We asked our readers if they would you like to review the latest gadgets that keep flooding the market. In response, GA reader, Prasad Kheljade, who bought the Lenovo 3000 N100 A36 laptop, rated its performance for us. Here's what he has to say:

Anyone who has ever tried his / her hand at programming would surely know what the review is about.

Thanks to my company, I got the opportunity to lay my hands on a Lenovo 3000 N100 A36 laptop. It's been about a month since the purchase and we are inseparable. Working on it sometimes 14 hours a day, I now know it intimately, but the enthusiasm and the childish joy has yet to die down.

Configuration

Before I get to the design a word about the configuration, which is the following:

• Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1.66 Ghz
• 667GHz FSB
• Intel 945 Motherboard
• 1 GB DDR2 RAM PC5300 (667Mhz Bus Speed)
• 80 GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
• DVD+/- RW
• 15.4" display
• 1.3 mega pixel camera (built in to the display part)
• Bluetooth
• 802.11a/b/g
• Fingerprint reader
• 4 USB slots
• 1394 port
• Media Card Reader.

~ Operating system and other software include Windows XP Home, Roxio CD / DVD and writing software.

Design and construction

Design wise, it is perfect. Some of Hewlett Packard models border on being flashy, but this baby is an all black on the inside and silver on the outside (I'd have preferred all black).

The construction is rock solid, with no squeaks. It feels good and stable, though a little on the heavier side at 2.8 kgs.

The keyboard layout is good too. The ergonomics are fair enough for a person like me who uses the machine for long durations.

The only feature desired here would be dedicated home / end keys rather than the function key with Pg up and Pg down.

Display

With an onboard Intel 950 GMA based display, this machine does perform far better than I expected. I would however very clearly like to mention here that my usage does not include graphics intensive applications / designing, etc. I do not play too many games either.

Performance

This precisely is the reason for buying this notebook. It has the best matched configuration in its price range. With both the processor and RAM being equally clocked at 667 Mhz bus speeds, there is no bottleneck. Most of the machines I checked out before settling on this one, seemed to have either the processor or the RAM clocked at 533 Mhz and the other at 667 Mhz FSB.

The processing intensive performance is one of the highlights of this machine. However, the hard disk at 5400 is a bit of a let down. SATA 7200 would have been great, even if it meant a few thousands more.

1 GB DDR2 PC 5300 RAM @ 667 Mhz feels good. It does help ramp up the performance.

Pros

• Well matched configuration
• Decent construction and non-flashy design.
• Good processing intensive performance.
• Decent display.

Cons

•  Machine hung up just at the point where you normally expect the Windows login prompt for the password. Faced this problem twice. My hunch is the Finger Print Reader software service is conking up. The solution was a total restore of the operating system. I disabled the fingerprint reader software from requesting authentication at boot up and am problem free now.
• Certainly would like to point out here that Lenovo customer service/ technical support was absolutely not up to the mark. Not what you expect from a company that is trying to carry forward the IBM legacy. All that the customer service executives told me to do was to restore the OS.
• Lenovo does not support operating system problems. The customer service executive told me that they can 'try' to help me out but they do not officially support OEM O/S software. He gave me the contact number for Microsoft India who in turn said that since I got this operating system pre-installed with the Lenovo Machine, I should contact Lenovo for support! In the end I managed to fix the problem myself. Similarly, the finger print reader s/w company redirected me back to Lenovo for support when I contacted them in this regard.

Overall, though, a good buy at the price of Rs 61,000.

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