Lenovo ThinkPad SL510
ThinkPad- the iconic brand, the unending combination of professional respect, solid features, and unabashed blandness, combine to make a product that has surprising appeal across the board, yet remains, literally, a black box. The newest update to the line, the ThinkPad SL510, is part of Lenovo’s Windows 7 product launch. Like many companies, Lenovo is taking the 7 launch as an opportunity to tweak and improve some of the features in its existing line, and so it is with the SL510.
The SL510 starts at $529, but that configuration only has a 1.8 GHz Intel Celeron T3000 and no Webcam, Bluetooth, or other bells and whistles. For $1,024 in our build, you get a matte 15.6-inch screen in 16×9, a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and a thick, solid chassis that’s lighter than you’d expect. Customizable to the gills for 3G, antiglare, and the always popular fingerprint reader, the SL510 is exactly what it looks like: a large-screened business laptop that runs Windows 7. The good news is that the tweaks are likely to make you happier if you’re a ThinkPad person.
Lenovo’s Windows 7 upgrade to the ThinkPad SL500 keeps the price affordable, and features a consumer-friendly 16:9 display.
