However, products from Sharp Electronics Corp., Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. and Sony Corp. hit the market more than a year ago offering similar features. Since then, the competition has raised the bar in both performance and network connectivity, making them more attractive to corporate buyers. The 240 offers so much more than the z50 that many sales of the latter will probably be stolen by the former. The only significant benefit the z50 has over the 240 is battery life. As with all ThinkPads, the 240's keyboard is awesome.
Key travel is great, and the layout is wide enough to permit compromise-free typing.
The 240 was 22 percent slower than the full-size Toshiba Satellite 4030CDT notebook using the same 300MHz Celeron. Some compromises are to be expected in a small package, but in this case, the performance hit is simply too great. The battery life was also disappointing, at just a minute over 2 hours. Users can opt for an extended battery, which attaches at the rear of the notebook and provides double the battery life. Given IBM's late entry into the market, the company should have come up with a better solution.