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Lenovo savaged this laptop by offering 2GB of RAM rather than the usual 4GB. As a result, the performance hit is significant and makes this machine barely usable even under the lightest workloads.
We liked
The form factor is perfect if you feel that netbooks are too small and don't care about a numeric keypad. The hard drive is also surprisingly large, which is good to see. The keyboard is also pretty good and responsive, not something we were expecting on such a cheap laptop.
We disliked
The lack of memory is the biggest issue and fortunately, it is not something that cannot be remedied. Stick some more RAM in and you shall be happy! The credit card-sized trackpad would befit a tiny netbook more than a laptop of this size, and it's a big let-down even on a device in this price bracket.
Final verdict
As it stands, it is hard to recommend the B40 over the likes of the B50 or other competing sub-£200 notebooks. 2GB is simply not enough when your rivals offer twice as much memory.
The good news though is that you can upgrade the memory cheaply (4GB will only set you back around £15) but you will need to choose wisely and know what you're doing. Upgrading the memory shouldn't take more than 10 minutes and you could end up with a 6GB laptop costing well under £200. Not bad at all.
