ThinkVantage Features
One thing that I’ve always appreciated about ThinkPad laptops is the ThinkVantage software suite. It is a software suite that has many programs that make using your laptop easier and offer a lot of extra features and customizations. There are 2 ways to get to the ThinkVantage tools, the first is the ThinkVantage toolbox, just click the icon on the right side of the taskbar. The ThinkVantage toolbox is a central place where you can get to all of the ThinkVantage tools, this was mainly made for consumers who are not used to the ThinkVantage system. You can also get to most of the ThinkVantage tools by clicking the small icon on the left side of the taskbar that looks like a laptop.
Access Connections manages all of your wireless connections. This laptop only has WiFi so we can only manage that connection, but it has options for mobile broadband, WiMax, and wireless USB. You can setup location profiles for all of your wireless networks and they will be saved for future use.
Rescue and Recovery allows you to make a backup of your system and also allows you to restore the system to a backup. Lenovo provides a “base” backup that is great if you want to start fresh. It is a good idea to make a backup after you install all your programs.
The Power Manager is actually really cool, it shows you how much power your system is using and lets you know if your power configuration meets green standards. If you click on the battery tab you can see how much battery you have remaining and how much time is required for a full charge.
One thing that I’ve always appreciated about ThinkPad’s is the active protection system. This system monitors the laptop for shocks and movement. If it detects a shock it will pause and sometime stop the hard drive. So if you drop the laptop you won’t have to worry about the hard drive getting damaged. If you do not want to use this system you can turn it off as well.
The System Update is a great way to get updates for all of your software including new drivers and even Windows Updates. Just start it up and it will find all of the updates for you, then just install the ones you want and you are good to go.
These are just some of the ThinkVantage tools, but there are many more. This is another reason to choose a ThinkPad over other laptops!
