Built for business users who roam the office halls more than they roam through airports, the Lenovo ThinkPad R500 delivers everything we like about the ThinkPad line, just in a larger package than we’re used to. The big screen and standout keyboard mean that desk jockeys won’t have to switch to dock-connected replacements if they don’t want to, and the $1,237 price is very reasonable for the performance and features our tested configuration delivered.
Lenovo ThinkPad R500 Design
As expected, the R500 sports the familiar and classic black casing. Unlike the more expensive ThinkPad X200 and X300, which feature a grip-friendly rubberized matte coating on their mag-alloy shells, the R500’s pebbled chassis is decidedly plastic-feeling, as if polymer beads destined for the Lenovo-branded side of the factory made their way into the ThinkPad hopper by mistake. The lid is also particularly chunky, adding to the visual heft. Lenovo could have done a little more to pare the 6.6-pound R500’s 14.1 x 10.2 x 1.4-inch dimensions, but buyers who care more about portability could just as easily opt for the 1.2-inch-thin ThinkPad T500, which also features a 15.4-inch display.
Pop the latch on the right (sorry, lefties) and lift the angular lid, and you’ll find the always-welcome ThinkPad keyboard, which features a near-flawless feel and the handy ThinkLight LED illuminator (now in amber) for added visibility in dark rooms. While we appreciate the dual pointing devices (both touchpad and TrackPoint pointing stick) that are the norm on corporate models, we again bemoan that the extra mouse buttons force the touchpad and its mouse buttons to be smaller than they should. Lenovo has included dedicated volume and mute buttons, too.
Display and Sound
The R500 comes with a 15.4-inch matte widescreen available in 1280 x 800-pixel (as on our test unit) or 1680 x 1050-pixel resolutions. The latter gives you more pixels to display large documents or multiple windows, though by the time you up the zoom level in your app to read the text comfortably, you might be better off with the lower-res panel. We found the 1280 x 800 screen very readable, though the antiglare coating did rob some pop and color vibrancy. The panel offered decent off-axis viewing, though, with just a slight brightness shift when viewed from the side; the R500 could certainly serve as your presentation device for a small group. In DVD playback on the included multiformat DVD burner (a Blu-ray burner is an option for an extra $400), the panel exhibited natural color reproduction, though motion blur was evident. The up-firing stereo speakers deliver enough volume and good quality, though we’d appreciate more bass punch.
Webcam
Our build included the optional 1.3-megapixel webcam. The Lenovo Camera Center icon leads you to a download link for Skype (for videoconferencing and video calls), or to the preloaded Roxio Media Import utility for capturing stills and video. The camera’s low-light performance was impressive: In a dark room, all that was needed was the light from the screen to see the subject clearly. Unfortunately, that sensitivity translates into poor color saturation and blown-out highlights under normal lighting conditions, and tweaking the gain, brightness, contrast, and other settings in the camera utility had little impact.
Other Features
The R500 has all the ports expected of a corporate notebook, including three USB ports, FireWire, VGA, Ethernet, modem, and even a DisplayPort connector (which, unfortunately for Lenovo, is losing ground to the more popular HDMI standard for high-def video connectivity). There’s an ExpressCard/54 slot and another spot for a SmartCard or PC Card reader, as well as a memory card reader. The bottom dock connection accepts the Lenovo Advanced Mini Dock solution (for an additional $175). To augment the standard Bluetooth 2.0 wireless connectivity, Lenovo even makes available built-in wireless USB.
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