Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop Review

Overall Usage
The biggest difference between this laptop and others we have looked at is the pull out screen. This is the first laptop that I have reviewed that has a pull out screen. This 10.6-inch screen effectively increases the overall display area by 39 percent. You can easily open up the screen while the laptop is on just push it in and it will come out. The system will automatically recognize it and will expand to it. I had no issues with it at all. The biggest thing that I noticed with the smaller display was that it was very poor quality, it’s not a bright as the main display and the color reproduction is not as good either. Not to mention the backlight bleed on it. Being that it does have a 1280 x 760 resolution it is quite easy to move windows from one display to another. The secondary display is really not wide enough to display full web pages, but I could see it being used with documents and excel sheets. Also if you are a graphic designer this would be perfect to put your Photoshop tools and have your main work area on the main screen. When I was using the W700ds I mainly used the secondary display for instant messenger, Twitter, and to play music videos while I was working. I can definitely see the benefits of it if you were a graphic designer though.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop

Another really unique thing about the W700ds is that is has a built-in color calibrator. This X-Rite/Pantone Huey system comes with a simplified software package that makes it easy to calibrate the display. What you do is follow the on screen instructions that will tell you to close the lid, make sure you have your speakers turned on so you can hear the tones when it has completed. When the lid is closed the W700ds uses the Huey system plus the spectrocolorimeter to do the calibration. Once completed you can open the laptop back up and change a few more options. There are 3 gamma options and there a quite a few color temperature options.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop

Just like with all the other ThinkPad’s you get the ThinkVantage Productivity Center built into the laptop. I really like this suite, because it has everything you need for security, connections, and back up utilities. For security you have Trusted Platform Module (TPM), you really won’t find this one other laptops. You can go into the security settings and enable it, restart the laptop and it is active. Once you restart the system you can go back into the security settings and enter in your fingerprints.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop

The ThinkVantage system update is also very cool, it will find updates for your OS, all your drivers and even your BIOS. It will download them all and even install them all with ease, much better than using Windows Update.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds 17-inch Laptop

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