Lenovo ThinkPad EDGE e420 - Affordable small business notebook

The Lenovo ThinkPad EDGE e420 falls under the category of what are called thin-and-light laptops. These days, 1.1-inches does not look all that thin, and 4.6 pounds don't feel all that light, the Lenovo ThinkPad EDGE e420 is pretty light for a standard 14-inch laptop.

 

Ultrabooks are all the rage these days as far as portable business notebooks are concerned. But those 0.7-inch thin frames do have their drawbacks. In order to make everything fit in the the ultra-thin cases, compromises are made. Notably, shallow keyboards. While I carry 13-inch MacBook Air around for use in the field. The MacBook Air has an excellent keyboard for its class, but still has shallow keys. When you press a key it does not have much room to travel. After a year and a half with my MacBook Air, when it comes to typing long documents, I tend to favor my 2007 HP Compaq 6510b.

Keyboards are really is the best reason to select a traditional thin and light laptop, and the Lenovo ThinkPad EDGE e420 has an excellent keyboard. It also comes with a 14-inch, 1366 x 768 matte display, which many prefer because of its low glare characteristics. 

It includes other features which are important to a mobile professional. It secures your data by protecting the 500 GB hard drive in case of falls with its Active Protection System which stops the disk from rotating when the laptop detects that it is falling. The hard drive is also mounted on shocked absorbers. In case of a serious accident, your files should be secure in the hard disk even in the even of a fall that renders the laptop unusable. The keyboard is also spill resistant to protect your laptop from accidental spills of fluids.

Priced at Php33,000, it comes adequately equipped with an Intel Core I3 2350M processor. Graphics are switchable between the on chip Intel 3000 HD graphics, and when more power is needed the discrete AMD Radeon HD6630M graphics card which has 1 GB of dedicated RAM. The six cell  battery provides almost six hours of battery life.

The Lenovo ThinkPad EDGE e420 does not come with an operating system, so that will cost you a few thousand more if you want Windows. I am typing this on a laptop with Ubuntu 12.04, so I actually prefer hardware without an operating system, as I do not want to pay for something I do not plan to use.  The Lenovo Thinkpad EDGE should be Ubuntu 12.04 friendly.