New ThinkPads Coming Soon

The folks over at Gizmodo managed to get their hands on some interesting news about the upcoming ThinkPad lineup from Lenovo. What does Lenovo have planned for the future? How about DDR3, Blu-ray, and WiMAX ... and those are just for starters! Let's take a look.

The most interesting news is that the popular X300 will get three new siblings: the 12-inch X200, the 14.1-inch X400 and the 15.4-inch X500 (all featuring 45nm Penryn processors). Now road warriors can buy an ultra-thin laptop with any display size they prefer. The X-series will also feature HSDPA and EVDO, 25% improved battery life, and 6MB L2 cache. That's enough to make even non-ThinkPad fanboys jealous.

If the new additions to the X-series aren't enough to get you excited, Gizmodo also leaked news about the rest of the new ThinkPad lineup:

R400 and R500

Just as it is today, the R-series will continue to serve as the entry level ThinkPads. The R400 (5.1lbs) and R500 (6.4lbs) are expected to be announced in July 2008.

T400 and T500

The mid-range ThinkPads feature 256MB or 512MB ATI HD3650 dedicated graphics that can be turned off to conserve battery life. Gizmodo wasn't able to leak the sizes, but the T400 will weight 4.3lbs and the T500 is expected to weigh 5.8lbs. Shipping starts June 3rd, 2008.

W-series

The all-new W-series is designed for "workstation replacement." Imagine a slightly less bulky workstation laptop that features the same dedicated graphics and the current T-series. The 15-inch W900 and a so far unnamed 17-inch version is in the works for the future.

Gizmodo is also reporting that "many or all" of the new ThinkPads will be offered with the following features:

• 6MB of L2 cache
• Turbo Memory option (up to 2GB)
• Blu-ray drive option
• Two PCI Express Slots
• 1.6GHz DDR3 RAM
• LED Backlighting (excludes R Series)
• HSDPA and EVDO
• 9-cell batteries (same form factor as former 6-cell, 25% more life)
• GPS, WiMAX, and wireless USB are scattered through models
• The x300's solid state hard drive option (excludes W)

Production is rumored to begin in May which means a late Summer and early Fall release is probably in the works. Perfect timing for serious college students or for IT departments who are preparing budgets for next year's equipment purchases.

See the full article over at Gizmodo

 

The 12-inch X200 should be a great seller for them and it should compete with Dells 1330

 

Damn! I HAD to choose now to buy an x61s... the X200 certainly looks drool-worthy

 

Damn, it's going to be a tough choice between that X200 and the 12.1 inch Latitude E. That X200 seems to solve both of the problems the X61s had by adding a higher screen resolution (assuming it's 1280x800) and an optical drive.

 

That seems to be the universal constant whenever most people purchase new electronics. Unless you're an "early adopter" who buys a new product as soon as it's released chances are good that the next generation of the same product is just around the corner.

It's good for the staff here at NBR because we always have something to talk about, but these refresh cycles really make life frustrating for many consumers.

 

Interesting this X200 with Penryn, HSDPA and hopefully blue-ray drive. Finally Lenovo adjust the battery life so everything is very appealing to the ultraportables market.
Is it going to be Montevina platform though?

 

About time they come out with 17" Thinkpad! Looks like the HP Compaq 8710 series and the Dell Precision M6300 are finally getting some competition!

 

Lenovo is the best laptop manufacturer hands down, imo.

The W-series makes the T-series, which I love, even better. I'm really wanting to see that bright LED-lit display and better battery life. Wonder if they'll upgrade the GPU at all?

 

1 question...1.6GHz DDR3??? hmm I thought monteviena comes with DDR3-800.

 

I had that question as well ... but all I can do is report on what Gizmodo leaked. I'll just have to wait until Lenovo officially provides the technical specs on these systems.

I usually don't like posting about leaked rumors, but Lenovo and the ThinkPad line are just to important to ignore ... even if I'm not 100 percent certain about the accuracy of the leaked information.

 

the X200 will def give the x61/s a run for their money and seem to be a great alternative to the current x300 series. These are some great laptops with great specs coming out. Can't wait to fall.

 

What gfx does the 17incher have?

 

It will be a while before I buy another laptop (this W3j is running quite strong), but I am pretty sure it will be a Thinkpad when I do.

 

great, so i am waiting for these and not sticking to the lg.

 

I wouldn't give a crap about the stuff gizmodo wrote.
Nothing about this series is new - it's known for months that there will be R500, T400, ... as part of the new naming scheme.
The X400 and X500 _can't_ be true - what sense would it be to have 3 different series of the same size (14": X, T, R)? R is the cheaper consumer-series as difference to T - this explains the same size, but: X is the _smaller_ series compared to T - same class, but smaller. There would be no difference between X400 and T400, so it's just not true (there is also no T300 - guess why).
The new "specs" are crap, too. Well, the 45nm-Penryns are to expect, because that's what will be state of the art. But they don't even differentiate between the models - it's just a wild guess, nothing more.
The X-Series will have a increased battery life of 25% - in comparison to what - to the imaginary same-sized T-Series that will come with the same hardware but without HSDPA and EVDO and with less battery life?

I can't see anything than wild guessing from people that just don't know thinkpads. Even the picture showing the different sizes is just a picture with 5 scaled X300.

 

1066 DDR3 some will come with this, not sure about the 1.6 though..

 

Righteous!!!!

 

The switch to ATI graphics makes me glad I bought my T61p now.

 

I hope to God they offer options for Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition. Also I hope that the ATI video cards will not be the only options, as I love nvidia.

 

I just ordered an R61 14.1" widescreen (T9300, XP Pro, 160GB/7200rpm HD, 128mb nVIDIA Quadro graphics) last week and am expecting to get in another week or so. I was afraid this news would make me second-guess my purchase, but that's not the case. There are some desirable changes with the new models, but they're changes built on an already fantastic product line.

It will be interesting to see how much product differentiation there is between the the R- and T- series. The current 14.1" R61 and T61 are so similar that I could find no valid reason to pay over $200 more for the same hardware. There is only a .2-pound weight difference and the R61 is only 1/10th of an inch thicker. The 15.4" R61 is significantly heavier and thicker than it's T- counterpart and also doesn't have the top roll cover protection. It's great for consumers (the R61 14.1" is a steal) but not a very wise business strategy.

The 17-inch W- is an interesting addition. It makes sense that the market is there now that notebooks are as powerful as a lot of desktops from even a year ago.

 

New line is perfect: X series for road-warriors (minimal weight, low-ave perf), T-series with discrete graphic (ave weight, max perf), R-series - entry level (max weight, ave perf). And also W series for pro users - with specialized gfx. Logic is pefrect! I wish all manufacturers to have such all-embrace line.
Centrino 2 is really "2" to all appearence. It is truly new platform, that can and will change industry.

 

I wished i hadnt seen this topic, coz i wanna get a T61 and now this!

 

Excited about the LED on the newer thinkpads!

 

Have you seen the benchmarks on these cards? There not half bad.

 

wait so what graphics will the X200 have?

 

I'm guessing X3100 or some of intel's next gen stuff.

 

Do they all have LEDS? What resolution? The highest resolution LED monitor I've seen is 1440x900.

 

new 17" MBP can be ordered with WUXGA LED screen.

I REALLY hope Lenovo offers some higher resolution screens on their smaller laptops. I would like to see 12.1" 1440x900 and 14.1" 1680x1050 on their new x200 x400 series laptops. 14.1" 1440x900 is a joke compared to 15.4" T61p WUXGA I have right now! We need better resolutions on x-series.
I also hope that the new integrated GFX solution will support 2560x1600 (e.g. HDMI or dual-link DVI) cause x300 can't support a 30" WQXGA monitor. Which is a big deal breaker for me.

 

The X200 will utilize Intel's UMA X4500 graphics most likely. I doubt Lenovo will have a 12.1" with WXGA+ or 14.1" with WSXGA+ since there are no companies that make screens with these specs. And the ATI 3xxx series discrete cards are very good, they actually perform better than their nVidia 8 series counterparts. Lenovo has released some pretty realistic specs for the laptops and are comparable to Dell's next generation Latitude E series.

 

Let's hope that Windows XP Pro will be available for these laptops. If it is not, our company and many others will NEVER buy them.

Lenovo has been able to XP to date and let's hope they continue to.

If Vista is the only option. We'll be skipping these.

 

Hopefully this will drive X61 prices down...hopefully.

 

I'm eager for more details about the X200.

 

Man this makes the decision for me extremely hard.

Order a T61/T61p now or wait until final details about the new thinkpads are released.

Anyone have any recommendations?

 

who can show me the price ?

 

great news!for my dad...

 

I would love to get me the 13.3 x300. But $2500 for a MIC laptop? It is worth it?

 

He, he I'm going to wait for reliable informations about the specifications of the new Xs, Ts and Ws and then decide. New Xs and Ws seem to be intriguing...

 

If you can, then wait.
Technology is always improving, so it pays to wait for at long as possible.

And its not all that far off, just 2 months.



I'm extremely interested in their 17" version.

 

After June I believe MS will only offer XP on budget lower powered systems. I doubt these Lenovos will qualify for XP. It will be interesting to see what MS actually does when summer arrives. IMO, your not alone and there will be tons of business clients who are like yourself, do not want to move to vista. These new notebooks are slated for fall, after XP life cycle ends. Whats worse, is that I just read that windows seven will probably be a vista upgrade so no new lean and mean built from the ground up OS. XP may be the last non DRM entrenched non bloated OS MS puts out. I don't think its going to be all that rosy for MS when they end XP's life in June. For their business base, its going to be bad. I don't see it any other way. XP just works on less resources and is just as productive as Vista and thats all companies care about. They could give a crap about buying extra hardware to run eye candy.
When SP3 comes out for XP its going to put that more pressure on MS. But if windows seven is going to be just as bloated as vista, then I doubt MS will want to keep XP around. There banking their whole future on these new OS's and probably want to get people used to what their definition of what an OS should be.

 

How about brighter screens? They make great machines, but the screens are too dark.

 

I think the LED backlit screens should be brighter and more power efficient. Yea it would be interesting to see what kind of config is gonna be available if they make a 17'' thinkpad.

 

Well the right way to do it--at least for larger companies--is to re-image the laptops as soon as you get them with your corporate image (which could have XP) anyways.

 

Thats of course you can transfer those licenses over. If you wanted to keep your old machines you would still need to buy new XP licenses. And buying additional licenses after this summer will not be possible. Companies cannot afford to pirate these either but I can see them doing it if they have hardware/applications that will only run under XP and no way to buy newer licenses. Actually, buying a bunch of XP pro licenses may be a good investment. You might get a nice profit on them later on Ebay. Going forward, you might also find that newer systems may not have compatible drivers and or bios that will work with XP. I'm thinking these systems with updated processors/graphics/bios may not be able to run XP. In fact, I'd be surprised that they would without some sort of compatibility issues.

Like I said earlier in this thread, its going to be messy for MS when they end of life XP this summer. I'm also frustrated in what I am reading about windows seven which is rumored to be more of the same bloat. I think what somebody else said earlier (forgot which poster) that Vista's main weakness is the deep embedded DRM that keeps it from being as snappy as XP.

But I also predict that things will get so messy for MS when they end of life XP that they will be forced to rethink WTF they are doing with windows 7. At least I hope. But to put things back right they will have to remove all the DRM out and that probably will never happen.

 

Windows getting bloated is better for linux. That much more incentive for people to switch over.
MS is now getting too greedy

 

So will this mark the effective end of the 4:3 display? Or will the T400 continue to offer the SXGA+ option?

 

The X series is all 4:3 aspect right now, the next generation should still have the option in at least one of the lines...

 

The X300 is widescreen. I'm more interested in the T series though...I need a discrete graphics setup.

 

Does anyone have reliable benchmarks for the ATi 3650 graphic card they predict?

It seems it is actually a bit slower than the current Nvidia FX 570M in the T-series?

That seems like a weird decission. But on the other hand graphics cards has not developed a lot the last year.

 

The ATI 3650 probably outperforms the NVS 140 that's in the T61. They'll probably put something more powerful in the replacement for the T61p.

 

I hope that among the new options being presented by Lenovo is HDMI. It would be a shame for a Thinkpad with a graphics card like the ATI HD3650 to not have a HD output to match.