell battery)
• Dimensions:
  • Width: 14.2&quot;
  • Depth: 10.5
  • Height: 1.24&quot;
• Weight: 6 Lbs 8.6 oz
• Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate
• Warranty: One Year Warranty With One Year Battery
• Price: $1599

Design and Build Quality

Lid view of N200 (view large image)

The N200 is a very solid laptop with minimalistic design features. The basic silver paintjob and dark grey plastic inside don’t automatically stick out from the crowd in terms of looks. Where it really shines is build quality, ease of upgrading, and solid Thinkpad geared keyboard. The screen hinges are very solid ... which you would expect from the company that brings you the very durable ThinkPad business line. The screen latches hold the lid down very firmly by keeping a bit of tension on the rubber guards placed around the screen edges. The chassis is very nice and produces no plastic squeaks or creaks when you lift it up. The entire area around and below the keyboard is supported very well with little or no flex under pressure. Pressing firmly along all parts of the keyboard shows no sign of weakness or give.

Bottom view of N200 (view large image)

15.4&quot; screen Lenovo N200 on the right compared to 12.1&quot; screen Lenovo V200 on the left (view large image)

Like others in the Lenovo line, upgrading the laptop is easy without completely dismantling the entire laptop. Each area has its own cover held in by one or two Phillips head screws. This includes the ram, hard drive/wireless card, and the CPU/heatsink area. Almost any upgrade the average or power notebook user would ever need to do to this laptop throughout its useful lifespan could be dealt with through these sections.

Lenovo N200 opened up (view large image)

Inputs and Outputs

The N200 has the following port selection:

• Four USB 2.0
• Four-Pin Firewire
• 4-in-1 Card Reader
• Ethernet
• Modem
• VGA Out
• S-Video Out
• Microphone
• Headphone
• Security Lock
• Power Connector

Left side view of Lenovo N200 ports (view large image)

Right side view of Lenovo N200 ports (view large image)

Back view of Lenovo N200 ports (view large image)

Screen

The screen on this laptop is a glossy style LCD with the WSXGA+ resolution. Viewing angles are very good for a non-IPS display, but as you move vertically above or below the screen, colors do start to invert. Horizontal viewing angles are much nicer though, allowing movement all around without much color distortion. The plastic cover and frame to the display provide decent rigidity to prevent flexing, but pressing the back of the display firmly will show distortion marks.

Lenovo N200 on the left, ThinkPad T60 with FlexView on the right (view large image)

Lenovo N200 on the left, ThinkPad T60 with FlexView on the right (view large image)

Lenovo N200 on the left, ThinkPad T60 with FlexView on the right (view large image)

I could find no flaw with my display, either through light leakage or dead/stuck pixels. Backlight brightness was very adequate, almost too bright for my tastes on its high setting. I found the comfortable range to be two notches up from the bottom on its adjustment scale. White levels and color reproduction are very good.

Comparison of Lenovo N200 on the left with ThinkPad T60 FlexView on the right (view large image)

To give an idea of color and overall brightness compared to a known source, I took some shots comparing its screen to my T60. The T60 has the 1400x1050 Flexview (IPS) screen and both screens have the brightness set to maximum. The N200 screen is much brighter and I feel has a cleaner looking white. For the standard viewing zone which is either dead on perpendicular, or +/- 10 degrees up or down, side to side, the N200 shows no color distortion. As you start moving at greater angles though, you can clearly see that the colors invert. Overall I really enjoy this display and wish they offered it on the ThinkPad line.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the N200 feels similar to the Thinkpad keyboards. Side to side with my T60, the only difference I could tell is the N200 has a bit softer key press noise. The pressing depth, support, and key texture were all the same. Also, as mentioned above, the keyboard has no flex under it and provides very supportive typing.

Lenovo N200 keyboard area (view large image)

The touchpad feel is very nice with a textured slick surface. Compared to the touchpad on the ThinkPads, it is almost ½” wider. This was a nice adjustment for me since it provided more room for the touchpad scrolling feature. The touchpad buttons have a very satisfying press with a bit of travel, not just a simple click like others.

This particular model also comes with a fingerprint scanner, usually something only found on business laptops. Most people struggle with fingerprint scanners until they get used to the steady stroke the scanner wants, but once you figure it out it is very second nature. These days I use the fingerprint scanner to log myself in, instead of having to type out my long password.

Speakers

The speakers on the N200 are about average for laptops. The speaker don't provide thrilling bass or midrange, but are good enough to listen to music or movies. Volume was acceptable for enjoying a movie without having to sit directly in front of the laptop.

Processing Power and Games

This laptop was equipped with the T7500 Core 2 Duo processor, as well as the nVidia GeForce Go 7300 with 256MB of dedicated memory. I found this to be just perfect for my very light game playing ... mostly just some Half-Life 2. There was no detectible stuttering or other problems. High Definition movies--even at 1080P resolutions--play with ease.

Benchmarks

Super Pi Comparison Results

Super Pi was run so that the processor was forced to calculate Pi to 2-million digits of accuracy.

<colgroup><col width='404' /><col width='54' /></colgroup>

Notebook	Time
Lenovo N200 ( 2.2GHz Intel T7500, nVidia GeForce Go 7300)	55s
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)	59s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo T7200)	1m 03s
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (1.73 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T5300)	1m 24s
Toshiba Satellite A205 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 34s
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52)	2m 05s
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T2400)	59s
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 02s
Toshiba A100 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
HP dv5000z (2.0GHz Sempron 3300+)	2m 02s

 

Comparison table for PCMark05

PCMark05 measures the overall performance of a system.

Notebook	PCMark05Score
Lenovo N200 ( 2.2GHz Intel T7500, nVidia GeForce Go 7300)	4,648 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)	4,084 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (Intel 1.73GHz T5300 + GMA 950)	2,981 PCMarks
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52, ATI x1270)	2,420 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite A135 (Core Duo T2250, Intel GMA 950)	3,027 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA 950)	2,994 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX)	5,597 PCMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Toshiba Tecra M6 (1.66GHz Intel T2300E, Intel GMA 950)	2,732 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400)	3,646 PCMarks
Sony VAIO FE590 (1.83GHz Core Duo)	3,427 PCMarks

 

3DMark06 Comparison Results:

(Remember, the score might look bad but 3DMark06 is really for benchmarking gaming PCs)

Notebook	3DMark 06Results
Lenovo N200 ( 2.2GHz Intel T7500, nVidia GeForce Go 7300)	493 3D Marks
Asus G1J (Core 2 Duo, 2.0GHz, NVIDIA 7700)	2,389 3D Marks
HP nc8430 (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	1,745 3D Marks
Apple MacBook Pro (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB)	1,528 3D Marks
Dell Precison M90 (2.16GHz Core Duo, nVidia Quadro FX 1500M)	3,926 3D Marks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce Go7800GTX)	4,085 3D Marks
Compal HEL80 (2.0GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7600 256MB)	1,654 3D Marks
Dell XPS M1710 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia 7900 GTX 512MB)	4,744 3D Marks

 

Vista Performance Index

<colgroup><col width='114' /><col width='37' /></colgroup>

Processor	5.1
RAM	4.7
Graphics	3.5
Gaming Graphics	3.1
Primary Hard Disk	4.9

 

Wireless Performance

Since I still lack an N capable router, my testing was done with a WRT54GL running DDWRT. Wireless speeds seemed slower than my T60 running Windows XP, but it could also relate back to the security software preinstalled on the laptop. Internal network file transfers maxed out at 2.2MB/s to 2.7MB/s, which is about average for a 54G wireless network. Range with the Intel 4965 was 10-15% under my Atheros chipset wireless card.

Heat and Noise

The fan on this laptop, while having the ability to spin slowly, likes to quickly ramp up at the slightest temperature increase. It also has no delay, causing the fan to quickly speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down, etc. This started to drive me up the wall when some programs were running. I am hoping a BIOS fix comes around to mellow out the fan. Heat from the sides and bottom of the laptop was very controlled and the only hot point was next to the heat sink output grill.

Battery Life

I was able to get three hours and 45 minutes of battery life from the nine cell battery, with power settings set to average and an active internet connection courtesy of AIM, before it shut down at five percent. Screen brightness was two notches above the bottom. The N200 ships with a 90W power adapter that only gets mildly warm under heavy laptop use. After running 3DMark it was soothingly warm ... not scalding hot like other brand laptops.

An odd power management quirk with this laptop is it gives no estimation of how much battery time you have left. It will show the percentage of charge left in the battery, but no countdown of time remaining. I noticed this in the Lenovo C200 as well.

Conclusion

The N200 is a very competitive laptop in the upper middle price range. If you configure a Dell or Toshiba laptop with similar specs you will spend as much as $200 more than the N200 price ... and they still lack the Santa Rosa platform. The N200 also had nice touches like Vista ultimate and a single 2gb stick of DDR2 (quite expensive compared to two 1gb sticks) included at no additional cost. The only drawback to the N200 is its very basic look and feel compared to much more stylish computers on the market. That said, the Lenovo N200 is something to consider if you are one of the shoppers who are more interested in features and cost than looks.

Pros

• Sturdy build quality and very easy to upgrade components
• Bright and Vibrant screen
• Comfortable Touchpad with great tactile feedback from the buttons
• ThinkPad style keyboard

Cons

• Vertical viewing angles could be improved
• Cooling fan with ADHD

 

I got to play around with the N200 as well, I wasn't quite as impressed as Kevin -- I'm not really too stuck on the design. Looks like a giant can of Coors Light IMHO. Nonetheless, I agree it's a fairly solid offering and the point is well made on the price comparison to other brands. The keyboard is great and I was fairly impressed with the screen.

 

Good review. I considered the Lenovo's in my laptop purchase but since I was not looking for a business style laptop went elsewhere.

They still win the decade old looks award though.

 

nice review.

 

talk about unfair comparison...anything vs. the ips screen is going to look like crap.

 

I've had the chance to briefly examine a similarly-equipped older brother N100 after almost 9 months and the hinges were still as solid as they were before, not a slightest bit of wobble
3DMark06 should be at least 100 points higher, if not more thanks to the more powerful T7500, I guess someone is running a bloated system

 

*takes hat off* - nice review!

It's amazing how fast these new machines calculate Pi to 2 M digits, lol.

Believe it or not...an old laptop I had laying around (Athlon 2200+ w/128 mb ram) took over 5 minutes!

I totally underststand the fan problem you are having...my laptop does that too. You can hope for a firmware update, but I'm sure you'll get used to it. I'm sure it's quieter than an everyday desktop, though.

 

"Cooling fan with ADHD" haha that cracked me up. It's so true on some laptops though. Enjoyed the review. Thanks!

 

Very nice review. I like the N series' basic appearance, myself.

 

There isn't a webcam, is there? I'm surprised they would choose to include a fingerprint reader, yet not a webcam.

I mean, they already have the Thinkpad for all those serious types, right?

Is this supposed to be Lenovo's consumer multimedia machine, or is it their poor man's Thinkpad. Or maybe it just can't make up its mind?

 

The lack of DX10 graphics disappoints me. The design is kinda bland, but from a distance, it could be taken as one of the Titanium ThinkPads, so its all good

Other than that, it seems like a really nice laptop. I've always thought of the N series as a ThinkPad Z on the cheap, and that really isn't a bad thing.

 

Nice review dietcokefiend.

Was the 10.5" depth dimension you stated in the review including the added depth caused by the 9-cell battery sticking out of the back? How much does the actual 9-cell battery stick out from the back of the notebook?

 

There is a webcam, forgot about taking a picture with it though. I will snap a picture and add it to the review. Vista was driving me insane for most of the review though

The 3000 series hinges seem to hold up very well. My c100 is coming up to the 10-11 month mark, and still just as solid.

The 3dmark score reflects pretty well on the amount of software laoded up on the thing. For every big program I uninstalled another one decided to take the running lead on who could peg the hard drive the most. first it was Norton, then it was the finger print software, then it was the security client, and then it was Vista indexing the hell out of everything. Figure scores being much nicer if you do a clean install.

Haha, it reminds me of a giant cheap nokia phone. Looks a bit better when its cracked open, and you are looking at the dark gray insides, instead of the silver outside though.

The 10.5" depth was for the 6-cell offering. My demo model was an odd beast that came with a 9 cell, instead of the public offering 6 cell one. Figure it adds on .5" to .6".

 

I wonder how it compares against the hp dv2500t?

Jeff

 

Hah took me awhile to figure out the "cooling fan with ADHD" con, BIOS updates definitely will fix that.

Nice review.

 

I think the non-flex view is bright to the point where it is just washing out colors. Might try taking a picture of them with equal luminosity in white.

 

Anyone have a suggestion on getting a picture from the webcam? Lenovo doesnt give any software for it, its not a TWAIN source that could have something imported through a photo editing program, and even MS doesnt recognize it as a standard camera. The only thing on it that has it as an option is AIM.

 

Yea, at 1300+ you would want a webcam. As much as I dislike Acer, at least most of their laptops come with a webcam (or can be equipped with an integrated one).

 

So the notebook you have pictured in your review has the 9-cell battery installed, correct? And the depth dimension given in the review are with the 6-cell battery? Do you know if the 6-cell battery sticks out from the back of the notebook?

Thanks.

 

Yea it has a webcam, but no I have not found anything yet to take a picture with it.

The 6 cell sits flush with the back. If you look for the C200 review, its the same style notebook, but with the 6 cell battery.

 

I have a N200 as well... I use Windows XP Pro and it just recognizes it under My Computer as a USB Webcam device... seems to work fine, and is well centered when I sit directly infront of it

Has a nice little green light when the webcam is active as well



Also to note this laptop runs fine without a battery pack (for people like me who are installing Gentoo overnight... damn long installs!)

 

Yea, I would really enjoy if Vista still had that little camera thing like windows xp had. I have found a few of those security apps that take video from the webcam, but those only take very resolution limited snapshots.

 

The camera is probably resolution limited anyhow

 

Cool review, great pictures. =)

 

Has anyone gotten Notebook Hardware Control to work properly? I set it to Dynamic switching in either AC or battery mode and it still keeps it at the maximum speed...

I have tested setting it using "clock modulation" and it works fine when I set it down low...



Also,

Has anyone gotten the numpad to work with the function key without enabling NumLock? I mean I can do Fn + Alt + 0233 and then get é, but I can't do like say hold Fn + 192.168.0.1

I find that quite annoying that I would have to enable NumLock and then not be able to press the real key... (if I just hit Fn + a key, it will do stuff like Home, Pg Up, etc.)

 

Some additional great news. It looks like the N200 does not have a mini-PCIe whitelist. Meaning that the computer will boot without warnings when putting in your own aftermarket wireless card. I tested out the broadcom based Apple TV N card that I had laying around, and it worked perfectly. Vista even recognized it and loaded the correct drivers.

 

Anyone notice a faint high-pitched noise while using headphones with the Realtek thing? I hear it at any volume level (except off and mute of course)

 

[Update]
About the Fn/Numlock key behavior... I've phoned Lenovo's Tech Support (pretty good support imo) and they have told me that its intended that when you do Fn + (any number on a numpad) that it would do the Home PgDn stuff... That is really bad behavior because the keys aren't even labeled to do any of that in the first place.

Secondly, even if they were labeled using those home page down keys would be virtually useless to anyone...

So I have made my own solution using AutoHotkey

Here's a quick guide on how to do it...
1) Download http://www.autohotkey.com/download/AutoHotkey.zip
2) Extract to x:\AutoHotkey (aka it doesn't make a folder)
3) Create AutoHotkey.ini in the AutoHotkey folder
4) Open the file with your favorite text editor
5) Here's the fun part

Copy and paste this into the file

Code:

NumpadIns::Numpad0
NumpadEnd::Numpad1
NumpadDown::Numpad2
NumpadPgDn::Numpad3 
NumpadLeft::Numpad4
NumpadClear::Numpad5 
NumpadRight::Numpad6 
NumpadHome::Numpad7 
NumpadUp::Numpad8 
NumpadPgUp::Numpad9 
NumpadDel::NumpadDot

Now you can save that file and open up AutoHotkey.exe and it'll remap those keys without any questions...

(If you've noticed I have basically eliminated the default non-numlock functionality of the Numpad)


I've also mapped some other keys for the N200, specifically the PgUp and PgDn keys because I find that I seem to use Home and End more frequently...

Just append this to the end of the file... You may wish to include a newline for aesthetics

Code:

PgUp::Home
PgDn::End
Home::PgUp
End::PgDn

What this map will do is reverse it so that you would have to press Fn + (select appropriate key) to do what the normal behavior is


This is only the most simplistic stuff you can do with AutoHotkey, you can in reality map any key to multiple functions if need be. Another neat thing is that you can map your controllers to do mouse functions, your keyboard keys to do media functions, and so much more...

 

Are you sure this configuration comes with a single 2gb memory stick? Some vendors' websites show this model 0769A9U to be equipped with two 1gb sticks. Thanks for the great review.

 

Hi,

thanks for the excellenct review. I have got my N200 just now and I am quite impressed on the features for this prices. However, I am a annoyed as well about the "ADHD" fan. I was wondering if anyone found a solution to solve this problem. NHC is not working properly and there is neither a BIOS update from Lenovo to make the Notebook more silent.

Any hints and tips?

Matthias

 

Maybe try a BIOS update if you have not already?

 

Hi,

my BIOS is up to date. My BIOS version is 68ET24WW from 08/15/2007 and I could not find any newer versions on Lenovo's website. NHC doesn't work neither as the fan is spinning already at very low CPU loads. And voltage control doesn't work for Santa Rosa yet.

I think I am going to return it because I think I can't live with that frequent fan noise. Can anybody recommend a silent notebook with similar specs?

Thank you.

Matthias

 

Depending on the resolution of the display, take a look at the Thinkpad R series (just started having glossy screens). The thinkpad line in general has very quiet (and tame) fans.

Other than that the HP notebooks of late are on par with the Lenovo 3000 series notebooks, along with the Dell Vostro line.

 

The R series uses glossy displays? Since when did that happen?

 

Its a new option that I have seen for the past month. They also mentioned it in the Thinklive webcast thing.

 

Does the N200 have an integrated microphone? Without it, the webcam would be very useless imo..

 

It does indeed have an intergrated microphone (at least mine does!)

 

Thanks, i didn't know that an integrated microphone is standard, actually i want to buy my first notebook in the next weeks/months, so i dont know much about what i can expect

And please excuse my bad english, i'll try to do my best

 

Hi! I'm thinking on buying the Lenovo N200 (with T7250 processor and 1680x1200 screen);
Would you say it's better as a "business type" notebook than what I was considering earlier: the Dell 1520 (T7300 processor).
I don't play games, but I want good performance multi-tasking and GOOD SCREEN (and also I have a budget limit).

Hope u could help me decide!!

 

Maybe this post is more relevant to the "What computer should I buy" forum.....so I posted it there now..

 

Hi, has anyone found a good solution to the fan problem?

 

Please use the specific Vendor forum for hardware specific questions. The review thread is not the best location, since most people who know this notebook rarely view the thread after the main review.

 

Hi,
On the Lenovo Canada website it says that select models of the N200 have webcams. Does anyone know if the "Lenovo 3000 N Series - 7TPE151" does? It doesn't list anything about a webcam, but none of them do!
Thanks!

 

i have a n200 but T7100 model and i am very happy with my lenovo
it has 1 gb ram but i added 1 gb more.. i dont like vista and i installed xp pro and it has a perfect performans than vista.

 

My scrolling on my touchpad suddenly stopped working...
does anybody know what to do?

 

If you have problems with this or any other notebook, please post a thread in the correct forum (like the IBM/Lenovo forum) where people can help you.