Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t - TechRadar UK

Lenovo's ThinkPad brand is synonymous with business reliability. Providing strong usability and data security for the mobile worker, the Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t (£1300 ex. VAT) brings an important change to the ThinkPad range. Gone is the business black of older ThinkPads, and in comes an equally sombre dark grey.

The thinking behind the simple styling is to prevent the overshadowing of older models. To this end, the Z60t maintains a businesslike appearance without losing its sleek touch of style.

Dimensions of 334 x 228 x 34mm and a 2.2kg weight make the Z60t capable of effective long-term mobility.

One of the first ThinkPads to sport a 14.1-inch widescreen TFT panel, office use benefits greatly from the increased screen space. It also means less chance of the panel being knocked down when you're trying to work on a plane or train. Displaying at a WXGA resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels, images are sharp and vibrant and ideal for spreadsheet and presentation work.

As one of the few new laptops these days not to use a dual-core processor, performance trails behind its peers. Its 80GB hard drive and 512MB of DDR2 memory are competent, but a score of only 190 points from MobileMark tests put it firmly at the bottom of the table.

Poor battery life

Although fine for office tasks, a dualcore chipset would have been preferable. Disappointingly, even battery life failed to measure up, as the Lenovo was only able to run for 171 minutes under test.

Where the Z60t excels is in usability. Common for a Lenovo laptop, keyboard quality is excellent. Both a touchpad and pointing-stick control are in place, for maximum choice of control.

Also ideal for its business audience is the inclusion of Lenovo ThinkVantage technology. Users press a single blue button to gain access to all essential laptop management tools and can easily tailor power settings, security features and more.

Data on the laptop's 80GB hard drive is protected by a biometric fingerprint reader for security. Lenovo's Active Protection System monitors the hard drive, and parks the drive heads in the event of a knock or fall, to further protect important data.

Simplifying the use of complex settings, this is Lenovo's ethos - to ensure that ThinkPad users spend more time at work and less time struggling with usability. To that end, the Z60t is a great success, but at the cost of power and performance.

For trusted business reliability, there are few laptops that compete with the Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t. However, for mobile performance and battery life, better options are available. Alex Bentley, Michael Browne