- Good Battery Life
- Active Protection System
- Only 128MB Memory
- No CD Burner
- Lacks Wireless
- Intel Celeron M 320 (1.3GHz) Processor
- 128MB PC2700 DDR Memory
- 20GB 4,200rpm Hard Drive
- 24x CD-ROM Optical Drive
- 15" XGA LCD and Intel Extreme 2 Integrated Graphics with 64MB Shared Memory
- SoundMAX AC'97 Audio
- v.92 56Kbps Modem and 10/100 Ethernet
- Two USB 2.0 Ports and One Type II PC Card Slot
- 13.1" x 10.6" x 1.5" @ 6.6 lbs.
- Windows XP Home, IBM Access Productivity Software and Norton Anti-Virus 2004 90-day
10/28/04 - IBM's ThinkPad series of notebooks is one of the longest running on the market. The ThinkPad R50e is their latest budget oriented notebook that features their new Active Protection System.
Powering the ThinkPad R50e is the new Intel Celeron M 320 processor. This is similar to the hugely successful Pentium M processor but with half of the internal cache on the processor. This allows the ThinkPad R50e to have a good general performance with low power consumption. The problem is that it only comes with 128MB of PC2700 DDR memory. This is the minimum amount of memory to run Windows XP causing the system to have degraded performance.
Storage is also one of the areas that the ThinkPad R50e could use improvement. While the Active Protection System helps reduce the chance of damage to the hard drive in the event of falls or bumps, the small 20GB hard drive is well below average for a budget notebook. The system also comes with a 24x CD-ROM drive, preventing it from recording CDs or playing back DVDs.
Graphics are average for a budget system. It comes with a 15" LCD screen and integrated graphics. The graphics processor is unable to process heavy 3D graphics from applications such as games.
Overall, the ThinkPad R50e could be a fairly decent machine but the standard specifications put it well behind many other comparably priced budget notebooks. Those who travel frequently may be willing to accept the drawbacks as a trade-off for the data protection features.
