Lenovo Think. Pad SL5. Review of the Lenovo Think. Once you reload Windows using our recovery partiton, you should be able to access the our ThinkVantage folder which contains our recovery media creator. Driver Lenovo ThinkPad R51 Notebooks for Windows 7. AttentionPlease read the description first before downloading file in order to get the best compatibility of your. OneKey-Recovery-Process.jpg?resize=600%2C453' alt='Lenovo Recovery Media Creator Windows 8' title='Lenovo Recovery Media Creator Windows 8' />Pad SL5. Last year, Lenovo attempted to shake up the business notebook market by introducing its SMB oriented Think. Pad SL Series notebooks. These budget systems had the famous build quality, keyboard, and trackpoint of a typical Think. Pad, but bargain prices and stylish design touches meant they werent exactly your fathers Think. Pad. The Think. Pad SL5. This laptop is a bit on the bulky side, and we would opt for a slower processor to save money, but it remains a compelling choice for small to medium companies. Design At 1. 5. 0 x 9. Think. Pad SL5. 10 is a bit bulky to carry, though its lighter than many other 1. In terms of style, the system has the familiar black plastic Think. Pad design theme. Its black keyboard has a light blue Enter key, as well as the familiar red trackpoint nub in the middle. Status lights and the power button appear to the right of the keyboard, while the volume buttons sit on the left. Those who liked the more radical look of the original SL Series will be disappointed with this highly conservative, no frills design. While the original Think. Pad SL4. 00 and SL5. SL5. 10 is made entirely from matte plastic. Where the original SLs had highly tapered edges, the sides of the SL5. Even the status lights are more plain on the original many were adorned on the outside of the chassis, while here only the battery and sleep lights are visible with the lid closed. Unfortunately, the change in tapering has done nothing to address the problem present in earlier SL models two of the USB ports are located in a compartment with very little vertical clearance. If you have a thick USB device, such as a USB broadband modem, it may not fit into either of the ports on the right side. Keyboard and Touchpad The SL5. Think. Pads. While the keys arent as springy as those found on the Think. Pad T4. 00s which has the best weve ever used, they have the same comfortable feel as those on the previous SL models and the Think. Pad T4. 00. Using the Ten Thumbs typing test www. Another nice feature for business customers is that the keyboard is spill resistant. The layout protects the SL5. Like other Think. Pads, the SL5. 10 includes both a trackpoint and a touchpad. While not everyone likes to navigate with a trackpoint, we love the increased accuracy it provides, along with the ability to move around the desktop without lifting our fingers off of the home row. For those who dont like the trackpoint, theres also a very responsive touchpad. Like the T4. 00s, the SL5. The pad also supports several multitouch gestures we were able to zoom inout of photos and Web pages by pinching, reorient pictures by rotating two fingers, and scroll up and down Web pages by swiping. Becker Software Updates. Display and Audio The systems 1. TheINQUIRER publishes daily news, reviews on the latest gadgets and devices, and INQdepth articles for tech buffs and hobbyists. You know what they say about watching sausage getting made. It may be worse watching install media being modified. Those with weak stomachs may want to look away. LED backlit screen is available in either glossy Vibrant. View or Antiglare matte varieties. Our review unit came with the matte screen that produced sharp images, but colors were muted, and viewing angles were poor. JetFlash Online Recovery Repair your Transcend USB Drives for free. Even from 4. 5 degrees, colors washed out significantly. When the screen is tilted down slightly as you might have to do if youre looking across a conference table at someone the color change is even more dramatic. To be fair, the system is probably too large to fit on a tray table in the first place. A lesser issue than the color qualityviewing angles is the relatively low screen resolution. Though the previous generation of SLs was available with native resolutions of 1. SL5. 00, at present the SL5. Though the wider screen should eliminate black bars on some movies, it means less visible content and more scrolling when performing everyday tasks like viewing Web pages, reading e mail, or editing documents. You can comfortably watch a movie on the SL5. Video was smooth, visual noise was minimal, and colors were true, both when we watched a DVD of Dark City and when streaming a 7. Fringe from Fox. com. The SL5. 10 is available with a Blu ray drive, though our review system did not come with one installed. While its audio quality is definitely good enough and more than loud enough to watch movies, we dont recommend using the SL5. When streaming music from our Napster account, drums sounded tinny and unpleasant. Ports and Webcam. The SL5. 10 comes with a standard array of ports, including VGA, HDMI, audio inout, Ethernet, Express. Card3. 4, and four USB ports, one of which that doubles as an e. SATA connection. A 7 in 1 memory card reader also allows you to get data from cameras and other devices. The 2. 0 megapixel webcam provides workable, but unremarkable image quality. When we used it to make a Skype call from our office, the smooth video was accented with somewhat muted colors. Performance. The SL5. GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and 3. GB of DDR3 RAM allowed the system to achieve 3,4. PCMark Vantage, a benchmark that measures overall system performance. This score is slightly higher than the mainstream notebook category average of 3,2. HP Pro. Book 4. 51. However, the original Think. Pad SL4. 00 scored a very similar 3,4. Think. Pad T4. 00 notched a higher 3,5. In casual use, the system was smooth and responsive as we navigated the desktop and composed documents in Microsoft Word. When it came to video transcoding, the SL5. MB MPEG 4 file to AVI in 6 minutes and 1. The Pro. Book 4. 51. The SL5. 10s 7,2. GB Hitachi hard drive booted Windows 7 Professional in 1 minute and 1 second, which is bearable, and only 2 seconds slower than the category average. The Pro. Book 4. 51. SL4. 00 took a whopping 1 1. The Think. Pad T4. The 7,2. 00 rpm speed of the drive was more apparent when we conducted our LAPTOP Transfer Test it took only 2 minutes and 5. GB of mixed media files from one folder to another, for a rate of 2. MBps. This was well above the category average of 1. MBps, the 1. 5. 8 MBps offered by the Pro. Book 4. 51. 0s, and the 1. MBps provided by the Think. Pad T4. 00. Plus, Lenovos Active Protection System detects movement and stops the hard drive to prevent damage to your data. Graphics. The SL5. Our review unit came with an integrated Intel GMA X4. DMark. 06, which was about a third of the category average 3,4. However, the HP Pro. Book 4. 51. 0s did even worse 8. SL4. 00 2,2. 51 did better likely due to its discrete graphics chip. Forget about playing games on the SL5. Our system provided a slideshow like 6 frames per second when playing Far Cry 2 at 1. When playing the game at the systems native resolution of 1. However, rendering was smooth during lower intensity graphics tasks, such as navigating around the planet and zooming in on houses in Google Earth. Battery Life and Wi Fi. On the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi Fi, the Think. Pad SL5. 10s 6 cell battery lasted 3 hours and 5. However, the HP Pro. Book 4. 51. 0s lasted 4 hours and 3. Think. Pad SL4. 00 lasted 5 hours and 2. The SL5. 10s Intel Wi. Fi Link 5. 10. 0 8. Mbps from 1. 5 and 5. These rates are on a par with the category averages of 1. Mbps. The Pro. Book 4. Mbps, while the Think. Pad SL4. 00 also did a little better, managing 1. Mbps. Configuration Options. Though the list price for our review system is 1,0. SL5. 10 is only 5. Configuration options include choosing between 5,4. GB, an optional ATI Radeon 4. GB of DDR3 RAM, a four or nine cell battery, and a variety of Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs. Software and Support. The Think. Pad SL5. Lenovo Think. Vantage utilities, which include such staples as a power manager, a Wi Fi manager, and PC health monitor.