Digital Trends

Lenovo 3000 V200 August 7th, 2007 | by Josh Norem

Extras

Just like with its Thinkpad notebooks, Lenovo offers the ThinkVantage software suite as a sort of central hub for PC maintenance. You access by either clicking a desktop shortcut, or pressing a key at the top of the keyboard that has a tool chest icon.

You can access these tools via a physical button on the notebook labeled ThinkVantage, or via a desktop shortcut. When you do a menu pops-up on the left-side of the screen and present myriad options, including backup your data, defrag your hard drive, download system updates, find wireless networks, get help, and so forth. Most of the utilities are very helpful, with a few exceptions.

Lenovo Care Screenshot

We found it mostly useful for powering on the wireless radio, which would turn itself off to save battery life from time to time. It’s also useful for downloaded updates to any installed software, including hardware drivers.

Lenovo Updates Screenshot

We also like the wireless network finder, which shows you how far away you are from the access point, how strong the signal is, and whether they are protected or not.

The included backup utility has the same issues we’ve complained about before, and it’s a pattern with Lenovo. All of the software is designed by engineers, for engineers to use, and is not user friendly. For example, if you need to recover individual files from a previous backup, you have to know the exact file location, or if you know the type and know to type *.mp3 if you want mp3 files. Just typing “mp3” is not good enough. In truth, most of the backup routines seemingly hook into the Windows System Restore, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Overall the ThinkVantage software suite is more useful than annoying, though it could certainly use a fine-tuning to make the applications more user friendly.

Backup Software Screenshot

Free software?

Any time you purchase a pre-built PC, you’re bound to be bombarded with bloatware, or free software trials for apps you don’t want, or need. One Microsoft exec was quoted awhile back  calling these programs “craplets,” and saying how he was afraid their presence would hurt Vista’s launch. Lenovo must have not gotten the memo, because the V200 has a bunch of them.

It comes with a 90-day trial version of Norton Internet Security, and registration is required just for the trial (we should note that Norton is a terrible PC security system). A trial version of Corel SnapFire is also included. Never heard of this program? Neither had we, but it was pre-set to open all image files. Picasa2 is there too, which is okay. Then you have a trial version of Office 2007, what seems like a regular version of Diskeeper, a trial version of QuickBooks, a trial of Network Magic, and a Corel business suite trial. We didn’t use, or want, any of these programs, and it would be nice if Lenovo followed Dell’s lead here and gave people the option of “no pre-installed software” when ordering a new PC.