lenovo 3000 N Series N500(423363U) NoteBook Intel Pentium dual-core T3400(2.16GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 2GB Memory DDR2 667 250GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW Intel GMA 4500M - Retail

Reviewed By: on 6/10/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Light, fast, good price, quiet and runs cool. I had it with Dell, and I decided to try Lenovo because my repairman said ThinkPads were built the best. So far so good.

Cons: Some terrible user interface decisions. The Fn key is at the lower left, where just about all other keyboards have Ctl. This slows me down tremendously. The USB ports are on both sides, at the front, which gets in the way of mouse usage in a small space (I always use a mouse, the touchpad is just way too slow and inaccurate, no matter how much I practice). The Home and End keys don't exist, you need to use a Fn key combination. I've had two other laptops, and none of them had the above limitations. If this ends up being reliable, the above objections will end up being tolerated, if not entirely tolerable.

Other Thoughts: I miss the old screen format. New laptops are all going for wide screens, as if the only thing we do is watch tv and movies (I never do either one on a computer, and have no desire to). For working with content (i.e. writing), tall and narrow is much better. It's hard to find a laptop screen with enough lines of resolution.

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Nice laptop, terrible hard drive.

Reviewed By: Errrrr. on 5/19/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Pretty zippy, comes with XP Pro, runs great when it works.

Cons: Purchased 5 of these, had 3 die within one week, all with dead Seagate hard drives. Hoping the other 2 hold out until the replacement drives arrive. I also purchased one of these about 4 months ago, it is still working fine, so it must be a bad lot of drives. Thanks Seagate!

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More than adequate for home office

Reviewed By: on 5/9/2009

Tech Level: average - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: I found this machine easy to set up, with all the functionality I need for various business and music publishing software.

Cons: The only major problem is that the only audio output port -- the headphone jack -- is on the front of the machine. That means that if you want to plug in better speakers than the not-so-hot onboard ones, you have a jack sticking out into your face and impeding your use of the track pad.

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