https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Master Agents
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • Diversity & Inclusion
  • MSSP Insider
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • Apply Now
    • 2020 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2020 Hot 101 Rankings
    • 2020 MSP 501 Report
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Channel Educational Series
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
    • Channel Convergence
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Content Resources
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2021 MSP 501
    • Circle of Excellence
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Master Agents
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • Diversity & Inclusion
  • MSSP Insider
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • Apply Now
    • 2020 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2020 Hot 101 Rankings
    • 2020 MSP 501 Report
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Channel Educational Series
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
    • Channel Convergence
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Content Resources
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2021 MSP 501
    • Circle of Excellence
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

New/Changing Channel Programs


Review: The Lenovo U260 UltraPortable Laptop

  • Written by Dave Courbanou 1
  • February 22, 2011
Toward the end of January 2011, Lenovo sent a review unit of its latest ultraportable, the U260. While it's a solid machine, there are a few caveats that could be deal-breakers for the road warrior. Still, in both design and aesthetics, Lenovo is winning big points and hitting some high notes other PC makers just aren't. Here are the details:

Toward the end of January 2011, Lenovo sent a review unit of its latest ultraportable, the U260. While it’s a solid machine, there are a few caveats that could be deal-breakers for the road warrior. Still, in both design and aesthetics, Lenovo is winning big points and hitting some high notes other PC makers just aren’t. Here are the details:

First, let’s talk about the palm rests and touchpad. It’s hard to describe what it’s like have your wrists cradled by leather palm rests. Okay, so it’s not real leather, but it feels welcoming and comfy and luxurious — much like driving a car with a leather steering wheel. Adding to that level of luxury is a glass touchpad with a smooth feel and two responsive mouse buttons. Lenovo has made this touchpad way more usable than touchpads of the past, and that’s important since there’s no trademark red nub for alternative navigation.

Overall, the machine’s build quality is excellent. The rubberized-aluminum casing doesn’t creak or warp in my hands and the hinge pulls open easily without the bottom of the laptop coming up. It runs quiet and for an ultra portable has a decent array of ports. HDMI out, USB, VGA and Ethernet adorn the sides of the laptop. Plus, the monitor includes a webcam.

The U260 has a 12.5-inch screen, which puts it squarely between my main computer — the MacBook Air 11.6-inch — and the general array of 13-inch to 14-inch notebooks that dominate the world. The screen resolution is 1366×768, which is the exact same resolution as the MacBook Air; but oddly, that extra inch of screen size made it feel like there was more room on the desktop.

The Clementine orange unit I was sent was outfitted with the following:

  • Core i5 at 1.33 GHz
  • 4GB RAM DDR3
  • 320GB HDD

It’s perfect for Skype, working on the go and general web and word-shoveling activities. However, don’t expect this to play hardcore games. Not much bloatware lives on the U260, but McAfee Anti-Virus did keep popping up to ask whether an application was allowed to run and access the Internet. The video-chatting program Oovoo came pre-installed, as well as did a facial recognition software for logging into Windows. It works great if you’re sitting in a well-lit space, but if your face has just a bit of shadow, forget it. I suppose that’s to be expected, but don’t forget your backup password if you’re having a bad hair day.

But the U260 really falls short in two major areas: keyboard and battery life.

Just for reference, Apple was able to squeeze a full-sized keyboard on its 11.6-inch machine, and includes a full-sized trackpad. But even with an extra inch of space, Lenovo could not make its keyboard layout-friendly, and included buttons that easily could have been replaced with FN+ commands. I’m a righty, and as such, I use the right-shift key almost exclusively. Lenovo, for some reason, decided to include full-sized page up, down, home and end buttons vertically down the right side of the keyboard, making the shift, backspace, and arrow-keys a mess of shrunken chiclets. Reaching for the backspace key resulted in my cursor launching me to the top of the screen. Hitting shift frequently caused the opposite effect or resulted in pressing the up-arrow key, which would move my cursor around erratically, causing me to make far my typos than I ever would have normally. This was so frustrating that it felt like I was boxing with my computer. I don’t know who requires that much use of the page up, down, home and end keys, but Lenovo should have bundled them to the arrow keys with a function button or delegated them around the arrow keys like it did with the ThinkPad Edge, and give me back my shift key!

For an ultraportable, the battery life leaves something to be desired. At 75 percent charge, I had only 2 hours and 30 minutes of battery time. Even after dimming the screen, I could watch the percentage drop precipitously. After an hour of work, I was down to about 30 percent suddenly. I suppose the web browser and miscellaneous protection software (and maybe Flash) had chewed up some of the battery life.

(For reference, I have 63 percent battery life left on my MacBook Air as I write this, with an estimated time of 3 hours and 50 minutes left. That’s with the screen brightness on normal, a bunch of Safari tabs open, and a few miscellaneous applications running in the background.)

To be fair, the MacBook Air’s only moving part is a small singular fan that sits dead-center of the device to keep it cool. The U260, however, contains more standard drives and parts. It would have been great if Lenovo had hit or exceeded the four-hour battery life it boasts and hit that mark within what constitutes ‘regular use.’

The U260 does hold a decent charge when on standby and deep hibernation; however, I never was able to successful wake my U260 from hibernation without Windows giving me the blue screen and rebooting. I’m not sure if this is a Windows issue, or a hardware-related problem with Lenovo’s drivers, but it’s a bad quirk for a device that will likely be in hibernation mode for travel and more.

Bottom line? The U260 (at $999 for my version) is a decent mobile machine, but has some hiccups that make it difficult to recommend for someone who frequently works on the go. It seems best as the “around the house” laptop or maybe a laptop to take from home to work and back again. I just really can’t recommend this for travel (or righty-shifters).

For that, the IdeaPad U260 gets a 7/10.

Sign up for The VAR Guy’s Weekly Newsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Follow The VAR Guy via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Follow experts at VARtweet. Read The VAR Guy’s editorial disclosures here.

Tags: Agents Cloud Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Mobility & Wireless New/Changing Channel Programs

Related


  • Roll Out the Red Carpet
    Ziply Fiber Rolls Out Agent Program with AppSmart, Intelisys, Telarus
    Having acquired Frontier's assets in the Northwest, Ziply Fiber's partner program will be watched closely by agents.
  • Cash, U.S. currency
    AT&T, Comcast, Cisco, Microsoft, 8x8 Unveil New Products, Services
    Read about the latest offerings you can sell.
  • Microsoft Surface Laptop 4
    Microsoft Releases Surface Laptop 4 with Incremental Enhancements
    The upgrade includes the latest AMD and Intel CPUs, and upgraded audio and video.
  • Business handshake
    TBI Brings Managed Service Provider, IoT Monitoring Provider Into Portfolio
    Agents can sell these new offerings and services in the TBI portfolio.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • FireMon Updates Partner Program with Deal-Registration Discounts, Spiffs
  • Aruba Fully Integrates Silver Peak SD-WAN, Unveils SASE Strategy
  • New, Changing Partner Programs: HPE, Zoom, Fortinet, Microsoft, More
  • Lenovo DaaS Touts 'Dramatic Growth' for DaaS, ID's Top Vertical Sales Opportunity

Galleries

View all

AppSmart Agents Embrace Cross-Selling, Add Energy, Cloud Solutions

April 21, 2021

Industry Perspectives

View all

What the Recent Microsoft Exchange Vulnerabilities Mean for Channel Partners

April 21, 2021

Annual MSP Benchmark Survey Reveals Remote Work Still a Top Challenge

April 20, 2021

Why Digital Transformation Is the ‘Invisible Hand’ of Our Time

April 19, 2021

Webinars

View all

What to Look For: 2021 Threat Report

April 22, 2021

Health Care and SD-WAN: A Seller’s Guide

April 27, 2021

How MSPs Can Leverage SOCaaS to Improve Security & Grow Revenue

May 4, 2021

White Papers

View all

Hacker Personas: A Deeper Look into Cybercrime

April 20, 2021

Carbonite Data Protection and Cyber Resilience

April 15, 2021

Top Tips: How Resellers Can Leverage Rackspace to Enhance Customer’s Cyber Security Protection with Microsoft 365 Security

March 30, 2021

Upcoming Events

View all

MSP Summit

November 1, 2021 - November 2, 2021

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

November 1, 2021 - November 4, 2021

Channel Evolution Europe

November 30, 2021 - December 1, 2021

Videos and Fastchats

View all

ACC’s Nancy Ridge on Gender Diversity in the Channel

5 Reasons Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Is Important

April 14, 2021

Five9 Shares Insights on Implementing a DE&I Strategy

April 13, 2021

FASTCHAT: How Fortinet Reduces Complexity Through Networking, Security

March 31, 2021

Twitter

ChannelFutures

.@pulsesecure #VPN hack prompts federal emergency directive. dlvr.it/Ry9TWn https://t.co/5KKQWvGYRN

April 21, 2021
ChannelFutures

Channel partners shared their stories of evolution at #AppSmartUnleash. @AppSmartcom dlvr.it/Ry9NM6 https://t.co/UMmchLvpfj

April 21, 2021
ChannelFutures

What do #MicrosoftExchange vulnerabilities mean for #ChannelPartners?@Sophos #security #cybersecurity… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

April 21, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@AppSmartcom touted its platform at its #AppSmartUnleash event. dlvr.it/Ry5SSF https://t.co/RQdXFffe9N

April 20, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@digicert Security Summit highlights growth, innovation amid #COVID19. dlvr.it/Ry5SNP https://t.co/g1yFRHHjKa

April 20, 2021
ChannelFutures

Congrats to @CatSolazzo on her new #marketing gig at @Tech_Data. The channel knows her well from #IBM.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

April 20, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@OtavaLLC unveils #partnerprogram enhancements. #cloud dlvr.it/Ry4g4t https://t.co/D9dUuezdn9

April 20, 2021
ChannelFutures

#MSP business is still strong & growing @KaseyaCorp 2021 benchmark survey #digitaltransformation #remotework… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

April 20, 2021

MSSP Insider

Business advice for MSSPs and news from the broader security channel.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X