Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 Review

by Kevin O'Brien

The ThinkPad SL300 is Lenovo's new 13.3" budget business notebook which offers many of the same features you would find on the T/X/R-series notebooks, but at a much lower price. The SL series is Lenovo's attempt to directly compete against the lower priced Dell Vostro small-business lineup of notebooks, offering many business features, but at a lower cost than the Latitude models. Now the question running through everyone's minds is, should Lenovo have put the ThinkPad logo on a budget oriented notebook? Read our review to find out what we think about the ThinkPad SL300.

Our review unit specifications:

• Processor: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 (1066MHz FSB, 3MB Cache)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 128MB
• Screen: 13.3" WXGA LED-Backlit Glossy VibrantView (1280x800, 300nit)
• Memory: 2GB(up to 4GB configurable)
• Storage: 250GB SATA HDD (5400rpm)
• Optical Drive: Dual layer CD/DVD recordable drive
• Wireless and Communications: Intel 5100 (802.11 a/b/g/n wi-fi), BlueTooth 2.0 EDR
• Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion 51Wh
• Dimensions: 12.5 x 9.4 x 1.3-1.5"
• Weight: 4lbs 14oz with battery
• Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
• Warranty: 1-year

(view large image)

Build and Design

The design of the new SL-series is not unlike the older generation R-series notebooks during the IBM era of ThinkPads. The entire chassis is made up of a durable plastic, which helps cut down on weight as well as cost. The normally exposed screen hinges are covered with plastic and the ThinkPad logo even sports a red LED for the "I". A glossy surface replaces the rubbery black paint commonly found on the more expensive ThinkPads, which some might say gives it a cleaner or more stylish appearance. This budget ThinkPad also shows its true "ThinkPad" roots with the red-striped and blue-dotted TouchPoint buttons.

(view large image)

Build quality is just above average, with a durable feel, but not as strong as what you might find in the R or T series models. Some mild flex is found in the palmrest, and the bottom of the notebook has more give under stress, such as gripping the edge while carrying the notebook around. Fit and finish could be improved in a few areas, such as the TouchPoint buttons which are too close to the top edge of the palmrest, and squeak when pressed. While this is a fairly minor assembly defect, the level of annoyance is like walking around with a shoe soaked with water, squeaking everywhere you step.

<object classid='clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000' codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" width='425' height='350'><param name="width" value="425" /><param name="height" value="350" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8l_irEgvG-s" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='425' height='350' src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8l_irEgvG-s"></embed></object>

Upgrading components on the SL300 is much easier than trying to do the same on the T or R series ThinkPads. All user upgradable parts are located beneath 2 panels located on the bottom of the notebook. This includes access to the RAM, WWAN slot, processor, and other components. Compared with the other ThinkPad models which require the palmrest and keyboard to be taken apart before you can access certain items, this might be more user-friendly.

(view large image)

Screen

The LED-backlit VibrantView display found on the SL300 rates above average and was very easy on the eyes. Color and contrast with the glossy finish were excellent, making images and video &quot;pop&quot; out at you. Vertical viewing angles were decent, with a good-sized sweet spot before colors started to invert as you tilt the screen forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles were excellent, not really showing any distortion even at very steep angles. The LED-backlit was very bright, enough to easily overcome intense office lighting. Outdoor visibility would have been better if the screen didn't have so much reflection from the glossy surface, but it was still manageable. My preferred brightness setting inside was 80% in the office and about 50-60% at my home.

(view large image)	(view large image)
(view large image)	(view large image)

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the SL300 is very firm around the perimeter, and even above the optical drive cavity, shows little to no flex under firm pressure. Key action is very smooth and gives just the right about of feedback for each click, exactly what you would want out of a ThinkPad keyboard. Some of the layout has been tweaked, such as the page up and page down buttons located near the direction pad, instead of at the upper corner of the keyboard.

(view large image)

The touchpad was a mild disappointment, with quite a bit of lag and inconsistent sensitivity. While on the surface the touchpad looks just like what you would find on any other ThinkPad, it is actually a completely different panel. Lenovo opted for a non-Synaptics touchpad which I found to be so distracting in use that I turned to the TouchPoint during my review. The touchpad surface is very nice, with a semi-rough texture that is easily to glide your finger across. The touchpad buttons are also excellent, with a deep throw and great feedback. The TouchPoint functionality was great, and my only gripe were the buttons that rubbed up against the palmrest and squeaked.

Performance

System performance was excellent with the 2.4GHz Intel P8600 Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA 9300M graphics. The notebook was very snappy with a fast boot-time, and applications opened without any lag. While it might not be in the same territory as gaming rigs, it is more than capable for its intended audience of small businesses. Synthetic benchmarks also gave very good scores, although not the best with 3D gaming.

wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, this processor benchmark program is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, it measures the amount of time to run a set amount of calculations.

wPrime comparison results (lower scores means better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 (Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz)	32.059s
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz)	34.628s
HP Pavilion dv5z (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 @ 2.1GHz)	39.745s
Dell Inspiron 1525 (Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2.0GHz)	43.569s
Dell XPS M1530 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.485s
HP Pavilion dv6500z (Turion 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	40.759s
Sony VAIO NR (Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz)	58.233s
Toshiba Tecra A9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	38.343s
Toshiba Tecra M9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.299s
HP Compaq 6910p (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	40.965s
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240s
Zepto 6024W (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	42.385s
Lenovo T61 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.705s
Alienware M5750 (Core 2 Duo T7600 @ 2.33GHz)	38.327s
HP Pavilion dv6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	38.720s

PCMark05 is a benchmark that measures the overall system performance, so it considers the processor, hard drive, memory and OS as part of the mix. The ThinkPad SL400 once again fairs pretty well with this benchmark:

PCMark05 measures overall notebook performance (higher scores are better):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, Nvidia 9300M GS 128MB)	5,554 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9300M GS 256MB)	5,173 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	3,994 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 1525 (2.0GHz Intel T7250, Intel X3100)	4,149 PCMarks
Dell XPS M1530 (2.20GHz Intel T7500, Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB)	5,412 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 1520 (2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA 8600M GT)	4,616 PCMarks
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS)	4,591 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	4,153 PCMarks
Lenovo 3000 V200 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	3,987 PCMarks
Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB)	4,189 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks
Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	3,487 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
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400)	3,646 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results for graphics performance (higher scores are better):

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, Nvidia 9300M GS 128MB)	1,695 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9300M GS 256MB)	2,211 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	1,599 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 1525 (2.0GHz Intel T7250, Intel X3100)	545 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv6500z (2.0GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, NVIDIA 8400m GS)	1,551 3DMarks
Sony VAIO NR (1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100)	504 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1530 (2.20GHz Intel T7500, Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB)	4,332 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 1520 (2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA 8600M GT)	2,905 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	1,408 3DMarks
Alienware Area 51 m5550 (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB	2,183 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	827 3DMarks

HDTune storage drive performance results:

(view large image)

Ports and Features

Port selection on the SL300 is very nice, offering a wide range of ports that don't always crop up on 13.3&quot; notebooks. The SL300 offers both VGA and HDMI graphics, which should interest both projector users and people who watch to use the notebook with an HDTV.

• Three USB 2.0 ports
• Firewire
• ExpressCard slot
• Gigabit Ethernet and modem
• Multi-card reader
• Audio out, microphone in
• VGA monitor out
• HDMI (video and audio)
• Kensington lock slot

Front: Wireless On/Off, Headphone/Mic

(view large image)

Rear: Kensington Lock Slot, Modem, VGA

(view large image)

Left: HDMI, 1 USB, Multi-Card Reader, Firewire

(view large image)

Right: Expresscard/54, 2 USB, LAN, AC Power

(view large image)

Speakers and Audio

The Lenovo SL300 offered three main sources of audio output, including Headphone out, speakers, and HDMI audio. The speakers performed adequately, but were low in peak volume and lacked any hint of bass. For watching YouTube clips or listening to internet radio it would be fine, but if you really want to enjoy an audio source turn to one of the other audio sources. The Headphone jack provided clean static-free audio, perfect for private listening. The HDMI output also supported digital audio out which worked fine with my Sony HDTV.

(view large image)

Battery

The SL300 handled itself quite well in our off-the-grid testing, reaching above 4 hours of battery life on the 6-cell battery. With the brightness set to 60%and wireless enabled and active, the SL300 managed 4 hours and 19 minutes of battery life before it reached 4% and went into hibernation. While this is no 6 hours from our T400, it is still very good for a 13.3&quot; notebook.

Heat and Noise

The Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 ran remarkably cool during our tests, having more than enough cooling from a fan that always operated at a slow speed while the computer was running. Running off of the battery in adaptive mode, typing surface temperatures were great peaking just below 81F towards the lower part of the keyboard. With room temperature at 74F, you could barely even feel if the laptop had been operating for any length of time. Bottom temperatures were also excellent, with a peak temperature of 83F. I could probably go as far as saying that this notebook is the coolest operating notebook I have reviewed.

(view large image)

(view large image)

Fan noise was minimal at slow speeds, just under a whisper level. Under stress like benchmarking it did increase, but not to unbearable levels.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 turned out be to be very capable business notebook, with most of the ThinkPad durability and features we are used to, but with a much lower cost. This notebook had more than enough power to plow through daily tasks, heavily influenced by the 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor and NVIDIA 9300M GS graphics card. Battery life was good reaching above 4 hours of life in our testing, compared to the 14&quot; T400 which could break six hours with switchable graphics. Overall the SL300 is a solid notebook for those looking to purchase something more durable than a consumer notebook, but don't want to make a jump into the full-on business notebook category.

Pros

• Very good performance
• Cool to the touch; is it even on?
• Easy to upgrade components in compared to regular ThinkPad
• Good battery life

Cons

• Squeaky TouchPoint button
• Laggy non-Synaptics touchpad

 

Nice review, but with the current discounts on the T400, i can get the T400 much cheaper similarly configured. Makes me wonder why it's at the pricepoint it's at or if we'll see this be discounted soon as well

 

Hmm ... not a bad looking machine. I especially like the temp control it seems to have.

Although I do not use a trackpoint mouse, I could definitely see how the squeaking could be irritating.

Good review! Also impressive to see how well the 9300gs performs on the tests....

 

Thanks for the review.

The 3DMark06 score is substantially lower than for the SL400 with the same GPU but 256MB graphics RAM.

John

 

That is great, I guess SL300 with integrated graphics would be the really coolest! Kevin, what is the enviroment when you test T400? is the same with SL300? I am really curious why SL300 is much cooler than T400.

Touch point and touchpad is nothing to me, but 4lb 14oz looks a little heavy. If it is less than 2kg, it will be ideal to me.

 

Can the graphics card be switched off just like the T400?

 

The SL300 looks nice, but I can certainly tell that Lenovo is starting to 'sell out' the Thinkpad brand. Glossy Lid? Squeaky mouse buttons? Keyboard flex on the T series?

 

Great review again Kevin.....can you give me some info regarding SL300 keyboard as how does its keyboard compared to the T400.

 

Thanks Kevin.
I was wondering if a review was ever coming out for the SL300.
Hmmmm, considering the EPP+coupon offer going with a Canadian config, most people are better off with a T400 or X200.

 

9300GS 128MB Vs HD 3200
16xx VS 15xx????

nice work Nvidia.

 

I would take the T400 keyboard over the SL300 keyboard any day of the week. Just isnt in the same realm. Close, but not the same key action I am used to.

 

Isn't HD 3200 integrated?....or is there a dedicated one too?

 

Probably because the SL is much thicker than T series, cooling is more efficient

 

Interesting to read about the touchpad. Are there other quality ones than Synaptics? I've got one of those in my HP nw8000 and it's miles better than what's in other laps I've tried (non-Thinkpads).

Poor touchpads are rarely mentioned in reviews so thanks.

 

Nice review.
I think that´s the first 13" screen Thinkpad, since 570/570E Models... this is my favorite screen size.

 

Kevin,
what RAM speed did your SL300 test object have. You indicate you had a CPU with a 2.4GHz CPU. Lenovo states the only compatible RAM with the SL300 to be 667MHz (DDR2) RAM (the web does says so, and the Customer Service confirmed it on the phone today). Why would I pay the extra money for a faster CPU if the chipset does not support the faster RAM. I thought the SL series are using the newest intel chipsets and therefore would support DDR3 memory.
~ColoradoTK

 

I have an SL400 and my left Trackpoint button squeaks as well.

 

I can not see the harddrive on the pictures? It's not a user upgradeable part on this model? -- then how would you do it?

How anoying is it that the fans ar always on, are they even on when the computer is in hibernation?

About the touchpad being "laggy", it seems that uninstalling the Alps driver and instead using the generic windows driver will make it better -- losing the scroll functionality though.

 

I can confirm that disabling the mouse driver and installing the generic windows driver fixes the mouse jumping. You do lose all the features. I really hope a fixed driver is released.

My biggest problem with this laptop is that the audio crackles and pops constantly. Movies, music, whatever. Happens more if I am doing other things at the same time. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

 

The Lenovo Thinkpad SL300 is bulkier and 0.3 lbs heavier than the Sony Vaio SR and the Asus F6 (two other computers that I considered buying), but the SL300 has better specs for a cheaper price. When the screen is open, you will notice that it is very tall, so the SL300 isn't good for meetings where you want to take notes but still be able to look at other people around the table. There is a lot of wasted space above and below the screen. I was surprised to see that the SL300 is almost an inch taller than my old Compaq Presario v2410 with a 14.1in screen. There is no reason for the SL300 to need so much space since it's LED backlight doesn't need a bulky power inverter like a conventional CCFL backlight. If you need a sleek and small machine, you should avoid the SL300.

The good thing about the bulky design of that SL300 is that it feels very solid. Unlike my Compaq Presario, this laptop has very little flex anywhere. It is sturdy, which is important since I plan to lug mine around the Andes. The magnetic screen fastener makes the SL300 a joy to open. The hinges feel solid and the screen opens without any creaks and extends all the way back, so you can almost lay the screen flat, which is useful because you will not want to look down at the screen from a vertical angle, because the screen colors invert. The horizontal viewing angles, however, are pretty good. The LED backlighting is *very* bright--so bright that I had to turn the brightness down a bit because it is too intense when inside. I haven't tried the laptop outside but I suspect that the screen will be readable in the sunlight when the LED light is at full brightness.

The bumper pads on the bottom of the laptop are big and don't look like they will pop off. The speakers are decent for a 13.3 laptop--certainly better and louder than my Compaq Presario v2410's speakers. The female VGA connector has metal nuts for the male VGA connector to screw into. Many laptops don't include these nuts and the VGA connector can come loose, which is embarrassing when doing a presentation with a projector.

When pressing in the CD/DVD holder you will need to press in the center and not on the edge, otherwise the CD/DVD often doesn't engage, and pops back out of the laptop. The CD/DVD burner wiggles when extended but doesn't feel like it would break very easily and it doesn't have a large lip which can catch on objects.

I never use the trac pointer because it is harder on my wrists which are susceptible to carpal tunnel syndrome. The SL400 and SL500 models have a good Synaptics touchpads, but the SL300 has a crappy Alps touchpad. It's buttons are ok, but the pointer lags. Uninstalling the Alps driver and using the default Windows controller reduces the lag, but then you loose scrolling and any special configuration functions.

When my SL300 arrived, the space key had popped off its housing and it kept popping off after I tried to press it back on its housing. I sent the laptop back to Lenovo to be serviced. The repair service is very quick and they answered the phone immediately, so I didn't have to listen to any elevator music. The day after I called Lenovo, UPS delivered a box for me to send my laptop to the repair center in Kentucky. The computer came back 4 days later with a replaced keyboard.

Unfortunately, the keyboard still had problems. The shift key sometimes sticks and the Q and space keys don't always register, when I press them. I called up Lenovo and told the service representative that I wanted to send the computer back for a refund since the keyboard was defective. She told me that she would have to get authorization from her manager, who wasn't available during the weekend. She emailed Monday afternoon to tell me I could get a full refund on the computer, but I would first have to buy another computer from Lenovo and then they would let me send the SL300 back for a full refund. Seeing how it would be impossible to get a full refund, I decided to send the SL300 back to be serviced again to see if they would fix the keyboard the second time around. So now I am waiting to see whether it will come back with a fixed keyboard.

Even if the keyboard did work correctly I would still not like it. The keys require more force to press and are clacky. The larger keys like Shift, Enter and the Spacebar are especially loud and really bother me in a quiet room. This is not the laptop for quiet libraries and hushed offices. I have noticed that my carpal tunnel is starting to act up and I suspect that the cause is the force of typing on the keyboard. The space key only has one sensor underneath it, rather than two like most keypads. This means that the space key registers best when you press in the center, but doesn't always register when you press it on the right or left edge of the key. My old i series Thinkpad, which I bought back in 1999, had a much better keyboard and other people report that the T series is also much better.

Before I sent the SL300 back to be serviced, I figured that I might as well play with the machine before I wiped the harddrive. I installed Ubuntu 8.10 64bit. GNU/Linux installs OK, although there are a couple annoyances. (See the threads at forums.lenovo.com and forumsubuntu.com about the SL300 with Ubuntu Linux. )

There is now an open source driver available for the wireless card, but it requires some special steps to download it and set it up. The default GNOME battery meter doesn't show the battery charge correctly, although the little battery application which you can add to the GNOME panel does display the battery charge correctly, as does powertop. The computer hibernates and suspends correctly, which is a big plus. Some people report that they have to unload the wireless module before suspending, and then reload it after resuming. I haven't found this to be a problem.

Skype is tricky to set up in 64bit Linux since it is a 32bit program, but I followed some instructions to do it. Unfortunately I couldn't get Skype to record my voice because PulseAudio was blocking it for some reason. I found that issuing "pkill pulseaudio" before starting Skype fixed the problem. At this point I should have written a script to kill PulseAudio everytime I wanted to start Skype, but instead I made the fateful decision to simply uninstall PulseAudio from my system. I couldn't see that it served any useful purpose, so I eliminated it. Well, that proved to be a very bad idea, because the next time I booted Ubuntu and tried to log in, I was unable to enter X Windows. I tried booting up in single-user mode. I was able to get into the system, but I couldn't figure out how to reinstall PulseAudio and all its dependencies correctly. It should have been a simple "apt-get install pulseaudio" but it didn't put back all the essential files which I had removed. In the end I had to reinstall Ubuntu all over again.

The special buttons on the left hand side of the keyboard (mute, volume up and down, HelpCenter) are not recognized. I ran xev to see what numbers are assigned to the keys and X Windows showed me that they have no numbers. Clearly the SL series is nothing like the T and R thinkpad series, whose special keys are recognized. Probably a different kernel module needs to be created for the thinkpad SL.

The screen brightness setting is reversed in Linux, so setting the screen to maximum brightness actually sets it to maximum darkness and vice versa. I thought that the problem was the mapping of the brightness up and down function keys, so I reversed them with xmodmap, but I found that the keys are mapped correctly. If I set to maximum brightness in the configuration file, the screen displayed maximum dimness. Since I wanted the brightness to be 80% I set it to 20% in the configuration file--it is an easy way to work around the problem. I wish I knew how to write Linux drivers so I could help fix this silly problem.

The crappy Alps touchpad also gave me fits since it required 3 strokes to move the point from one side of the screen to another. To make it usable under Linux, I installed gsynaptics. In order to use gsynaptics with the new version of x.org which no longer puts all the configuration information in xorg.conf, I needed to add the line:
&lt;merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string"&gt;On&lt;/merge&gt;
to the file /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/11-x11-synaptics.fdi and reboot the computer (restarting X Windows won't do it). Once SHMConfig was turned on, I was able to increase the horizontal and vertical acceleration of the touchpad, so the pointer would move all the way across the screen with one fast stroke. I wish that I could figure out how to get the mouse to cover more screen real estate even without using acceleration, but I couldn't see any setting for that in gsynaptics.

My other problem was getting the touchpad to turn off while I was typing, so the pointer wouldn't jump around when I accidentally brushed the touchpad. For some reason I couldn't get the command "syndaemon -i 1 -d" to turn off the touchpad when I was typing. For some reason syndaemon gives me an error message about SHMConfig not being enabled when it clearly is. The problem probably lies in the new version of X.org which doesn't keep all the configuration in xorg.conf anymore.

Clearly the SL300 is not the best machine for Linux, but I am convinced that it can be made to work with a little perseverance. Hopefully the keyboard will get fixed so I can start using the SL300. The machine has some good features, but its keyboard and touchpad do not live up to the Thinkpad reputation. Rather than buying a Thinkpad SL300, I would recommend the Asus 6F or the new Asus N20 instead.

 

Exactly same feeling on SL300, only the Touchpad kills me.... Others are good.

 

that really sucks about the touchpad thing, if you use this notebook in bed do you think it would be really problematic? This notebook is next to perfect minus this setback.

 

Understand that these are not real ThinkPads. They sort of look like one (though not really, with the glossy lid) but they don't have lot of the features common to other ThinkPads

No magnesium case
No bottom roll cage
No Think Vantage
No top roll cage
No Steel hinges
No lid latches
No Ultrabay
Not even the ThinkLight

and the BIOS identifies the laptop as an IdeaPad, not a ThinkPad.
This last part isn't going to be an issue for most people, but it's proved a real headache for those trying to run Linux. Other ThinkPad models are made to be Linux-friendly