Design and Features

The 11e sticks to the all-familiar black finish that outlines the ThinkPad line. Here we’re looking at an 11-inch ultrabook with rounded corners, a rubberized bumper around the lid to help protect the display.  It MIL-SPEC (military specification) rated chassis mans that the laptop can withstand the most extreme of temperatures, humidity, vibration, and weight. Measuring 0.9 by 11.8 by 8.3 inches (HWD), and weighing 3.5 pounds, it is slightly thin and lighter than last year’s 11e, making it quite portable.

The 11e’s rugged design notwithstanding, it has a well-spaced chiclet-style keyboard that most folks will find comfortable enough, and an equally comfy touchpad. The touchpad offers accurate cursor movement and smooth pinch, zoom. And swipe gesture control.

Connectivity

On the 11e, I/O options are quite varied. On the right side, you’ll find a HDMI output port, a USB 3.0 port, volume controls and a Power switch. The left side hosts a power jack, an Ethernet port, a USB port with charging capabilities, a headphone jack, and a 4-in-1 SD card slot. The system has dual-band 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 for wireless networking and a SATA 128B solid state drive (SSD) for storage, with Windows pre-installed.

Performance: Powerful enough

The ThinkPad 11e runs on Intel’s processor with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD. It is adequately powerful to tackle most day to day tasks, multi-tasking and some casual games with ease. We didn’t notice any heating or performance issues. The big highlight is the battery life. On a single chare it can muster hours of backup with ease, which is good enough for professionals on move.

The laptop offers the comfort of a ThinkPad keyboard for the tactile feedback, slight dip. Though then are not as big as in the keys of regular ThinkPad laptop, it is as comfortable to type and use. The lack of backlighting does affect typing in the dark a bit. Lenovo has managed to accommodate a wide enough palm rest and touchpad so one can use it without a mouse.