Lenovo introduced two ultramobile laptops on Monday, including the ThinkPad X200 ultrathin laptop, which joins Apple's MacBook Air as one of the lightest fully-functional laptops available today.

Weighing 2.95 pounds (1.34 kilograms) with a four-cell battery, the weight of the ThinkPad X200 is comparable to Apple's 3-pound MacBook Air. The weight rises to 3.58 pounds with an optional nine-cell battery, which can provide up to 9 hours of battery life, Lenovo said.

The laptop has a 12.1-inch screen with storage options of either a 64G-byte solid-state drive or a hard disk drive at up to 320G bytes. Users will be able to watch Blu-ray movies on the laptop through an optional ultrathin optical drive.

It is powered by Intel's Core 2 Duo chips running between 2.26GHz and 2.40GHz, with 3M bytes of cache. It will support up to 4G bytes of DDR3 memory and include integrated graphics. It will come with Windows Vista.

A gaggle of wireless connectivity options are available, including integrated Wi-Fi and mobile broadband. Later this year the company will offer connectivity to UWB (UltraWide Band) and WiMax wireless broadband. It also supports GPS (Global Positioning System).

The laptop measures 11.6 by 8.3 by 0.8 inches (29.5 by 21 by 2.07 centimeters) with a four-cell battery, making it comparable to Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 laptop, which weighs 2.93 pounds and measures 0.73 inches at its thinnest point.

The laptop starts at US$1,199 and will be available in August, according to the company.

Lenovo also announced the IdeaPad U330, a consumer ultraportable laptop that is 0.9 inches at its thinnest point and weighs just over 4 pounds. Powered by a Core 2 Duo P7350 processor, it comes with a 13.3-inch screen, supports up to a 320G-byte hard drive and integrates wireless A/G/N technology. It will come with Windows Vista.

The U330 also supports switchable graphics, which can shift from a separate ATI graphics card to internal graphics when the laptop is operating on a battery. It will be available later this year; pricing has not yet been determined, a Lenovo spokeswoman said.