Attractive and affordable with
performance to match
After a slew of silver and black
Ultrabooks, Lenovo’s colourful U310 range comes as a refreshing change. Our
review sample came in Aqua blue, but there’s also Cherry and Graphite to choose
from.
Lenovo
U310
Like its stablemate, the U410, Lenovo’s
U310 ($975 inc. VAT) isn’t about offering the most power and the highest resolution.
But in terms of value for money and great design, it certainly deserves your
attention.
The great design doesn’t stop at the
outside either. Lift the lid and you’re greeted with a white chassis and a
black isolation-style keyboard that really does look different from your
average laptop. Like most Lenovo laptops, the keyboard here is very comfortable
to use. Despite the slimness of this machine (16 mm thick) there’s a
surprisingly decent amount of travel on the keys.
The glass trackpad supports multi-touch
gesturing - so you can use two fingers to scroll a document, or pinch together
to zoom in on Google Maps. The integrated buttons are responsive and not stiff
or hard to use. If we had to pull up Lenovo on usability it would be for the
slight degree of flex you’ll experience while typing.
Plenty Portable
The Lenovo U310 weighs in at 1.7 kg and,
like all Ultrabooks, is ideal for portability. The 199 minute battery life we
recorded on the U310 is similar to the U410 and UX32A in this group test, but falls
short of most of the other Ultrabooks here. The 16mm thickness of the chassis
and the 13.3-inch screen size means this is perfect to slip into a satchel or a
bag and carry around for a day.
The
U310 is all about great design and reasonable performance - which is great for
anyone new to buying an Ultrabook
The screen is bright, with the standard
1,366 x 768 pixel resolution. This will capably handle 720p HD video but stops
short of a Full 1080p display. You can attach an external display to the Lenovo
U310 thanks to the HDMI port although the older VGA connection has been
omitted. There is an Ethernet port for connecting to the internet and also
three USB ports for adding other accessories. Two of the USB ports are the USB
3.0 format and will afford you read/write speed 10 times faster than USB 2.0.
Our review sample came with an Intel Core
i5-3317U processor clocked at 1.7GHz backed by 4GB RAM. These are accomplished
specs that mean the Lenovo is more than capable of handling intensive tasks and
multitasking between programs. The quad-core third- generation processor puts
this ahead of Sandy Bridge machines, although graphical muscle is limited to
the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip.
You won’t be able to run the latest games
on this Ultrabook, but general office programs and editing suites will barely
tax the Ivy Bridge processor. There’s enough space on the 500GB hard drive to
store plenty of media and because this is an Ultrabook, there’s also a 32GB SSD
to make sure boot up is quick and painless.
It’s not hard to recommend the Lenovo U310,
especially if you’re interested in picking up a portable machine without
spending around a grand. Although we liked the design, it won’t be to
everyone’s taste. But, rest assured, when it comes to performance, this
Ultrabook is definitely more than just a pretty face.
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Info
Price: $975
Website: www..com
What’s it best for
Web, mail & photos
HD, movies & TV
Light & portable
Key features
Supplier: www..com
OS: Windows 7
Home Premium
Processor: Intel
Core Ì5-3317U 1.7GHz
Memory: 4GB
Storage: 500GB
HDD / 32GB SSD
Screen size: 13.3-inch
Screen resolution: 1,366 x 768
Graphics: Intel
HD Graphics 4000
Weight: 1.7kg
Verdict
Value: 5/5
Features: 3/5
Performance: 3/5
Total: 4/5
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