Lenovo’s 3000 series line-up makes up its mainstream laptops. The latest addition is the 200 and is based on Santa Rosa, the latest laptop platform from Intel.

A biometric scanner lets you long in to Vista with a swipe of your finger. Setting up the software for the finger scanner is simple, and logging in is convenient. The performance in PCMark 2005-a test for measuring mainly the graphics subsystem performance was more then satisfactory. The 1 GB of RAM makes sure Vista runs fine. The benchmark for FarCry recorded a frame rate of 5.70 fps, and Doom 3 did 9.3 fps, both of which are pretty bad, but comparable to most mid range laptops of today. The memory and drive benchmarks in SiSoft Sandra show pretty good results a 42 MB/s drive index and a Score of 3786 for memory. The 15.4-inch screen does a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800. It is crisp and vibrant decent enough for day to day use, but you start to see the bandings in color gradients with HD videos-a sing of a poor LCD.

The keyboard is sturdy; the keys have descent travel, and most importantly, lack the flimsy, plasticky feel you find in quite a few cheaper laptops these days. The right edge of the touchpad acts as a scrollbar. The blast of hot air from the left vent is noticeable, which clearly indicates that the laptop runs quite hot. The speakers are lacking in power, and despite the low volumes we kept it at, the laptop only stayed powered on for 2:41 hours on a full charge.

It’s down to the extras, because the performance is pretty standard. You get Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, four USB ports and a FireWire port. The Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can be turned on and off with the slide of a notch instead of through the OS. There is a VGA connector for an external monitor, a 5-in-1 memory card reader, and a 1.3MP webcam mounted at the top of the screen.

Gaming is out of the question because of the lacking graphics subsystem, but the N200 should be fine for students and business users for regular work and the occasional movie or two.

Specs:

1. Core 2 Duo
2. 110GB HDD
3. 1GB RAM
4. 15.4 inch Widescreen (1280×800)
5. 5-in1 Card Reader (SD,MMC,XD,MS,MS Pro)
6. 1.3MP Webcam

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