Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E220s
- Category: Notebook Computers
May 24, 2011
Editor's Rating
- Very portable
- Business-oriented design
- Lots of connection options
- Solid performance
- Below average battery life
The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E220s is a 12-inch ultraportable laptop that has fantastic portability that doesn't come up short in terms of performance. It's also well-connected with many ports and wireless options, but the battery life is disappointingly short.
The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E220s has a rubber-like finish that has a dark black color with chrome plastic edges around the lid and keyboard deck. It measures 12.3 x 8.4 x 0.9-inches (wdh) and weighs just over three pounds, which makes it extremely portable and more than easy to carry around with you on a daily basis.
This laptop is definitely designed for a business or small-business user, but it isn't necessarily limited to that. The raised island-style keyboard is larger than previous ThinkPad models and provides a very comfortable experience. None of the buttons are sized in a weird manner or placed somewhere they should not. The keyboard itself isn't backlit, but there is a small LED light that illuminates the keyboard deck. Under the keyboard, there's a very large mouse trackpad with the traditional Lenovo mouse buttons right above (there's also a mouse knub in the keyboard too). To the right of the trackpad, there's a fingerprint reader, which adds to the business appeal.
The 12.5-inch display has a native resolution of 1366 x 768-pixels, which is pretty much the standard for this size of laptops. The quality of the screen is above average and looks quite good, but the viewing angles are a little limited. The screen is glossy, so ambient light and sunlight is reflected back at you.
In terms of ports, most users won't be disappointed with the selection on the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E220s. There's VGA out, HDMI out, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 2.0/eSATA combo port, Ethernet, headphone/microphone jacks and an SD card reader. The eSATA/USB combo port provides speedy storage expansion, however the lack of USB 3.0 isn't too much to gripe about. Also included is 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Intel's Wireless Display technology. There is also a SIM card slot at the back of the computer to connect to 3G cellular networks. There is also a $55 option to add WiMax broadband capabilities.
The internal specifications include an Intel Core i5-2537M 1.4GHz CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive and Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics. The Intel i5 CPU is one of the latest "Sandy Bridge" processors, which is Intel's state-of-the-art processors that provide really solid performance. We also really appreciate the 7200RPM hard drive because Lenovo could've easily included a hard drive of the slower 5400RPM variety. Lenovo also includes Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) as the operating system, which again shows its slight business user orientation.
Performance is quite good, especially for lots of multitasking and even some more intensive tasks, like video encoding. Watching HD streaming video from the Internet also worked well without any stuttering or choppiness. Graphics performance is excellent for the average computer user, but gamers won't find much to cheer about because the integrated graphics don't give much 3D performance.
Usually ultraportables have really great battery life, but the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E220s is another story. Expect to get about 4 hours of battery life, when other similar models get at least another hour more.
