Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Series Coming in May

<!-- Generated by XStandard version 1.7.1.0 on 2007-03-31T01:28:18 -->

Members of the forum ThinkPads.com have been calling in to Lenovo sales reps and probing for information on the upcoming ThinkPad T61 notebook series. According to members there, reps have indicated the ThinkPad T61 line will be arriving in May, which of course coincides with the release of the Intel Santa Rosa platform.

Here's the information that members have found so far about the T61:

• The ThinkPad T61 line will include a widescreen 14&quot; option, currently only a 15&quot; widescreen T-series ThinkPad is available. The 14&quot; model will also be offered in the standard 4:3 screen size ratio that's always been around.
  
  
• The 15&quot; T61 will only be available in widescreen format. This is likely due to the popularity of the current T60 widescreen format, and also because widescreen 15&quot; panels are cheaper and more available.
  
  
• The expected announce date is around May 9th, the time at which Intel will be announcing the new Santa Rosa platform. Yes, the T61 will of course have the new Intel platform.
  
  
• There will be a WSXGA+ resolution offering for the 14&quot; T61 series
  
  
• The FlexView screen option will not be available

Lenovo ThinkPad 15&quot; T60 widescreen notebook, expect the T61 to look just like it! (view large image)

Other than that the information is thin as to what graphics card might be offered or whether the port selection will change much from the T60. We'd guess that Lenovo will incorporate an SD media card reader into the T61 since the smaller ThinkPad X60 series already adopted that. The black design will of course remain the same. Here's a link to a review of the currently available T60. And once again a link to the active discussion thread on ThinkPads.com where the T61 is being talked about.

There promises to be lots of new laptop announcements around the May 9th date. HP, Dell, Toshiba, Asus and all the rest of the major manufacturers will be right there with Lenovo introducing their updated notebooks. Stay tuned!

 

great news, thanx! it's sad of course that they are dropping flexview... more advanced technologies are dropped because of the price I guess.

 

I think T61 is the first thinkpad that really have been invented from scratch under Lenovo ownership.

 

it is certainly intresting though
lets just hope that he has a better graphic card options and it retains its legendary keyboard and build quality

 

Sounds like a double mistake to drop 4:3 15" and Flexview..two reasons to draw the more discerning user to the range.

 

I wonder if that means that the quality will be better. I certainly hope it will.

I agree here. Some people just want the conservative 4:3 aspect.

 

Man, I coulda had a V8! If I just waited one more month!

Only kidding. I really like my T60p just like it is. It's plenty fast and I long ago decided being a "early adopter" wasn't the best thing to be although I only purchased a 2-year warranty. After two years I'm always itching to upgrade.

So, T61, I'll see you in two years.

 

I was lusting at the thought of the T61 14" WS with the new Santa Rosa platform but when the release date speculation went from April to May, meaning I wouldn't likely get my hands on one til July, I opted for the T60p as I "needed" something sooner than that. But I'm more than happy with the T60p, though it's a little heavier than what I really wanted.

 

Why this is so slow ?
When we will se 17" WS 1920x1200, Santa Rosa, 1GB Ethernet, 802.11n, 512MB dedicated video RAM, HDMI, 4GB RAM Vista Ultimate 64 bit ?

 

Because that's a stone to put on your desk and not an laptop

That would be great!

 

15" ws, is that any different than 15.4" ws?

 

Yes, a 15" laptop is not a wide screen. That is a typo. 15" is standard format and 15.4" is wide screen.

 

This really pisses me off. They introduced the Z, which is essentially a T with a widescreen. Why would they think making their most well known line the same as the Z, forsaking everything that makes it so popular, is a good idea?

 

The Z doesn't match up to the T or T ws in terms of build quality, keyboard, or styling (its not blockish enough to be a ThinkPad...). Plus all of this titanium lid stuff and multimedia frivolity, the Z isn't nearly as well suited to the business enviro. And no dedicated graphics either. I personally think that the Z should be expunged from the ThinkPad lineup.

Won't WSXGA+ on a 14" screen be a bit much?

And 15.4" widescreens are so common now that the size has been abreviated to jusst 15" widescreen. It does in fact refer to the 15.4" widescreen. So its essentially the same thing. 15" standard and 15" widescreen are very different things though, as HomerJay pointed out.

 

If anything I thought the Z was more rigid than the T. Quality and the keyboard on it was very good. You could argue the styling if you like black. It was definitely thicker.

 

Exactly. The unique FlexView (IPS) diplays are gone Why should I buy new ThinkPad ? If I want a huge multimedia widescreen notebook with mirror-like-few-colors-only-washed-display I can buy Acer or whatever else.

Lenovo has merged T with Z phasing out former T top-technology features.

 

No, it isn't. It's even less pixels per mm^2 then with 1920x1200 on a 15,4 inch ws

4:3
14" 1024*768
91,428571428571428571428571428571 DPI

14" 1400x1050
125 DPI

15" 1400x1050
116,66666666666666666666666666667 DPI

15" 1600x1200
133,33333333333333333333333333333 DPI

16:10
14.1" 1280x800
107,05226814184397163120567375894 DPI

14.1" 1440x900
120,43380165957446808510638297881 DPI

14.1" 1680x1050
140,50610192533930774645793337759 DPI

15.4" 1280x800
98,015388363636363636363636363697 DPI

15.4" 1440x900
110,26731194730060520489830555805

15.4" 1680x1050
128,6451972718507060723813564844

15.4" 1920x1200
147,02308259640080693986440741074



As you can read out in my calculations: The most widescreens have a lower numbers of Dots per Inch then the 4:3 displays they replaced.
And; 1920x1200 on a 15,4 inch is more dots per inch then 1680x1050 on a 14,1". Because I know that 1920x1200 on a 15,4" is sometimes too small for me and because I hate less then 1000 pixels vertical aswell, I believe that 1680x1050 on 14,1" ws is the ideal display for me

 

If you want to verify this yourself (and you forget how to do it

14 inch 4:3 means the diagonal is 14 inch. Because the corners are 90 degrees, we can say that √(4²+3²)=5

14 inch/5 = 2.8"
2.8*4=11.2"

So 11.2" is the horizontal length of a 4:3 14" screen. Now you can divide the horizontal resolution with 11.2 and you will get the number of DPI

 

I'am not much surprized about those Lenovo decisions, since I knew some months ago that they would propably have to go that way and adapt as the rest of the industry does...

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/?p=73#comment-450

Well, the main problem I see here is, that almost all third-party widescreen panels offered so far on the market, are not in terms of the same quality as the endangered 4:3 IPS panels or let's say some better manufactored 4:3 VA-panels. Meaning, even there are nowadays much more widescreen TFT-panels on the market, none of them is so far really impressive in terms of viewing angles, contrasts on matte surfaces and so on.

I only somehow fear, that we might then soon (in a near future) also see glossy panels assembled in Thinkpads.

 

HP's 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 (matte!) with WVA are next to (if not better than) FlexView.
I hope Lenovo will follow HP's display quality in all new T61.

 

Do you know the manufacturer and model number of the panel ?

From other threads here it seems the HP is common TN crap:
I have the same problem with making a choice with the same HP model but just today I saw 5 WSXGA+ 1650x1050 screens of HP nc8220 (same as nc8430) and they all have light leakage at the bottom of the screen, some deadpixels (but that it's just unlucky though), bad contrast compared to desktop LCDs and dark corners (set brightness to max and all 4 corners were dark blended).

 

Those 1920x1200 pixel WUXGA-Panels like in some 17" HP nw9440 models?

Well, the measured values of the WUXGA are overall not this good, see under the " Display" section here (note it's in german but you may use Babel Fish or some service like that for a translation):

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-HP-Compaq-nw9440-Notebook.2650.0.html

The 17" HP WUXGA-Panel has just a measured max luminance of 138.4 cd/m², it's mean luminance is only 119.9 cd/m². It's black value has 0.3 cd/m² and it's contrast is 461:1. Further the panels overall illumination uniformity is also only 74%. The horizontale viewing angles of the panel are somehow good and acceptable, but the vertical vieweing angles are not that good at all (as with most none IPS panels).

Also the other HP TFT panels, like those found in their 15,4" business notebook models, aren't that good either. Just because a panel has a higher resolution (or is offered with one) doesn't mean that it is really good in terms of an overall viewing quality. Of course the same applies to most other vendors offered notebook panels too (including most Thinkpads here).

From Lenovo I just know of a few ...lets say acceptable and in some points better... TFT panels, which can be found in the 15" 4:3 IPS panels of specific T- and R-serie models and the 12" IPS panel which can be found in the X60 tablet pc.

For an overall offered luminance, the 15,4" MaxBright panel found in certain Z6Xm models and the UltraLight panel found in some X60s models, are maybe also worth mentioning too, even those don't offer (beside a higher luminance) the same sort of contrasts and viewing angles as the previously mentioned IPS panels. On the other side those matte IPS panels found in Thinkpads, are always not very luminance due to their dimmed driven backlights in favor of better battery run times.

 

thats great news, now lets see how the x61 is gonna be...

 

I've only noticed the light leakage in mine: http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/14145.jpg - corners are OK, no dead pixels either. Its part number is 382683-001 (15.4-inch WUXGA) - I don't know the manufacturer.

No, I referred to 15.4'' LCDs (nx8220/nc8230/nw8240). I don't know the numbers or so, but the viewing angles are really excellent and contrast/brightness is more than sufficient. I read reviews, in which the display was said to be 'dim', however working in an indoor environment I haven't found it a real problem (that is, I've never work with a brightness set to maximum).

 

I've recently pulled the trigger on a t60p from Lenovo then I heard that the t61 are coming out soon. Now I don't know if I should cancel the order. I got a decent deal with the AMEX 15% along with whatever Lenovo was offering. That's why I am hesistant to cancel. Anyone's suggestions or knowledge of how much of an improvement the t61 or the santa rosa will be over the current models and whether or not it is worth waiting for would be much appreciated.

 

I'll be interested to see if the T60 models with Flexview retain their price (depending on availability in different territories) once the T61 is available.

 

I'd expect the price of T60 will go up since it is (last ?) top-quality ThinkPad

 

So I notice on the notebookreview.com notebook database it says the T61 comes with a Radeon X1800. Mistake?

 

It's difficult to believe, Current T60 only have X1300 and X1400 and there is no notebook of less than 17" with a so powerful card (even Asus A8Js & G1p have less GPU)
I can't see why a Thinkpad T-series should be the best gaming-machine