If you're willing to dock in to the optional UltraBase port, you can output HD A/V through the DisplayPort (DVI replacement) and add goodies like DVD burners and Blu-ray drives.

The graphics setup is integrated, the Intel GMA4500—not a powerhouse but capable of displaying 1080P content from that Blu-ray add-on.

And if you stick with the standard 4-cell battery, the X200 can run for about 4.2 hours with a jump to 10 hours if you upgrade to the 8-cell. According to Lenovo, that's a 50% improvement on battery life from their old tablets.

We don't know the price, but expect to pay a bit for the premium system.

Lenovo Expands Ultra-Thin, Ultra-Light ThinkPad X300 Notebook PC Family
Delivers Next-Generation Processing, Greater SSD Storage and Enhanced
Multimedia Experience

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – August 18, 2008 – Lenovo today announced the
ThinkPad X301 notebook PC, taking the thinnest and lightest full-function
notebook in its class1, to new heights in performance. Like its predecessor,
the industry-acclaimed ThinkPad X300 notebook, the ThinkPad X301 notebook
offers cutting-edge features and technologies in a thin and light form
starting at less than three pounds and one-inch thin. The notebook offers
even greater storage capacity with choices of either 64 GB or new 128 GB
solid state drive storage available in September. The ThinkPad X301 notebook
provides on average nearly 20 percent better performance over the ThinkPad
X300 notebook due to the latest DDR3 memory and the latest Intel(R) Core 2 Duo
ultra low volt processor2.

"Lenovo continues to push the technology envelope by giving road warriors
the latest enhancements in solid state drive storage and digital display
technologies with the new ThinkPad X301 notebook PC," said Sam Dusi, vice
president, worldwide notebook product marketing, Lenovo. "This announcement
extends our commitment to blending ultraportability and functionality, and
equipping today's business users with the most advanced, highest-performing
computing tools."

New support for DisplayPort makes viewing high definition content easy and
ideal for models with the ultra-thin DVD burner. With support for both
DisplayPort and VGA, users can even watch high definition content on
multiple displays. Designed for maximum options for wireless connectivity,
the ThinkPad X301 notebook offers models with high-speed mobile broadband3
and WiFi3 to connect wirelessly to the Internet, and also with Bluetooth and
Ultra-Wideband technology to connect wirelessly to other devices. Lenovo
offers improved uplink performance by up to 250 percent for models with AT&T
mobile broadband over previous ThinkPad notebooks with AT&T mobile
broadband4. Models supporting WiMAX will be available later this year.
Additionally, GPS on notebook models with high speed mobile broadband5 allow
travelers to more easily navigate to the office or airport.

The notebook also includes Lenovo's ThinkVantage Technologies, unique
hardware-software tools designed to maximize user productivity. With
Lenovo's improved Access Connections tool, users can navigate a
user-friendly interface to easily find and access Internet and network
connections. Also, Lenovo's improved Power Manager gives users more control
over notebook functions to enable longer battery life.

The ThinkPad X301 notebook also continues Lenovo's focus on
environmentally-responsible design. Its 13.3-inch LED backlit display, solid
state drive storage and other energy-efficient technologies help make it
rated Gold by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool. This
designation adds to Lenovo's portfolio of Gold-rated ThinkPad notebook and
ThinkCentre desktop PCs.

Pricing and Availability6
Pricing for models of the ThinkPad X301 notebook starts at approximately
$2,599. The notebook will be available on August 26 through Lenovo Business
Partners and www.lenovo.com.

As far as nuts and bolts go, the W700 has a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Extreme quad core processor, up to 8GB DDR3 RAM, 1GB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M graphics and dual HDD Bays configurable in RAID 0 or RAID 1 (SSDs are an option). Display outputs include Dual-Link DVI, VGA and Display Port (no HDMI, sorry). The computer also has a full number pad, 7-in-1 card reader, five USB Ports, and the option for a BD-RE Drive and Compact Flash reader (you can finally leave your card reader at home).

The Lenovo W700 will be available in September, starting at around $3000. But with RAM and HDD configurations, that price could be much higher. [Lenovo]

Lenovo Unleashes PC Beast on Mobile Workstation Market with ThinkPad W700
Delivers Industry's First Built-in Digitizer and Color Calibrator Along with Ultimate Power, Multimedia and Display Technologies

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – August 12, 2008: Lenovo today introduced the ThinkPad W700, a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation engineered with game-changing technologies and innovations to exceed the demands of the most data and graphics-intensive users. Lenovo brings the industry's first built-in digitizer and color calibrator to a mobile workstation and combines these innovations with first-in-market technologies such as new NVIDIA® Quadro FX mobile graphics and supporting the upcoming Intel® mobile quad core processor. Other features such as optional dual hard drives with RAID configurations, up to 8 GB of high speed DDR3 memory, a range of wireless connectivity options and excellent multimedia capabilities including an optional Blu-ray™ DVD burner/player make the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation the standard-bearer for power and performance in a mobile workstation.

"Lenovo has engineered a new breed of mobile workstation with the ThinkPad W700," said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president, Notebook Business Unit, Lenovo. "No other PC manufacturer has a mobile workstation that delivers the sheer power, performance and cutting-edge innovation that Lenovo has packed into the ThinkPad W700. The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation flat out delivers the command performance our customers demand at the desk as well as in the field."

According to IDC, the compound annual growth rate for the worldwide mobile workstation market has been more than 60 percent per year since 2002.1The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation extends Lenovo's commitment to workstation users, complementing Lenovo's W500 mobile workstation and ThinkStation S10 and D10 workstations. As workers in fields such as digital content creation, computer-aided design and manufacturing, digital photography and science fields including the oil and gas industries become increasingly mobile, they are demanding the full-featured performance of a desktop workstation in a mobile workstation.

First-in-Industry Engineered Innovation
The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation takes customer driven innovation to a new level with an optional built-in palm rest digitizer and color calibrator. Lenovo and Intel collaborated to integrate the color calibrator and digitizer into the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation. Designed for digital content creators and users, the mobile workstation's digitizer helps them easily configure an image, either mapping it to the entire screen or to an area defined by the user. High performance users, especially digital photographers, will benefit from models with the built-in color calibrator as color continues to play an important role in their work. The calibrator automatically adjusts the display's color in up to half the time of many external calibrators and with higher accuracy, resulting in the most accurate, true-to-life images in an integrated package. Together with the upcoming Intel® mobile quad core processor, multimedia designers and animators now have outstanding quad-core processor performance and true color replication that is critical for realistic digital creations and workflow efficiencies.

Super-Charged Performance Unleashed
Supporting the latest Intel processor technologies including the upcoming mobile quad core processor, the mobile workstation can be configured with up to 8 GB of memory with an additional 2 GB of Intel Turbo Memory. Lenovo also offers models with Intel® vPro™ technology for complete manageability. The mobile workstation can be equipped with dual internal hard drives, including solid state drive storage. The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation offers both the NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 2700M and 3700M Open GL graphics processors with up to 1 GB of dedicated video memory for exceptional graphics performance in a 17-inch mobile workstation. The hard drives can be configured for RAID 0 to help users access and save their data faster than traditional disk-writing methods, or users can choose RAID 1 for mirrored data redundancy.

The mobile workstation includes WiFi wireless connectivity. Additionally, users can connect to other devices wirelessly using mobile workstation models featuring Bluetooth and ultra wideband technology. Models supporting WiMAX will be available later this year.

New Heights in Display Technology and Multimedia Excellence
As the company's first product with a 17-inch display, the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation delivers an unparalleled viewing experience with a combination of leading technologies. Its optional 400-nit WUXGA display provides up to twice the brightness of earlier ThinkPad mobile workstation models, and the 72 percent wide color gamut provides more than 50 percent greater color intensity. The high resolution, extreme brightness and wide color gamut coupled with the NVIDIA Quadro FX MXM graphics solution results in a user experience unequalled in a mobile workstation today. For external connectivity, the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation provides support for Dual Link DVI, Display Port and VGA. A 7-in-1 multicard reader, and five USB ports give users flexibility in transferring and accessing digital content. Additionally, the workstation comes with an optional compact flash reader and Blu-ray™ DVD burner/player. An optional mini-dock extends the mobile workstation's capabilities with eSATA and digital audio ports as well as convenient cabling for power, external monitors and peripherals.

Packed for extreme performance, the mobile workstation also features BIOS/port disablement and an optional fingerprint reader, a smartcard reader and hard drives with full-disk encryption. It will carry more than 20 certifications from independent software vendors.

"Our engineers use Lenovo ThinkStation workstations to help them design the next-generation Williams - Toyota FW31 race cars, aiming to make them faster and more agile, with greater performance than the competition," said Chris Taylor, IT manager, AT&T Williams. "We're
thrilled to see Lenovo deliver the workstation performance we've come to rely on - now in a mobile, portable solution."

Pricing and Availability2
The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation will be available beginning in September with models starting at $2,978. It is available through Lenovo Business Partners and www.lenovo.com.

[Lenovo]

The Price: The X200 starts at $1434 at Lenovo's store, though they initially announced it at $1199. The model we tested was close to $1800.

The Verdict: On the whole, the X200 has more going for it than against it. We think 12 inches is the sweet spot for a compact but full-fledged notebook, and the X200 is just 0.8 inches at its thinnest point. It's actually smaller than it looks—Lenovo seems to employ reverse optical trickery to make it look bulkier than it is.

A few exceptional points: The keyboard really is fantastic to type on. Battery life is damned impressive too, delivering between five and six hours of standard use (browsing, video watching, music playing) with the brightness turned most of the way up. There's a lot of power and battery management tools too, for the power anal. And it's got the usual Lenovo build quality.

The potential dealbreakers: There's no trackpad—it's just you and the nipple. If you love the nip, ignore this point. Not ignorable, though, is that the screen is way too dim, even on max brightness. On a screen that small, brightness and clarity are paramount. So that's a big ol' suck. The mono speaker is fairly atrocious (and our headphone jack was bad on this unit, so it was a definite sore point). Oh, and it's not pretty. In sum, it's not a sight and sound machine.

It doesn't have a built-in optical drive, but honestly, that's a consideration more than a black-and-white downer. (They do include the external gratis.)

Here's what the X200 comes down to: If you want a solid but small notebook for reliably getting work done, this is it. If you want more than that, you probably want something else.

Dan Nosowitz contributed to this review.

UPDATE 2: Someone who placed an order and called in to Lenovo has told us that Lenovo will be contacting everyone who went for the SSD and letting them know they won't be getting it, sadly. They will be offering their student discount rate though, which is nice. Thanks Alvin! [Lenovo]

At first glance, it's fairly unremarkable. The bland case design is standard Lenovo fare, it's functional and super-solid. Base model's battery life is 3.1 hours, with the 6 cell and 9 cell batteries enabling 6.2 and 9.4 hours, respectively. Yeah, that's right, the X200 proudly forgoes a trackpad for the classic red navigation knob only, granting the keyboard a bit more space but possibly alienating users not raised on "the nip." Given the size, the weight isn't much of a surprise. Where the X200 excites, though, is under the hood. The specs run from respectable on the base model to downright impressive on the high end. Check below for a gallery and a full spec sheet.

Soon joined by the 12-inch X200, the 14.1-inch X400 and the 15.4-inch X500 (all armed with 45nm Penryn processors), customers will be able to pick the precise display size of their choice on one of the most lust-worthy laptops on the market. The X-Series will also feature HSDPA and EVDO, 25% improved battery life, beefy 6MB L2 cache and lots of fanboy drool.

Here's the rest on Lenovo's new ThinkPad line-up:

R-Series (refreshed)
This line will continue representing the entry level. We're light on specs, but we know it will include the R400 (5.1lbs) and R500 (6.4lbs). Expect these to be refreshed in July 2008.

T-Series (refreshed)
This line will continue to represent the mid-range, featuring 256 or 512MB ATI HD3650 discreet graphics that can be turned off to conserve battery life. We don't have sizes, but the T400 will weight 4.3lbs and the T500 will clock in at 5.8lbs. Shipping starts June 3rd, 2008.

W-Series (brand new)
The W-Series is a completely new line. Where the "W" used to stand for "Widescreen," now it stands for "workstation replacement." Described to us as less bulky than similar machines from Dell, the 15-inch W900 will feature the same discreet graphics as the T-Series. A 17-inch version is in the works for the future.

And here's the good stuff:

Many or All Models Will Have:
• 6MB of L2 cache
• Turbo Memory option (think Ready Boost, up to 2GB)
• Blu-ray drive option
• Two PCI Express Slots
• 1.6GHz DDR3 RAM
• LED Backlighting (excludes R Series)
• HSDPA and EVDO (Lenovo claims to have no deals with Sprint)
• 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)

Lenovo is starting new ThinkPad manufacturing in May so that there are plenty of units to fuel demand. And from the sound of it, some of the X300's most appealing features are making their way to the entire ThinkPad line. We're just wondering what the pricing will look like between the X200 and X300. Will we be paying a premium for size or for screen space?

Thanks Odd Job!

ThinkPad X300 13 inch widescreen with integrated graphics and DVDRW Price: $2,488.80

System processor[1]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo SL7100 (1.2GHz, 4MB L2, 800MHz FSB)

Display type
13.3 WXGA+ TFT (LED backlight) 3x3 UltraConnect II

System graphics
Intel® Graphics Media Adapter X3100

Total memory[8]
1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)

Hard Drive[4]
64 GB Solid State Drive

Fixed Bay Device[5]
Ultrathin DVD Burner

Wireless Card[10]
Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AG (supporting Centrino Pro)

Battery[60]
ThinkPad X300 Series 3 Cell LiPolymer Battery

ThinkPad X300 13 inch widescreen with integrated graphics and 3 cell bay battery
Price: $2,404.80

System processor[1]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo SL7100 (1.2GHz, 4MB L2, 800MHz FSB)

Display type
13.3 WXGA+ TFT (LED backlight) 3x3 UltraConnect II

System graphics
Intel® Graphics Media Adapter X3100

Total memory[8]
1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)

Hard Drive[4]
64 GB Solid State Drive

Fixed Bay Device[5]
ThinkPad X300 Series 3 Cell LiPolymer Bay Battery

Wireless Card[10]
Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AG (supporting Centrino Pro)

Battery[60]
ThinkPad X300 Series 3 Cell LiPolymer Battery

[Lenovo]

When using the PCMark05 bench, the X300 took the lead once again at 3,467 points, beating the Air, which had 2,478 points. Part of the reason why the Air did worse in the PCMark05 test, which scores based on all the system's components such as the "processor, hard drive, memory and OS." Their Lenovo contained a solid state drive, but their MacBook Air did not, which makes us wonder if the gap would be closer if they re-did the test with a SSD-enabled version. [Notebook Review]

Businessweek's headline confuses me, a bit: Building the Perfect Laptop. David Hill, father of the x300 and chief Lenovo designer says, "I'm a bit tired of looking at silver computers. I'd never wear a silver business suit." The comparison is lost on me. Many of the people the Air was designed for simply wouldn't wear a business suit; why is wearing a suit a given for computer user? Sounds like the same kind of thinking that kept IBM trailing in the personal computer race before Windows. The piece is worth reading, especially for the opening section where the Lenovo people, tuned into Macworld Keynote coverage, scrambled to see if the x300 also fit into a manila envelope. It did. [BusinessWeek via BBG, more X300 on Giz]

Butterfly Keyboard:

Will get you:

Not bad at all. [Best Buy]

The 17-inch Dell laptop is a media machine, sporting a high resolution UltraSharp display, 7.1 surround sound, a 2-megapixel webcam and a Blu-ray player to keep you entertained on the go. Continuing the wireless trend are the included Wireless-N card and mobile broadband capabilities. You can even drop nearly half a terabyte into these creatures (across two hard drives)! Shipping August 9th, the Inspiron 1720 can be yours for less than a grand (if you're willing to make some sacrifices).

The other major Certified Wireless USB notebook launch is the ThinkPad T61. A more modest offering than the Dell, it still manages to be a wireless beast with support for standard WiFi, Bluetooth and USB out of the box. A fingerprint scanner and unique shock absorbing roll cage keep your data safe and secure, though that data is limited to about 80 gigabytes on the top end. The 14.1-inch offering from Lenovo won't play your Blu-ray discs, but it will get your basic jobs done in a compact, wire-free way. Shipping now, the Thinkpad T61 starts around $1,500. [Laptops That Don't Need USB Cables]

These four Lenovo ads tout the durability of the laptops while keeping a classy and business casual appeal. No smug Mac Guy vs. PC Guy here—just showing off their roll-cages.

– Jason Chen

The main selling points of the plan being 24/7 executive customer service, available by phone, email, and by IM with one touch of a hard button. They'll provide on site service within 4 hours, or the next day if you're too far from a service center. And can help lazy, technophobe CEOs back up their machines. Or replace the whole thing if they accidentally squish it while jumping into their private jets within the 3 year warranty. (Much of this, I suspect, is available with some insane service plan, anyhow.)

The idea behind the leather casing is that it breaks in, rather than breaks down like traditional PC materials. (It also retain tons of heat, but the website doesn't mention this.)

•160GB HDD 5400RPM SATA, with hardware encryption
•12.1-inch display
•2GB of RAM
•7 Hours of Battery life (Sure.)
•Intel Centrino Pro, Core 2 Duo L7500 CPU

–Brian Lam
Thinkpad Reserve [Lenovo]

Right now, all you can do is click around the website, thinkpadreserve.com, which is heavy with images of leather, but nothing else. The password protected flash program has been taken apart by readers, and they've only found a mail-to form to the Razorfish ad agency. – Brian Lam

[Thanks Tipster]

First Image of the ThinkPad Reserve [Notebook Italia via Gizmologia]

Little is known about the model, but the folks at Electronista seem to think it'll be a leather-bound ThinkPad, which makes sense considering the teaser site. I'm not too keen on leather notebooks, so I'm hoping its not. In the meantime we'll have to sit tight till more news is released. – Louis Ramirez

Teaser Site [via Electronista]

The single piece roll cage under the keyboard is a single piece of metal, 3D, with mounts for the drives, motherboard, and other components, which when bolted in actually make the frame even stronger. The real genius is the replacement of the metal lid on the old Thinkpads with Plastic. Huh?

Yes.

More, more, more:

There's a 3D, honeycomb sub frame below the surface, which makes the lid not only stronger, but roughly 50% more durable against uneven impacts (like a baseball hitting the back of the LCD in one point). The antenna for WiFi and WWAN is placed inside the plastic, but outside the lid cage, so reception is 2x that of the previous generation. Flexing the laptop hard resulted in minimal flex, and only a bit of protest from the optical bay. I'm tempted to make comparisons to toughbooks and other rugged notes, but I'm unqualified to do so.

Oh, I'm also happy to report that the IBM moniker, while not on the wrist rest, isn't gone as reported. The logo, which is available for Lenovo's use for five years from the purchase, is still on the lid.

The Thinkpads also have better thermal management, thanks to extremely tweakable software that shows you how much additional juice you get from turning components off, as well as better cooling hardware, along with that rollcage doing a great job of dissipating heat. And they've even gone and made the bottom a little bit more Mac-ish than the fugly old bottoms. It still has the drive head parking, which it pioneered before the Macs, and a fingerprint reader which is my preferred method of signing into Vista these days.

And they've got some 1GB of memory hanging off one of the express card controller (you'll have to sacrifice something) to be used as a disk cache. This is their alternative to using hybrid drives. They found it to be much faster than the very limited 256MB on a drive, and now you can swap in big old perpendicular drives without losing your big cache. It's called Intel Turbo Memory, and they find that it can bring a 5400RPM drive to faster then a 7200RPM drive in some cases (obviously not straight reads of uncached data.)

Some of the configs also have webcams, Blu-ray players, card readers. And they have HDD hardware encryption, 802.11n, WLAN with Cingular's HSDPA or Verizon's EVDO. (Aw, no Sprint). Both have up to Core 2 Duo (64-bit) up to 2.4 GHz, in Centrino Duo setups.

P.S. Lenovo, good job keeping your computer relatively craplet free. Sure you had lots of utility apps to power the fine Thinkpad hardware, but that's acceptable.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - May 9, 2007 - Lenovo today announced two new ThinkPad notebooks PCs - the first ThinkPad T61 14.1-inch widescreen notebook and the first ever R Series widescreen, the ThinkPad R61 14.1-inch widescreen notebook. Lenovo engineered the PCs with its latest innovations, including a new Top Cover Roll Cage for excellent durability, an improved cooling system, enhanced wireless connectivity with Ultra Connect II and longer battery life through its Battery Stretch control option. Featuring the latest Intel® Centrino® Pro and Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology, the ThinkPad T61 and R61 14.1-inch widescreen notebooks, respectively, offer users the strongest, coolest, quietest and best performing ThinkPad lineup yet.

Lenovo also today introduced the Lenovo 3000 N200 15.4-inch widescreen notebook offering top connectivity and graphics capabilities with the latest Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology.

"The technologies we've designed and integrated into our new ThinkPad notebook PCs demonstrate Lenovo's best engineering at work," said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president, Notebooks, Lenovo. "Improvements in durability, reliability and wireless connectivity will help to make our customer's PC experience more enjoyable and productive. With the latest Lenovo technologies, we are continuing to set the standard for innovation and reliability."

Rock Solid Reliability from Top to Bottom
Engineered with a new Top Cover Roll Cage in addition to the original hard drive magnesium roll cage, the new notebooks provide rock solid reliability with top to bottom protection. The new honeycomb-designed roll cage cushions the notebook's LCD, reinforcing the screen and helping reduce stress on the display structure and antenna. The new Top Cover Roll Cage reduces the stress on the LCD screen by 25 percent on average when the notebook is dropped compared to previous ThinkPad notebooks. Combined with features like the airbag-like sensor of Lenovo's Active Protection System and a shock-mounted hard drive, these notebooks provide the highest level of Lenovo notebook reliability and durability.

Improved Wireless for Road Warriors
Lenovo offers its best wireless performance with Ultra Connect II. This connectivity design helps reduce the effect of conductive material and LCD noise, boosting WWAN and WLAN performance and eliminating the need for external antennas. The notebooks offer several different connectivity options such as WWAN1 (on select ThinkPad T61 models) and WLAN with 802.11n technology,2 GB Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth and modem. When used with Access Connections, Ultra Connect II helps give road warriors an easy to manage wireless experience.

Cooler, Quieter System Designed by Nature
Owls are known for their silence during flight, and the unique shape of an owl's wing inspired the design behind Lenovo's improved cooling system design. The system reduces surface temperature by up to 10 percent and lowers the noise level by three decibels over previous ThinkPad notebooks, giving Lenovo its coolest and quietest notebooks yet.

Stretching Out PC Battery Life
Lenovo puts users in the driver's seat for up to 15 percent longer battery life3 with Battery Stretch. Whether it's finishing a presentation or watching the end of a DVD, Battery Stretch allows individuals to select and manage options like minimizing refresh rates and disabling radios and Bluetooth options in the Power Manager ThinkVantage Technology software to maximize their battery life.

Packed with Security and Performance
The new notebook PCs offer cutting-edge security with select models offering full disk encryption hard drives, an integrated biometric fingerprint reader and a smart card reader. Users can also opt for Intel® Turbo Memory with both notebooks and new IT management capabilities with Intel® Active Management Technology in the ThinkPad T61 14.1-inch widescreen. To enhance the multimedia experience, the notebooks offer choices of Intel integrated or NVIDIA discrete graphics and a four-in-one media card reader. Users can also opt for an integrated camera with the ThinkPad R61 14.1-inch widescreen notebook.

Lenovo 3000 N200: Another Smart Choice for Doing Business
Lenovo gives customers another smart choice for doing business with the Lenovo 3000 N200 15.4-inch widescreen notebook. This notebook features leading technology in a thin and light form all at a good value. With today's always-connected environment in mind, the notebook offers WLAN with 802.11n technology, 10/100 Ethernet and Bluetooth connectivity options. Integrated fingerprint readers help individuals manage their passwords and information. And to help lower the total cost of PC ownership, Lenovo Care Tools help manage IT tasks with automatic updates, one-button system recovery and simple network connectivity.

Choices of Intel integrated graphics or NVIDIA discrete graphics combined with options like an integrated camera and microphone, a five-in-one multicard reader and Vibrant View display add up to an excellent multimedia experience.

Pricing and Availability4
The ThinkPad T61 and R61 14.1-inch notebooks start at approximately $1,399 and $1,249, respectively, and will be available in mid-May.

The Lenovo 3000 N200 15.4-inch widescreen notebook starts at approximately $1,099 and will be available at the end of May. All three notebooks will be available through Lenovo Business Partners and online at www.lenovo.com
d

Have a butchers at Lenovo's newest ThinkPads, the T61 and the R61. While there's nothing particularly scrummy about the design, the laptops do have Intel's Santa Rosa platform under the hood. Both models will be available from next month, with updated versions following on in June (a WWAN model of the T61) and July (a Blu-Ray DVD burner on the R61). There's even fingerprint technology on some of the T61s to keep your private stuff just that.

Both models have 14.1-inch displays, Intel Turbo memory card for some KITT-like Vista performance turbo-boost, hard disk encryption, SmartCard support and NVIDIA graphics. And if you were looking for the IBM badge, you can forget it: Lenovo has finally scratched it off - the first time they have done that since they bought the company's PC division in 2005. UPDATED: The logo is on the lid. All the new technology specs of both models after the jump, but no prices as yet.

T61
Intel Centrino® Duo mobile technology on selected models:
Intel Core 2 Duo processor family1 — T7100, T7300, T7500, and T7700 processors with up to 800 MHz front-size bus (FSB) and up to 4 MB L2 cache
Intel PRO/Wireless family
Intel GM/PM965 Express chipset families
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 graphics for clear images (models with GM965 chipset)
Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 4965AGN LAN or Intel 3945ABG Wi-Fi Wireless or ThinkPad 11a/b/g6
UltraConnect II antenna to help optimize frequency coverage and performance for improved wireless LAN (WLAN) connectivity around the world, when used with compatible options
Intel Turbo Memory Card
Microsoft Windows Vista, which facilitates better security
ThinkVantage Access Connections utility to help manage wired and wireless communications
ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery™ 3.0
Widescreen TFT display starting at 358-mm (14.1-in) has WXGA (1280 x 800) or WXGA+ (1440 x 900) resolution
Ultrabay™ Slim for fast and easy hot- and warm-swapping of selected options
The ThinkPad T61 notebook is approximately 1.1-in thin (27.6 mm)7 with optimal weight starting at approximately 5 lb8

R61
New processors and chipsets
Intel® Core 2 Duo (64-bit) processors1 up to 2.4 GHz — T7100, T7300, T7500, T7700
New Intel GM/PM965 chipset
Speedy 800 MHz front-side bus (FSB), up to 4 MB L2 cache
Added choice is 32-bit or the new 64-bit Vista operating system
Improved communications
Next generation of wireless LAN (WLAN) performance through 802.11n 2x3 MIMO
1 GB Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth, modem
14.1-inch wide screen
Hard drives for different needs
Up to 160 GB, 5400 rpm
Up to 100 GB, 7200 rpm
Intel Turbo Memory Card boosts performance (select models)
Full disk encryption provides security
New discrete graphics offerings
New NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M (128 MB) discrete graphics
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 graphics for clear images
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG LAN, Intel wireless 4945AGN LAN, or ThinkPad 11a/b/g6 WLAN card
UltraConnect II antenna to help optimize frequency coverage and performance for improved WLAN connectivity around the world, when used with compatible options
ThinkVantage Access Connections utility to help manage wired and wireless communications
ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery™
Widescreen 358-mm (14.1-in) with WXGA (1280 x 8000) or WXGA+ (1400 x 900) resolution TFT display 358-mm (14.1-in)
Ultrabay™ for fast and easy hot- and warm-swapping of selected options

– Ad Dugdale

Lenovo Announces ThinkPad T60 Widescreen Notebook [via Laptop Logic]

In their very lengthy dissertation (which includes 5 videos) Notebook Review's Andrew Baxter gushes over the new Tablet. Among the things he praises are the system's new 2.5-inch drive (which now runs at 7,200rpm) and the Tablet's 5-hour battery life (which was achieved using an 8 cell battery). Baxter also demos the Tablet's MultiTouch feature, which lets you use the your digits as an input device. The idea of giving your laptop the finger may seem inviting, but as Baxter points out, using the pen is much easier. Another cool feature is Active Rotate, which automatically rotates the screen so that it's never misaligned when the Tablet is moved.

A couple of things to note. The $1,700 X60 has no built-in optical drive and the mono speaker is located on the bottom of the Tablet, which I'm sure will make for some nice muffled audio. So despite the solid show, our stance on Tablets remains the same, but should we ever call for one, this is where we'd put our money. – Louis Ramirez

Lenovo ThinkPad X60t [via Notebook Review]

ThinkSafe: A Magnetic Power Connector for Thinkpads [Instructables via Lifehacker]

The main thing I find strange is...

...the very concept of a Thinkpad tablet.
No tablet hinge I've ever seen has been sturdier than a couple of plastic straws tied together. It's the very concept of a rotating, swiveling, and ultimately cracking hinge that seems at odds with the essence of what makes a ThinkPad so geektastically bulletproof and protected by IBM tech support Angels.

This is all theory; there is no recall for the not even released notebook, rumor-whores. In fact, I'm sure that if anyone can build a tablet with a strong hinge, its IBM/Lenovo. But part of me that that loves the X60, wishes it could be left alone as the iconic road warrior notebook I think of it as. Tablets are for babies.–Brian Lam

PS: This isn't their only Tablet. The X40 (pictured) has a similar screen size as the X60, albeit with a slower Pentium M chip and has no option for cell data.

We've got Lenovo X60s Tablet PC specs [Gotta Be Mobile]

That said, we have a very succinct review of the T43, Lenovo's 1.7-GHz 14.1-inch laptop. It weighs a mere 5.2 pounds and includes an optical drive and the little IBM keyboard clitoris we all love so much.

While it's no black MacBook, it's still an acceptable little machine.

Lenovo ThinkPad T43 Review [Blaptops]

Interestingly enough, the Z61 models include an in-bezel camera and microphone for video-conferencing as well as 802.11a/b/g and optional EVDO WAN access. They should be available in June starting at $699 for a bare-bones model.