Aside from its coloring–silver on the outside, dark gray on the inside–the N100’s design reflects its ThinkPad heritage. It’s attractive and well designed, and though it doesn’t have all of the ThinkPad’s beloved features (drain holes, shock-mounted hard drive, keyboard light), the N100 does have big steel hinges and a relatively sturdy construction. Depending on how you configure it, the N100 weighs 6.1 pounds and runs 10.5 inches deep, 14 inches wide, and 1.5 inches thick; the modest AC adapter brings the total weight to 7 pounds. It strides the line between thin-and-light and midsize, and many laptops around are more portable than the N100, but it’s light enough for occasional travel and movement around the home or office, and its rounded back edge makes it easy to carry.

Everyone knows that Lenovo handles the sales of IBM's renowned ThinkPads, but this is the second series of laptops that they have branded their own. The C Series, which predates this new N Series, wasn't too well received by the general public, but it appears that Lenovo is righting the proverbial ship with this newer model. Reading other reviews on the internet, many are calling this a "budget laptop." To me, that is like calling the Mona Lisa a cute drawing. There is some serious potential inside this case. Sporting a Centrino Core Duo (rolls off the tongue so beautifully) and with a standard issue of 512 MB of RAM (upgradeable to 2GB), the 3000 n100 can more than keep up with what other manufacturers are selling for nearly twice the cost.

Lenovo seemed to take many of the beloved characteristics of the ThinkPad and incorporate, or in some cases, enhance them. Right out of the box, the most noticeable difference is the case; unlike the traditional black nylon-kevlar-whatever-the-space-shuttle-is-made-out-of material that constitutes the practically indestructible ThinkPad case, Lenovo's model offers a metallic grayish/black two-tone housing. As far as durability goes, it seems extremely sturdy. Is it ThinkPad sturdy? Well, not much is, but it is close enough that unless you have severe anger management issues and uncarpeted floors, you should be okay.

ThinkPad laptops generally have excellent keyboards. The N100 isn’t a ThinkPad, and it doesn’t have a ThinkPad keyboard, but what it does have is pretty good. The keyboard is a bit more cramped than those on comparable systems, such as the Pavilion dv5000, but the keys are firm, wide, and very comfortable to type on. The touch pad is a bit small, though, and the touch-pad buttons don’t give as much as we’d like; alas, it lacks the ThinkPad’s red, eraser-head pointing stick. Above the keyboard are three handy external volume controls–the extent of the N100’s dedicated multimedia controls–and a fourth button, which summons Lenovo’s useful system-management and help utility.

Like many of Lenovo’s laptops, the N100 can be configured with one of two screen sizes; in this case, either a 14.1-inch or 15.4-inch wide-aspect display. Our test unit featured the 15.4-inch wide-screen display and a fine, 1,680×1,050 WSXGA+ native resolution, which looked very crisp and clear and offered more screen real estate than the average 15.4-inch display, though it wasn’t as bright as we’d have liked. The N100’s stereo speakers are simply awful, even for a business machine, delivering exceedingly tinny and soft audio.