Unplggd: Green Laptops

As with green PCs, there isn’t much information available about the how environmentally friendly your current laptop is, but with a bit of digging, you can find out a lot about your next one. While going green is great, you also have to think about how long you’ll be able to use your next laptop. If you can keep it an extra year, you’ll not only save money but also keep the environment cleaner by consuming less. Below is the Asus Bamboo laptop.

1. Lenovo ThinkPad L420: Lenovo states that the ThinkPad L420 is their greenest laptop yet, and that’s a bold statement from the PC laptop giant, as their ThinkPad X301 was very eco-friendly. The L-series laptops are made from 30% post-consumer recycled content. The green-ness also affects your bottom line, as this laptop is supposed to save you 40% on operating costs alone. It has an LED-backlit display and power manager. It includes energy certifications from ENERGY STAR and attains the EPEAT Gold standard. The packaging is recyclable and there’s 20% less of it to go to waste.

2. Acer TravelMate TimelineX: Acer does its bit by displaying information about the eco-friendliness of their laptops very visibly. The TravelMate TimelineX meets EPEAT Silver, RoHS, WEEE, and ENERGY STAR standards to protect the environment.

3. Asus Bamboo Series When Asus first released their Bamboo laptop a few years ago, it was somewhat shocking that so much wood featured prominently on a device that can get very hot, but Asus didn’t do this haphazardly. Bamboo has a tensile strength that rivals that of steel, and it’s a perfect substitute for plastic. The packaging is also eco-friendly, so it’s 100% natural and recyclable. The laptops use a bamboo frame and even the trackpad is made out of bamboo.

4. MacBook Air: Macs are no slouches when it comes to being environmentally friendly. It uses energy-efficient components that require less energy to operate than other laptops. The MacBook Air also earns the EPEAT Gold certification. It’s also ENERGY STAR 5.2 compliant. If you buy a new Mac, Apple will help you recycle your old ones.

5. Toshiba Protégé R700: The replacement to the environmentally friendly A600 is the new R700, and it also has an EPEAT Gold certification. The LED backlit display uses less energy than others. Coupled with a power-saving software, it will allow you to curtail your energy consumption. Toshiba has also cut down on the use of harmful chemicals in their PCs over the last several years. (Note: The R700 has now been replaced by the r830 series – expect the same green qualities and even faster processing times).

By Range Govindan.