Lenovo Announces Six New ThinkPad Notebooks Discussion

Today Lenovo announced six upcoming ThinkPads powered by second generation Intel Core and Core vPro processors and integrated Intel HD graphics. The lineup includes the ThinkPad T420, T420s, T520, L420, L520 and the W520;and with new ThinkPad notebooks come new ThinkPad features in thecategories of power management, audio, video conferencing, and more.

Read the full content of this Article: Lenovo Announces Six New ThinkPad Notebooks

Related Articles:

• Lenovo ThinkPad T510 Review
• Lenovo ThinkPad T410s Review

 

15 hours of battery life on a standard 9-cell battery?! If those crazy numbers prove to be true...

 

And 30 hours with the slice! I was impressed when Dell's E6500 offered 19 hours with a slice ... but 30 hours?

 

15 and 30 hour battery?!? this is nuts!

 

old news? I don't get it. There are threads in the Lenovo forum on these already.

 

Today the laptops were "officially" announced, rather than little tidbits forumgoers gathered from various places around the web.

 

T420 looks very tempting... nice specs and that battery life is ridiculous if it's true.

 

Nice Prices too.
If the prices are true in USD it is really worth considering.
Edit:

This is the real pricing, I knew it too good to be true.

 

Those graphic card names dont tell much, but I'm having a bad feeling that in graphic power they wont get stronger then the current 8540 elitebook series. I guess those quadro 1000 and 2000 are a renamed 800 and 1800. And t420 and t520 having the same card points in this direction as well. I would like to buy a sandy bridge business notebook (15 would be better, but for graphics it might have to be 17, or if all fails I grab a last hp 8740w) with strong graphics early summer. It seems after t500 the thinkpads got behind in this respect. And first leaking information here in the forums are showing the new 8560p will get a fancy new look I dont want a shiny/fancy gaming rig or mac lookalike. Current thinkpad and elitebook looks are what I like. I love when people dont even notice I have a new notebook. Seemingly dell m4600 is my last hope. Or it would be as dell does not sell m4500/m6500 in my country...

 

Nice! Looks like somebody finally had the intelligence to put Sandy Bridge together with a decent battery. I've been waiting for this ever since I read the AnandTech Sandy Bridge article. The prices also look very reasonable.

That said, what are the graphics cards? They're not listed on Nvidia's site.

 

@Tom1939,
I very much understand what you talk about. I too wish the T series would get decent graphics, like the T500 used to have (I still love my T500). People usually dismiss such "wishes", saying these are business notebooks that do not require the graphics performance. Sad

(well, there is the W5x0 ... but that is just too big, too heavy - big power brick, etc)

 

Lenovo caters to their customers. While you may want a decent GPU, I'd say most do not.

 

You have just noted precisely why Lenovo does not use high-end GPUs in these laptops. The performance/watt difference between GPUs is fairly small; the high end ones perform better than the low-end ones simply because they have more mini-processors, more memory and run at higher clock speeds... all of which means more power and more heat which translates to bigger, heavier notebooks (because of the need for cooling) and bigger power bricks.

 

From this much information I could get so far, I think the w520 will not have much improved graphics.

ZaZ is right I think. With the T510 lenovo clearly decided that graphic power is secondary (it is rare that a new model is weaker graphicaly), for their customers. I cant really argue with it on the T and X models, but the W should have some serious graphical power. It is a workstation after all.

And I do think there would be quite a few customers for business notebooks with high graphic power. I like to use only one computer for everything I do, but I dont want to use a gaming rig at my workplace... But I would buy a good business notebook with a nice strong ati switcheable graphics card, even for a high price.

But what customers want is not always what they get. Even if there are a lot of customer wishes like mine. I'm quite sure quite a lot of customers would prefer 16:10 screens, and still get only 16:9.

I have a hp 8510p now which was perfect at the time I bought it. It even had strong competition (T500). But it is getting outdated, and I just dont see anything coming in which would be a decent upgrade from the current hp 8540w on the market.

So I want a 15,6 and seemingly I will end up with a 17 (8740w)

About the weight. I know the power comes with it. I have 2 power bricks, one for home, and one for the workplace. So that is not a problem. Current w510 weight is ok for me.

 

Those battery life numbers are ridiculous. If they get even 2/3 of that it is amazing.

 

No x220?

 

1) Had hoped for USB 3.0 ports for all models.

2) Will the T420s have USB 3.0? What about the optional touchscreen?

3) Any refresh for the W700 series?

4) Any refresh for the X series (including the convertible tablet)?

5) Since they're unfortunately moving to a 16:9 aspect ratio screen for practically everything (meaning shorter but wider), could they not have fit in a dedicated numpad for the 15.6" models? I'd rather have a numpad instead of the bigger speaker grilles around the keyboard.

I wouldn't mind a thinner/lighter "T520s" with a dedicated numpad, USB 3.0, and high resolution screen...

 

These new models seem very promising, but I have no clue how these nvidia quadro graphics will perform.

Btw, how much do those 30 hours batteries cost??

 

I need a numpad too, but it does make the keyboard off-center. Many users don't mind, but some hate it. Thinkpads are very slow to change physically, so I'm not surprised to see them sticking with no numpad (this decision was essentially made last year with the T/W510 which were already 16:9 but had no numpad).

 

While in looks Thinkpads haven't changed, in the current and last generations, the keyboard has undergone substantial redesign. As for the GPU, the T series was never meant to be that powerful and even the W series seems a bit lacking (since the last generations as well). I wonder if they'll get AMD GPUs anytime soon.

 

I'm happy they didn't add a NumPad in the 15" Thinkpads - not only does it look awkward, but keyboard is pushed off-center from the screen, which is kind of annoying to use, at least for me.

Well, "substantial" in Thinkpad terms - all they really did is modify the look of the top buttons, decrease the gap between keys, and enlarge the Esc and Delete keys

The X-series has always been on a slightly different release cycle that is a bit staggered from that of the T-series, so we'll be hearing an official release soon (beginning of March), I'd expect.

 

Well, I mean you can't really do much more else on a keyboard... what I was referring to was that in the past 10+ generations, how much has the keyboard actually changed? Not as much as it has in the last two (including this one).

 

Very impressive specs - but this is probably the end for me and Lenovo after 5 Thinkpads over the years.

I ate the transition to widescreen, but as a developer, I need lines of text not panels to the side. I can't believe there isn't a single high end Thinkpad left that offers a 16:10 ratio. Lenovo if you're reading - would it kill you to differentiate your W and T a little bit this way?


Since Apple is king of all things design and is not changing their resolutions this year, I don't understand why the PC players are obsessed with trying to quickly squish their screens to narrower resolutions.

Apple make a great book with the right ratio for me. I'll miss the Trackpoint, but multigesture touch accomplishes a similar thing and it opens up ios development.

 

Wouldn't kill them but definitely less money in their pockets. It is a disappointing move but they're not going to change anything...

 

Other than a MacBook, I can't think of anything left without a 16:9 screen.

 

I might just have to turn in my ole T61 for a T420

 

I don't care about the shape, but give me a good screen. It's tough to get one of those today

 

I bought a t43 in 2006 and it's still perfect for office work. I'll update to a T420 if it's not as bad as in the reviews.

 

I'm on the same boat here