The red metal lid of the U110 is etched with a paisley design on the cover which seems to be a nod for those after a stylish notebook. On the rubber coated base of the U110, the air vents resemble the design found on traditional Chinese doors and windows. This may sound like a clash of styles, but it Lenovo have managed to make it work.

Unfortunately the well thought out external design doesn't carry onto the internal design. In what is becoming an increasingly common on notebooks, a glossy black keyboard can be found on the U110 and will turn into a fingerprint magnet in no time. The keys themselves are large and very responsive to type with. With the U110 we fell into the habit of pressing Fn instead of left Ctrl, as their positions had been swapped on the keyboard, going against the conventional keyboard layouts.

When used with the inconveniently placed Fn key, the cursor keys also double as volume adjustment (left and right) and screen brightness (up and down), which inevitably led to accidental volume and screen brightness adjustment.

A ‘Novo’, shortcut key located above the keyboard lets you switch power saving profiles depending on your current usage. There are two additional shortcut buttons that serve are user-configurable to your favourite website or application.

Some effort is required to use the trackpad as it does not allow your finger to glide smoothly. In a strange design move, the power and wireless indicator lights are located at the front of the mouse buttons along the edge of the notebook, so you can't actually see these indicators unless you tilt the notebook rendering them next to useless.