Lenovo IdeaPad U260 12.5" Laptop Review

Pre-installed Software and Performance

Lenovo also includes a few of their own software suites such as DirectShare, Security Suite and SmileDock. Lenovo DirectShare syncs all of your files and data between computers and USB drives in your local network. Security Suite protects you from unauthorized users accessing your data and trying to steal valuable data for identity theft. SmileDock is a transparent smiley face icon on your desktop that expands into a toolbar with links to commonly used programs such as CrossLoop, WeatherBug and iTunes.

As we've seen in numerous other Lenovo notebooks, the IdeaPad U260 features a hard drive protection system called Active Protection System. The software monitors for physical shock and disables the drive when excessive force is detected to prevent the spinning internals from being damaged.

We have run our usual battery of tests and benchmarks to give you an idea of how the IdeaPad U260's processor, hard drive and memory system perform under load. We have also placed alongside two systems we reviewed in recent months: also from Lenovo, the ThinkPad X100e is slightly smaller at 11"6 inches and is closer to a netbook in terms of raw performance, overall specifications and price ($550). The HP Envy 14 is a fully featured notebook, larger and heavier but with a price point close to the IdeaPad's ($950).

Hardware:

• 12.5" HD AntiGlare 1366 x 768 resolution display
• Intel ULV Core i5 470UM (1.33GHz, 3MB L2 cache)
• 4GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM
• Intel HD Graphics
• Hitachi 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive

• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Hardware:

• 14.5" HP Radiance 1600 x 900 resolution display
• Intel Core i5 450M (2.4 - 2.66GHz, 3MB L3 cache)
• 4GB DDR3 system memory
• 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
• Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200 RPM
• SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support

• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Hardware:

• 11.6" 1366 x 768 resolution display
• AMD Turion Neo X2 dual-core L625 (1.60GHz, 1MB L2 cache)
• 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 memory
• ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics
• 250GB 5400 RPM Fujitsu hard drive

• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)

The iTunes encoding tests consist of converting 14 MP3 files (119 MB) to 128Kbps ACC files and measuring how long this takes in seconds. For the file transfer test, we measure how long it takes to copy two sets of files from one location to another on the same hard drive. On the small files test we transfer 557 MP3 files, totaling 2.56GB. For the large file, these same MP3s were zipped into a single file measuring 2.52GB in size. Results are below:

* Best score result for each test is highlighted in bold letters.