Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 review

In typical Lenovo style, the SL500 isn’t the most attractive laptop we’ve ever seen. Lenovo has made some attempt at injecting it with a bit of pizzazz with a glossy black lid, but otherwise you’re left with the usual ThinkPad looks.

It’s a touch heavy too, weighing in at 2.89kg, not including the 560g power supply. But, thanks in no small part to its thick chassis and solid display, the SL500 feels well up to resisting the knocks and scrapes of day-to-day travel.

It’s a good thing too, as Lenovo’s capacious battery helped it to last 5hrs 9mins away from the mains. And even more impressive given the price, Lenovo has also managed to squeeze in Gigabit Ethernet, draft-n wireless and an HSDPA modem (albeit locked to Vodafone).

If there’s a weakness with the SL500, it’s the display. There’s nothing wrong with the 15.4in screen size, nor the 1,280 x 800 resolution, but colour reproduction and contrast levels are inferior to that of the Sony. A lack of brightness and a tendency to leave colours slightly muted are the worst of its traits, so it’s far from dreadful.

Lay hands on the Lenovo, though, and any concerns about its display will soon disappear. The keyboard is slightly spongier than the very best Lenovo’s range has to offer, but it’s still superb by any other standards, and makes for confident touch-typing. The trackpoint and trackpad combination is a surprising find on such a budget machine, but it’s very welcome.

In fact, the only price you pay for the Lenovo’s generous roster of abilities is marginally inferior performance. That said, the Intel Core 2 Duo T5670 is far from underpowered for most tasks, and with 2GB of memory it cruised to 0.89 in our benchmarks. It was only the Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics that disappointed, reducing our Crysis benchmark to a 5fps slideshow.

Whether you’re looking for a capable all-round laptop for the home or a budget laptop for the office, the SL500 presents simply unbelievable value for money. Just note that this model, the NRJ4DUK, is due to be replaced with the £40 dearer (but 0.2GHz faster) NRJAJUK soon, so stocks are becoming limited.