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The X300 Could Usher in a New Generation of ThinkPads

Posted by Zonk on Sun Mar 02, 2008 04:25 PM
from the now-i-want-one dept.
Portables Hardware Technology
An anonymous reader writes "The ThinkPad has long been a favorite of IT departments everywhere and is the preferred notebook for legions of no-nonsense users. As times have progressed the ThinkPad has improved but the X300 marks the most significant change in its design since the butterfly keyboard. While we've already discussed a few leaked specs, official news of big changes like LED-backlighting (the first on a ThinkPad) and a widescreen display accompany a number of important but smaller design tweaks. Current thinking is that these changes indicate that the X300 is the first step in a series of larger changes to the ThinkPad. The notebook has already received a number of favorable reviews, but the other changes - the ones that will ultimately trickle down to the rest of the ThinkPad line - are perhaps more interesting than this specific $2500+ notebook."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Hardware: Thinkpad X300 Specs Leaked 372 comments
Kyokushi writes "Gizmodo reports that some specifications of a new ultralight Lenovo X300 have been leaked. 'It appears that Lenovo have themselves a new ultralight X300 series Thinkpad — and outside of the price and release date, we have all of the specs that you need to know. At a glance, some of the major features include: a 13.3-inch LED backlit 1440X900 screen, an ultralight 2.5 pound form factor, and Intel Merom Santa Rosa Dual Core CPU (2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz ), a 64 GB SSD, up to 4GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 memory, and 4 hours of battery life.' If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air." Update: 01/20 22:55 GMT by S : Corrected Gizmondo->Gizmodo.
[+] The ThinkPad Takes On The MacBook Air 433 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Walt Mossberg has an early look at the ThinkPad X300, Lenovo's answer to the MacBook Air. He says the ThinkPad is almost as skinny and light as the Air, but has many of the ports and features lacking on Apple's machine. The biggest downside: it costs much more and will be limited to a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage. 'Unlike the Apple, which can be ordered with a higher-capacity, lower-priced hard disk, the new ThinkPad will only be available with the expensive, limited capacity solid-state drive. So it will start at between $2,500 and $2,800-up to $1,000 more than the Apple's base price.'"
Submission: The X300 Ushers in a New Generation of ThinkPads by Anonymous Coward
[+] Hardware: HTC Shift + ThinkPad X300 + MacBook Air = Perfect Notebook? 108 comments
Tom's Hardware has an interesting look at the HTC Shift, the newest contender in the ultralight portable arena, with a strong compare and contrast to the other two heavyweights, the ThinkPad X300 and the Macbook Air. "As some of you know, I actually like the Macbook Air but found the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 to be a vastly more useful product in the class. I'm one of the few folks that have been using an early version of the HTC Shift , a smaller screened ultra light tablet with a keyboard and a touch screen which is superior to both offerings in some ways and just released on Amazon.com for $1500 (someone screwed up, this wasn't supposed to happen until next week). This got me thinking: The perfect next generation ultra-sexy notebook should be a blend of all three products."
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The X300 Could Usher in a New Generation of ThinkPads 50 Comments More /

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  • I will wait for the second generation. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cyfer2000 (548592) on Sunday March 02 2008, @04:27PM (#22617694) Journal
    I will wait.
  • They need to have something better then integrated video at $2500+ and even at the $1500+ price range.

    Put in a ati hyper memory or nvidia Turbo Cache card in or use the 780G amd chip set Integrated graphics with Side-port memory as local frame buffer.

    128mb - 256mb+ of system ram just for video in vista is a big hit and a joke at $1500+

    • Re:They need to have somthing better then integrat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jg1708 (1246046) on Sunday March 02 2008, @04:39PM (#22617792)
      How do you propose they get the extra heat out? Also, from what I have read, the X300's battery time is not all that great. The extra hardware would be one more power drain.

    • Re:They need to have somthing better then integrat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ynososiduts (1064782) on Sunday March 02 2008, @04:44PM (#22617816)
      Why would you need that much dedicated VRAM in an office laptop? Set the Vram to 32MB and be done with it. I don't get why everyone is complaining about notebooks aimed at office work not having a dedicated video card, when modern integrated graphics are more than adequate. What is especially bothering is that this is slashdot, Intel has open source linux drivers, and everyone seems to be pushing the proprietary Nvidia and ATI graphics soultions.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by blackirish (794322)

        Not only is integrated graphics good enough now, it also saves a whole heck of a lot of power. My Thinkpad T60 with discrete graphics gets an hour less runtime on battery than an identical T60 with integrated graphics. In a portable design with a SSD drive, LED backlighting and a bunch of other power saving features, just why would you want a power hungry graphics chip?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by exploder (196936)
        The world isn't divided between corporate users and gamers. Scientists and academics value a capable, durable, no-nonsense machine like the Thinkpad series, and often need a fair bit of graphical horsepower for visualizations.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tecmec (870283)
      I think you'd be surprised. It really doesn't take much video horsepower to run Aero smoothly. I've not seen any modern integrated video not be able to handle it (and handle it well, at that). A notebook with a ULV CPU, does [b]not[/b] need anything more. There is no such thing as a sub-15" gaming laptop.
      • That's been my experience with aero as well. Although the compositing works well in vista, the slowness of the rest of the system is a huge drain on laptops. But for things like dragging, minimizing windows, it's usually always smooth and without tearing on all the hardware I've tried it on including laptops with integrated video. I can't say the same for compiz, which still doesn't work on a large number of mobile graphics chipsets and works only poorly on even more. This is mostly an ATI problem though, i
    • Have you checked Lenovo's site? The X300 [lenovo.com] comes with XP by default.

    • Re:They need to have somthing better then integrat (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is a business class ultra light laptop. light weight and small size being the primary objectives. a dedicated video takes up more space, creates more heat, and increases battery usage compared to Intels integrated video.A dedicated video in this laptop is a rather stupid idea. integrated video is not a universal solution, the fastest, biggest, most powerfulest isn't always the bestest. and as far as vista, who cares. xp wont be going anywhere any time soon especially with many bigger organizations st

    • They need to have something better then integrated video at $2500+ and even at the $1500+ price range
      While that may be nice from a performance perspective, the current crop of nVidia cards at the very least will kill the battery life. I was recently looking around at all types of laptops and it's rather consistent, if you want good battery life you'll be using integrated video.
    • Why on earth would ThinkPad users want or need this? Integrated Intel Extreme graphics are more than sufficient for portable use. Heck, they can even run popular modest games reasonably well. For the savings in size, power use, money, going with Intel integrated graphics is the CORRECT design decision.

      I'm starting to wonder if I really want to associate with a Slashdot crowd that would mod parent insightful.
    • As you said, 128-256mb of system ram is a joke at $1500+.

    • They need to have something better then integrated video at $2500+ and even at the $1500+ price range.

      Designing a machine is all about picking the appropriate compromises. "Integrated graphics" has its issues, but is often pretty good these days, and certainly powerful enough for running compiz and other blingerific GUIs, opengl-based stuff (blender or whatever), etc. The memory hit can be annoying, but then you can just bump up your system RAM, which is generally more useful and cheaper than dedicated

  • significant change; right..... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ntw1103 (1208178) on Sunday March 02 2008, @04:39PM (#22617786)
    "but the X300 marks the most significant change in its design" did you miss the x41? you know the tablet. yeah, I would think that the whole swivel-touchscreen would be the most significant change. look; after that they have released more tablets following the major change that occurred in the x41. it isn't all that strange for an ultralight either, there have been a lot of tiny thinkpads. yes this one does have a wide screen, but they have had other wide-screen thinkpads too. if you ask me, yes the some changes are there, but far from the most significant changes the thinkpad line has seen.

    • did you miss the x41? you know the tablet. yeah

      Hmm, for how many decades has MS been saying the tablet pc is the next big thing...?

      Never seems to happen though.

  • Advert? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NotZed (19455) on Sunday March 02 2008, @04:47PM (#22617842)
    Mate, it's just another laptop. What's so revolutionary about that?

    Sounds like advertising to me.

    I do like thinkpads myself, but the only thing revolutionary about the X300 to me is it's exorbitant price.
    • I couldn't help but be reminded about the article from Sony about the "race to the bottom" (yes i'm too lazy to post slashdot link).

      With the exception of graphics artists and programmers, most people simply do not need a laptop worth over 500 dollars or so. I'm not just talking about the eeePC, which is great in its own way due to its size, but any laptop which can reach that price point and still be a regular size laptop for ease of typing up a document, or any other purpose. As I type this from my eee t
      • I would be willing to pay an extra 100 or 200 dollars for, say, double the battery life, or a pound of weight reduction, or assurance of reliability. I agree however that performance wise the ability of the current technology has surpassed the level required for most tasks. That doesn't mean you there are not other areas that need work though, and hardware innovations are usually always initially price prohibitive for most people.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GarfBond (565331)
      Seriously. LED backlighting? Wiki tells me it's been on some VAIOs since 2006 and on MacBook Pros since 2007. Widescreen displays? Pretty much every manufacturer in 2007 (including Lenovo, for that matter), and a large few in 2003-2006, and as far back as 2001 for Apple. Revolutionary time for Lenovo? More like playing catchup and/or letting high-end features stay in their high-end (the X300 is a $2500 machine after all).

      Smells like astroturfing, or the dumbest kind of fanboyism, to me.

      • Re:Advert? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by timeOday (582209) on Sunday March 02 2008, @09:58PM (#22619730)

        Widescreen displays? Pretty much every manufacturer in 2007 (including Lenovo, for that matter), and a large few in 2003-2006, and as far back as 2001 for Apple
        Plus, widescreens are inferior (unless your main task is watching DVDs). They should instead be called "shortscreens." They have less surface area than a normal aspect screen with the same diagonal measurement. Ask yourself this question, do you do more vertical scrolling or horizontal scrolling?

  • My GOD what a terrible video review! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spoco2 (322835) on Sunday March 02 2008, @05:05PM (#22617970) Homepage
    The Cnet one linked to above [cnet.com] has a guy trying SO HARD to do a 'TV presenter's voice'... And noooow, liiiive from Hollywood coooomes some dick doing a TERRIBLE video review.

    Urgh, stick to text.

  • Why is this here? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TiberSeptm (889423) on Sunday March 02 2008, @05:07PM (#22617982)
    I'm trying to figure out why this is news. It sounds like some minor tweaks to the x300, plus the OP seems ill-informed on what technologies have been used in thinkpads before.

  • T60 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fat_mike (71855)
    In my opinion this was the pinnacle of IBM (Yes, mine says IBM Thinkpad on it) and their laptops. We've bought T61's since I got my T60 two years ago and I hate supporting them. My T60 just works. It plays Oblivion, my movies and music and I've seen it sit for two weeks in standby mode with the lid closed.
    It is also the most durable laptop I've ever had and I beat the hell out of my laptops. Traveling, punching it (see Oblivion above), dropping it, knocking it around during my job.
    And yes, I'm old.
    • The T60 was made under Lenovo. Yes, it says "IBM Thinkpad," but they all say that, including my dad's Z61m. Lenovo has the rights to the logo for a few more years. The Lenovo logo wasn't added until the 61's. The T60 has a Windows key, which IBM wouldn't put on themselves.

      • My T60 has a Lenovo logo on it, right beside the T60 writing on the inside. The lower right corner of the inside and lid still says "IBM ThinkPad" though. As of the T61, "IBM ThinkPad" has been replaced with just "ThinkPad".

    • No modern notebook sits for "two weeks in standby mode". There's not enough juice in the battery to keep the DRAM refreshed. I have a friend with a T61 and the 9-cell battery, and it's dead (from full) in around 5-6 days of suspend, which is actually quite long for a notebook. His notebook has 1 1GB DIMM; with 2 DIMMs expect about half that life.

      Some notebooks have "hybrid suspend"; this saves the memory to the disk and shuts down. That's probably what you're seeing.
      • If I charge mine and leave it in suspend (to RAM--not hibernate) overnight, it comes back with 99% juice. Sounds like two weeks isn't out of line, although I'd hate to be without my lappy that long.

  • Anonymous Coward (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lunatrik (1136121) on Sunday March 02 2008, @05:37PM (#22618228)
    I can only begin to guess who the "Anonymous Coward" that posted this story might work for....
    Go Go Slashvertisements!
  • It's too expensive for a general rollout. It will be the executive only Thinkpad model.

  • Focus on business faltering (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ArhcAngel (247594) on Sunday March 02 2008, @07:57PM (#22619156)
    The thing about the Thinkpad that makes them so appealing to corporate customers is there support life cycle. You knew that if you invested in accessories for a T40 those accessories would work with the T41, T42, T43, etc. until the number increments to T50 you were guaranteed your accessories would be forward compatible making the investment worthwhile for the 3/4 year life cycle your organization has planned for those devices. With the 60 series Lenovo has started to abandon this. Last year our company began implementing 60 series laptops. In less than a year the R60 was superseded by the R61. The R61 uses a new chipset and while pin compatible with their Advanced Dock I've yet to find a PCIe peripheral that will work with the R61. The R61 will not even boot with the Quad monitor video card we are using with the R60. Working with the Lenovo engineering group proved fruitless as ultimately they simply told me there was no way it would work and they had no plans on fixing it. The build materials aren't as hearty as they used to be either. I hope the x300 isn't just the next in a long line of abandoning the corporate customer that made the Thinkpad a household name.
  • I'm typing this on a Dell XPS M1330. LED backlight? Check. Widescreen display? Got it. Lightweight form factor? Yep. 64Gb SSD available? Since December, although I took the 200Gb SATA. Core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz and 4Gb of DDR2-5300? Yep, although I only chose to pay for 2.0Ghz and 3Gb. And I got the Geforce Go 8400M video card with 128Mb dedicated graphics memory - not stellar by hard-core gamer standards, but worlds beyond the integrated graphics on the X300. Plus, my M1330 was at least $500 cheaper than the X300
  • I've been looking around for a new notebook recently after my 3 year and 3 month old T42 with a 3-year warranty started to have problems due to the BGA [wikipedia.org] method of attaching the mobile Radeon 9600. See this thread at thinkpads.com [thinkpads.com] for more info.

    I really like the durability of my ThinkPad but this experience has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. My 9 year old Gateway Solo 2500 still runs fine except that I've had to replace the hard drive a couple times.

    As a student and employee at a higher-education institution, however, the 34% discounts available to me on ThinkPads still makes them pretty attractive. Couple that with opting for SuSE Linux and I've got a pretty well-priced notebook.

    I am not ruling out a MacBook, however. Now that they come with Intel processors, I can pretty much have my pick of OSes other than OS X installed.

  • Could be better (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Richard_J_N (631241) on Sunday March 02 2008, @10:55PM (#22620072)
    As a longtime thinkpad user (since the 770, now with a T60), there are several things Lenovo have got wrong:

    - No line-in for audio. This is a big problem for doing audio recordings
    - No enough ports (only 3 USB, no firewire)
    - Widescreen. Ugh. Repeat after me, laptops are for documents, not for movies. "Widescreen" just means "missing the top and bottom of the display" - it should be renamed "shortscreen".
    - Lid catches: IBM used to have two, carefully balanced; Lenovo reduced this to one as a deliberate measure, but it is now harder to open with a single hand.
    - side-mounted ports for ethernet - so the cable gets in the way on the desk.
    - Windows keys (used to be absent) - making the Ctrl and Alt keys too small.

    Thinkpads are generally quite Linux friendly (see thinkwiki.org), but still, can't we have the nice Intel i810 cards on the high-end models, instead of crippling them with useless ATI cards?

    The older models (eg 560, 770) were very well engineered, and seemed to have been designed with a little more "love". The T60 is not a bad machine, but it doesn't inspire affection and delight in the same way.

  • my thinkpad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sentientbrendan (316150) on Monday March 03 2008, @03:36AM (#22621466)
    the X61s by far the best designed laptop I've seen. It isn't pretty, but it is high powered processor wise and light. I think it is a shame that more companies don't look after the practical usability of laptops, but instead tend to focus on making 6+ pound behemoths with huge screens that you will never be able to move off your desk.

    Really, if you want that kind of hardware, get a desktop. As far as real laptops for mobile users go, thinkpad is the reigning king.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tecmec (870283)
      Nobody said anything about a backlight keyboard. There is no backlight keyboard. The [i]screen[/i] has an LED backlight, but that's hardly new, even for a Thinkpad (see x60s and x60s)

    • And real touch typists don't look at the keys.
      The letter keys, no. But it takes a good while with a new laptop to learn where things like PgUp/Dn, delete, insert, home, end, the F-keys, and the Fn key live. Keyboard lights or backlit keyboards are nice. Of course, the ability to turn them off is important, too.

    • Re:LED Backlight (Score:5, Informative)

      by nanimo (688603) on Sunday March 02 2008, @05:06PM (#22617974)
      I'm sorry, but you are wrong. X60s and X61s do not have LED backlight screens.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by tecmec (870283)
        Wow, you appear to be correct. In my defense, it's a very common misconception. There goes my first +5 ...
        • Oh come on, on slashdot you don't have to be right to get a +5, you just have to SOUND informative. Which you did, hence you are at +5.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by pherthyl (445706)
          Nah you still have it. The level of truth in a comment has no correlation with its rating... :)
      • The X61s (only the s model) has had the option of LED backlighting for quite some time.

    • Moreover, I get 5-6hours of battery life out of my x60s. 4 hours is not very impressive, especially considering that it has SSD, which supposedly improves battery life.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bhtooefr (649901)
        I'm going to guess you have the 8-cell battery.

        Just think - they're getting 4 hours out of (IIRC) a 4-cell. Half the size of your battery. Then it doesn't look so bad.

        • I think you are right, I ave an extended life battery. Well 8hours is very decent, although it will probably be 6-7 hours in practice. I would expect slightly more from the SSD, on the other hand the
          monitor is 13 inches vs 12 on X60.

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