Lenovo

Product Description

The future is now, and you can carry it wherever you go. Thanks to the combination of new Ultra-Low Voltage Core 2 Duo processors from Intel and the latest technologies from Lenovo and Microsoft, the ultra-thin IdeaPad U350 notebook features increased battery life, is just an inch thick and weighs only 3.52lbs, yet it delivers a brilliant Windows 7 experience. With Windows 7 Lenovo Enhanced Experience certification, the U350 features fast boot and shutdown, rich multimedia capabilities and easy system maintenance tools. Best of all, it’s from Lenovo, makers of the award-winning ThinkPad notebooks for business.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4445 in Personal Computers
• Color: Black
• Brand: Lenovo
• Model: 2963-47U
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00" h x 12.90" w x 9.00" l, 3.52 pounds
• CPU: Pentium 1.3 GHz
• Memory: 3GB SDRAM
• Hard Disk: 320GB
• Processors: 1
• Battery type: Lithium Polymer
• Display size: 8.9

Features

• 1.3GHz Intel Pentium Low Voltage Processor
• 3GB (204-Pin) DDR3 SO-DIMM Memory
• 320GB 5400RPM Serial ATA Hard Drive
• 13.3" (1366x768) 16:9 LED Display, Intel GMA 4500M Graphics
• Windows 7 Premium 32-bit, Up to 5 Hours of Battery Life

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

64 of 73 people found the following review helpful.
Nice laptop, but beware of poor construction quality and bad customer service
By I. Fridman
I'll get straight to the point.
Pros:
1. It is thin and really light, just like they advertise it.
2. Performance is what you would expect from this kind of a laptop. It was handling everything I have no problem. It was even playing my mp4 1080p movie.

Cons:
1. It came preinstalled with tons of junk from Lenovo. I had to reinstall Windows from scratch as soon as I got it. I bough many laptops before but this one came with exceptional amount of trial software and junk from Lenovo.
2. I bought my laptop with Vista and "free" upgrade to Windows 7. When I called Lenovo and asked about the upgrade they told me that I have to pay shipping and handling ($17) for them to ship me a CD. When I said that I don't even have a CD rom on this laptop, customer service rep had no clue what to say back. By the way, get ready for customer service located in China. The guy on the phone clearly had no idea.
3. Now to my biggest problem. Two month after I bought my laptop, I was removing and placing back a battery. When I was placing it back to the case something snapped. Apparently it was a plastic hinge that was holding my battery. Now my battery would not hold inside the case. I called Lenovo, and they told me to send laptop back to them, and they would determine if my repair is covered under warranty. 5 days later I got a call from them telling me that my repair would not be covered and I have to pay...$167 dollars to replace this part. Keep in mind that I paid $450 dollars for the whole laptop. So they wanted third of that to replace one plastic part. I called them back, and spoke with customer service rep, then a supervisor, but had absolutely no luck. At the end supervisor said that the best he can do is to send me to another Customer Service department that handles this kind of cases. I said fine. He said, they will contact you in...5-7 business days. This was after I did not have my laptop for 5 days already. I was beyond mad, and told them to send me my laptop back. Now I have a scotch tape in the back of my brand new laptop.

Conclusion:
I hope you have better experience with this laptop and with Lenovo in general, but beware, it has poor quality and poor Customer Service.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
Great little low end ultraportable
By J. Herman
After spending some time over a few weeks comparing, even going to various stores and testing Asus, Acer, Toshiba and Sony laptops, I finally decided on this little laptop as my choice among the inexpensive ultraportables and I'm very pleased with the U350 overall (hence the five star rating). The Asus machines (U20, U30 and U80) with a comparable processor and other options were very nice and I came close to buying one, but they came in at least $150-$300 more for roughly the same specs, but still had no HDMI port like this one. (Of course, you do get the Asus warranty, which I'd say is worth around another $100.) The Acers of equivalent components were also generally a good deal, but came in still $50-100 more and also didn't have a 1.3 megapixel camera. This model of the U350 has media card capabilities and the wireless N card, but no Bluetooth (which you get included for $142 more if you buy it direct from Lenovo). Bluetooth wasn't that important to me and the $507 price tag for this machine through Amazon was the best buy for the buck by far in my humble opinion. The U4100 1.3 Ghz processor is in the Pentium family and according to specs on the Intel site has 2 cores, but is not in the dual core family. It isn't rocket fast, but none of the ultra-low voltage processors are. Battery life is basically what is reported, roughly five hours from what I've been able to ascertain in two days of usage. I'm not sure how Asus and Acer get their machines to go 9-12 hours with roughly the same components, maybe it's lower lighting, power management, etc. The screen lighting on this machine is excellent throughout the battery life, but if you need 9 hours of time without a power source, go with the Asus or Acer, I guess, and pay the extra money and get certain slightly different tradeoffs. As to complaints here in other reviews about a cheap plastic case whose battery covers break, I'd say that if you force a part into this type of case whether it's made by Toshiba, Asus, Acer or whoever, it's going to break. Thanks for the warning, though. Having seen the other machines firsthand at computer stores, my assessment is that most have roughly the same type of lightweight plastic casings, so unless you go with a MacBook Pro and pay $1149 for the aluminum case model, this is basically what you are going to get. I guess the Acer has an aluminum top, but there are complaints about the fit of that among reviewers here. The brushed aluminum look on the palm rest for this U350 model is really great addition, as is the patterned cover because you get no fingerprints on either, which is really nice with all the "fingerprint magnets" out there. The mousepad and right and left click buttons seem to me to be a little inferior, which is almost worth a half a star off, but at this price you just need to face the fact you aren't going to get perfection. I bought the 3 year Square Deal warranty which includes accidental damage for a full 3 years (it's five star rated and 2 full years more Accidental Damage warranty than the Asus warranty). This is great deal through Amazon and I've very been pleased with their service (on-time, undamaged deliveries). I know some of the other low end ultraportables are also great deals, but if you are looking for a machine that is far more than a netbook for just a bit more in price, the Lenovo U350 is definitely worth seriously considering.

UPDATE AFTER ONE WEEK - STILL FIVE STARS
Still very pleased with this little laptop, and I see they've dropped the price another $8 to put it under $500. I went by Staples today to pick up some supplies and looked at latest the HP DM3 which they are selling for $649 and it is the exact same construction in terms of the lightweight, durable plastic casing (the ASUS also was roughly the same). I've gotten more use to the touchpad and the buttons and they same roughly the same quality as the ASUS and HP models at Staples. Also I noticed my daughter-in-law's Dell has roughly the same quality touchpad and buttons. I'm still getting five hours of battery life as advertised. I am very thankful for the "aluminum brushed" look of the palm rest, because I don't have to put up with smudges and fingerprints that come with the glossy black cases. The 1.3Ghz speed of the dual core U4100 is obviously significantly beyond the Atom processors of netbooks and any Celeron processor, and as I said above, it is in the Pentium family and is an ultralow voltage processor, though not specifically in the "dual core" family (but it does indeed have a dual core - search Intel processor specs and it shows this processor does have two cores like the dual core processors). I'm presently running MS Office on this without any hiccups, even Excel spreadsheets, and it does a good job with internet video clips.

IMHO, I'd still say it's easily the best buy among the lower end ultra-portables since it is only $500 and has the same or better specs than other ultraportables that are asking $150-$250 more.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Quality low cost ultra light
By John Lebo
Thin, light, U4100 processor is fine for regular office work and light play. Solid full size keyboard and touch pad. Nice bright screen with good viewing angles. Look and feel is expensive and refined although brushed aluminum is just painted on. Low noise, cool running and plenty of battery life on this 4 cell model. Much faster, more usable and more refined than a netbook. Much lighter and thinner than a traditional computer. The face recognition adds a cool factor. Instant wake from sleep when you open the lid. Mechanical internet switch when lid is closed which is great for planes and security. My setup asked me if I wanted the free trials which I declined so I did not have the junk the other review mentions. The one major shortcoming is the ultra wide screen makes the screen too short for everyday office use. Windows 7 exasperates the problem with a space consuming "ribbon" across the top. Macbooks more rectangular wide screen and software is much better in a 13". I bought directly from Amazon which packaged it poorly in a big box surrounded by bubble packs that just pushed aside and allowed the computer box to bang around loose. Thankfully the Lenovo packaging was quite good.