Lenovo ThinkPad R61 review

Matthew Elliott CNET

Published: 10 May 2007

Not content to just add the latest Santa Rosa specs to its current lineup, Lenovo has rolled out two new ThinkPad models, including the ThinkPad R61 (the other is the T61 in the higher-end ThinkPad T series). The 14.1in. R61 includes all the important parts of Intel's revamped Centrino Duo platform, including the new Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU, extra onboard Turbo Memory (for boosting access times) and 802.11n (Draft-N) Wi-Fi. It's still the same black, boxy ThinkPad you've come to know and perhaps love, but Lenovo has started to add more consumer-friendly features such as webcams and optional Blu-ray drives for those who want one notebook for both work and play. It's still pricey when configured for power users, but the typically excellent ThinkPad build quality makes this a system that will have a long lifespan.

Although Lenovo, and IBM before that, has firmly resisted major changes in the tried-and-true ThinkPad design, we are pleased to see the company take two new steps in the right direction. First, the new Lenovos are all available with wide-screen displays, meaning that the old-fashioned 4:3 aspect ratio screen is one step closer to extinction. Second, the chassis itself has been reinforced with an internal roll cage, replacing the traditional solid magnesium alloy cover. The slightly concave roll cage, hidden under a composite cover, protects the LCD sceen while helping Wi-Fi reception, which can be negatively affected by an old-fashioned full magnesium alloy cover.

We're also firm fans of Lenovo's extremely small AC adapters. There's little point in carrying around a lightweight notebook if all the extra room in your bag is taken up by a huge power brick. The Lenovo adapter, in contrast, weighs around 225g and the brick itself measures just 101mm by 38mm by 25.4mm.

The time-tested design includes traveller-friendly touches, such as sturdy steel hinges and a shock-mounted hard drive. The keyboard is one of the best notebook keyboards available, offering an extremely comfortable typing experience. The R61 also features both an eraser-head trackpoint and a touchpad; each has a set of mouse buttons, and the top set includes a scroll button in the middle. Above the keyboard are three handy volume buttons — the extent of the system's dedicated multimedia controls — and a blue ThinkVantage button, which calls up Lenovo's helpful preinstalled support-and-configuration utility. A webcam sits on top of the display, although we're not sure how many business users actually need one. We've never Web-conferenced from a notebook, but someone, somewhere, must do it.

The 14.1in. wide-screen LCD display offers a 1,440 by 900 native resolution, which is a bit finer than the 1,280 by 800 resolution commonly found on 14in. and 15in. notebooks. Text and icons are highly readable, and the screen has a matte finish. While many consumer notebooks have glossy screen coatings, which make for a more vibrant multimedia experience, most business systems stick with the matte look, which we generally prefer for its glare-fighting properties.

The ports and connections on the R61 are in line with what you'd expect from a mainstream business notebook, although we'd have liked to see one more USB port and an S-Video output. Our review unit didn't have Bluetooth (which is an option), but it did offer a built-in 802.11nantenna, for the very latest in fast Wi-Fi connection speeds. You will, of course, need a wireless Draft-N router to take advantage of it.

Lenovo hasn't released the configuration details for the R61 yet, but we do know there will be numerous hard drive options (our review unit included a faster and more expensive 7,200rpm drive), your choice of Santa Rosa CPUs, including the T7100, T7300, T7500 or T7700, and even an optional Blu-ray drive.

Our ThinkPad R61 review unit uses the new 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500.which is one step down from the top-of-the-line Santa Rosa CPU, the 2.4GHz T7700. The R61 offered excellent performance, but its benchmark test scores were neck-and-neck in most cases with the non-Santa Rosa Lenovo ThinkPad T60, a long-time notebook favourite. The T60p has a slightly faster, although older, T7600 CPU, showing that the new Santa Rosa platform isn't automatically going to drastically change your computing experience. The R61, however, did widely outperform the older Lenovo T60 on one important benchmark for business users, our Microsoft Office productivity test.

Overall performance differences were minor, and as we test more new Centrino Pro and Centrino Duo systems, we'll get a better picture of the performance advantages to be found in the Santa Rosa platform. In anecdotal testing, the system felt fast and was stutter-free, even while multitasking — but we'd expect nothing less from any recent notebook.

A relative rarity for a business notebook, the ThinkPad R61 offers discrete graphics in the form of the new 128MB Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M. Although that's not enough to make it a serviceable gaming machine, it does make the system capable of playing full-resolution Blu-ray movies. Running Quake 4 at 1,024 by 768 with anti-aliasing turned on, we got a playable 33.7 frames per second.

The ThinkPad R61 ran for an acceptable, if not impressive, 2 hours 8 minutes on our DVD battery drain test; we expected it to run longer since the new Santa Rosa platform is meant in part to improve battery life. Our review unit used a six-cell battery. Our DVD battery drain test is especially gruelling, so you can expect longer life from casual web surfing and office use.

Lenovo provides a one-year warranty with 24-hour toll-free phone support. That's the standard for consumer notebooks, but it's shorter than the three-year term that covers many business systems. You can choose from several different warranty extension options, but there will of course cost extra. The preloaded suite of ThinkVantage applications helps users troubleshoot problems, and company's support web site also has extensive support section.

The ThinkPad R61 range will start at £680 (ex. VAT) in the UK, although pricing for the model reviewed here is not yet available.

 

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