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According to various reviewers, the X100e was unfortunately hobbled by heat problems and had a battery life of only about three hours. Lenovo doubtless hopes that the new X120e, which has now been rechristened an "entry ultraportable" rather than a netbook, will solve these problems.
Like only one other netbook so far -- MSI's U270 -- the X120e uses AMD E-series CPUs based on the chipmaker's Bobcat core. These are the dual-core, 1.6GHz E-350 and the single-core, 1.5GHz E-240, both of which include on-chip Radeon HD 6310 graphics.
Leveraging the E-series' capability to provide HD video output, Lenovo has fitted the X120e with an HDMI video port. The system is said to provide 65 percent better graphics performance than the x100e, and up to 6.5 hours' battery life is also claimed.
Like the X100e, the X120e is offered in red, white, and black, while the "anti-glare" display again measures 11.6 inches, though Lenovo did not cite resolution. The netbook -- er, sorry, "entry ultraportable" -- includes a "high sensitivity" webcam plus optional Bluetooth and GSM/CDMA mobile broadband, the company adds.
We're guessing the X120e also includes three USB ports and a media card reader, as did the earlier X100e (pictured above). Wi-Fi is once again a standard feature, according to Lenovo.
Dilip Bhatia, vice president of ThinkPad marketing and product operations, stated, "Multimedia elements like audio and video have become important parts of our world, and businesses are embracing this trend in digital content. We've optimized the ThinkPad X120e to not only give businesses an excellent experience creating and consuming multimedia content, but we've also made key improvements to an area that has plagued laptops: battery life."
Background on AMD's E-350
AMD introduced its Bobcat core during August's Hot Chips conference at Stanford University, though it had been long rumored before then. Unlike Intel's Atom -- with which it will compete in netbooks and other devices -- Bobcat features an out-of-order execution engine, which breaks data apart and allows for instructions to run in parallel, as well offering improved performance, the chipmaker says.
According to AMD, Bobcat (above) further features clock and power gating, allowing it to save battery life in portable devices. And, notably, it is the first x86 processor core to work with the chipmaker's APU (accelerated processing unit) design, in which the CPU and graphics are combined on one piece of silicon.
AMD has said the first Bobcat implementation, code-named "Ontario," is scheduled for a 2011 release, but -- typical for the chipmaker -- still does not offer speeds and feeds on its website, apart from a few blog entries. Complete details of Ontario and the higher-end version called "Zacate" surfaced last November anyhow, courtesy of five different tech blogs: AnandTech, HotHardware, LegitReviews, PC Perspective, and The Tech Report.
Reviewers for all five blogs reported having been invited to AMD's Austin campus in early November, when they were allowed to benchmark both Ontario and Zacate. The websites also provided a common set of specs and slides from an AMD presentation, resulting in a wealth of information.
According to the reports, AMD's overall "Brazos" platform (above) consists of an Ontario or Zacate CPU, teamed with the "Hudson" controller hub, a southbridge based on the previously released SB800. Clock speeds range from 1.0GHz to 1.6GHz, as shown in the table below.
| Model | CPU Cores | CPU Clock Speed | GPU | Number of GPU Cores | GPU clock Speed | TDP |
| AMDE-350 | 2 | 1.6GHz | Radeon HD 6310 | 80 | 500MHz | 18W |
| AMDE-240 | 1 | 1.5GHz | Radeon HD 6310 | 80 | 500MHz | 18W |
| AMDC-50 | 2 | 1.0GHz | Radeon HD 6250 | 80 | 280MHz | 9W |
| AMDC-30 | 1 | 1.2GHz | Radeon HD 6250 | 80 | 280MHz | 9W |
As the reviewers noted, the "Zacate" processors will have 18-Watt TDPs, and are offered as the dual-core, 1.6GHz E-350 or the single-core, 1.5GHz E-240. The "Ontario" processors have nine-Watt TDPs, and are the dual-core, 1.0GHz C-50 and the single-core, 1.2GHz C-30.
According to all five testers, the Zacate-equipped Brazos system was less power-hungry than an Intel Atom D525-equipped system featuring an Ion 2 GPU. It also outperformed such a system, reaching the speed of Intel's entry-level CULV and CULV 2010 processors, they added. (For full details of the benchmarks and links to the relevant websites, see our earlier coverage.)
