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Comments: 275 +- Mobile: Lenovo Intros the Monstrous ThinkPad W700 on Tuesday August 12 2008, @06:24AM
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Engadget recently got their hands on an early delivery of Lenovo's new powerhouse of a laptop, the W700. Aimed at graphic artists and photographers, this beast is designed to really pack a punch. No word on how much for the extra fusion generator to power it for longer than 20 minutes. "Containing enough computational artillery to level a small village, this for-creatives-only behemoth is designed for sheer pixel pushing ... and little else. The system packs in two features aimed at graphic artists and photographers which are fairly unique to a laptop: a built in Wacom digitizer just to the right of the trackpad, and an on-board color calibrator. But what's happening under the hood you ask? Well, for starters the 17-incher sports the first-ever Intel Quad Core Extreme CPU in a laptop (no word on speeds at this point) as well as the first showing of NVIDIA's Quadro FX 3700 graphics chipset (with a hefty 1GB of memory on-board). The workstation also serves up dual hard drive bays configurable as RAID 0 or 1 (SSD or traditional disk, naturally), up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and an optional Blu-ray burner. Of course, that's fully kitted out -- the W700 starts at $2,978 and moves skyward from there."
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Yes but.... (Score:4, Funny)
Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:5, Funny)
Apple needs to step up and try to match this.
Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, with something shiny costing at least $10,000, preferably with a cup holder for the Starbucks Latte.
... but you need Apple's permission to put the Latte there.
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Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:5, Funny)
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Apple has to do this for your own good (Score:5, Funny)
They are disabling your latte due to a bug in Java. Ewwwww
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Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the cup holder can be positioned over the CPU heat sink? That way it can double as a warmer or to brew tea.
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Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:5, Funny)
My current MacBook Pro doesn't have a cup holder. They haven't for YEARS.
It does have a potato chip slot, but it only holds one at a time and it seems to make the guys at the local genius bar mad when I use it.
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Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:5, Funny)
With quad-core, a 1gig video card and Wacom tablet built-in?
Are you serious? This thing will be have bits of MacBook Pro in its stool.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll tell you what, when I do live performances of sound and video art, where I need a powerful laptop connected via firewire to digital audio interfaces and HDMI and where every new input method (Wacom tablet!) is precious, I would be thrilled to have this "monster" sitting next to me.
Admittedly, this thing ain't for carrying around to the Starbucks and showing off, it's for special applications where you need a powerful workstation you can fold up and carry home when you're done.
If you wan
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I've been through three PowerBook/MBP 15" now. I know people with 17s and they look great... on a desk. I'd go for a MB or even an Air except, as a photographer and a medical imaging researcher I occasionally find a use for Firewire ports and decent graphics.
The desktop replacements just don't offer enough features to me to overcome the difficulty of carrying them around (often with twenty or thirty pounds of camera gear, for the suck-it-up-you-wimp types).
This seems even worse than the desktop replacemen
Re:Apple needs to step up and try to match this. (Score:4, Funny)
Well, you know what they say about men with big hands ...
"You must acquit"?
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Discrimination (Score:5, Funny)
The Wacom tablet is on the right of the trackpad, a very inconvenient place for us left-handers. Just another example example of the man trying to keeps us down.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. So where would you put the Wacom on this laptop, assuming you still have to be able to sell a lot of them to make it worth making them in the first place?
(This is a serious question. Is there a solution?)
Re:Discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh I don't know, on the screen [lenovo.com], maybe? You know, like a normal Tablet PC, which is exactly what this is except that Tablet PCs have bigger digitizers and work better because the strokes appear where the user actually drew them.
I mean really, what kind of idiot would want this?! It's like getting a really tiny Intuos [wacom.com] when you could have had a nice big Cintiq [wacom.com] for less!
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I kinda think touch-sensitive displays are not an option for serious drawing... They'd start to wear out really really fast. And even a little visible wear on the display would be a show-stopper annoying for anybody doing serious graphics stuff... Not to mention all the fingerprints etc.
Now if anybody here does serious visual work on a touch-sensitive display and knows fingerprints and wear are not a problem, feel free to correct me...
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In any case, serious artists use whatever tool
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Obviously this [wacom.com] is a figment of my imagination, then.
But seriously, the answer is that it depends on the technology used. The pressure-sensitive screens (as on most PDAs) obviously wouldn't be all that durable, but some technologies (such as the Wacom one) allow the screen to be protected by a glass sheet. Scratching is not a problem because the tip of the stylus is made out of a softer material, so you replace the stylus tip when it wears out instead of replacing the screen.
Incidentally, I own a Thinkpad X6
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I agree - why is there a trackpad? Surely that's redundant given the wacom tablet? But that's the least of this beasts problems.
It weighs in at a minimum 8.3 pounds. Battery life is not stated, but, given the alienware "desktop replacement laptop" I'd bet a 2 hour battery life will cause this to weigh in at over 10#s easy.
So, for comparison, a MBP 17" with same screen resolution and a 7200 rpm drive starts at about 2900. And you get 2-5 hours battery life (depending on what you're doing) at 1.5#s less weigh
Re:Discrimination (Score:5, Funny)
Just turn the machine through 180 degrees, and viola! the tablet is on the left hand side instead. Some further modifications may be needed, of course.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm skeptical that turning this laptop by 180 degrees will turn it into a viola [wikipedia.org].
Re:[spot the pun] (Score:4, Funny)
It's nothing sinister.
sinister [wiktionary.org]
Etymology : From Latin sinister ("left hand") via Old French Sinistra ("left"), Middle English Sinistre ("unlucky").
As a Lefty, I'd like to say: get some new material. ;)
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Discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
a built in Wacom digitizer just to the right of the trackpad
Ideal unless you're left handed and therefore cursed to spend all your time catching the trackpad while trying to write/draw anything.
Re:Discrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope not even ideal. I dont know of a single artist that would be caught dead using that tiny digi.
a 8X10 Wacom is easier to pack in the laptop bag than a mouse... so adding a digi onto the laptop is like having spinner rims on the car.... useless and for show only.
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Ideal unless you're left handed and therefore cursed to spend all your time catching the trackpad while trying to write/draw anything.
The secret, jealously guarded by a sect of IBM laptop fanatics, is of course to disable the cursed trackpad/touchpad frustrator device, and use the laptop the way laptops were meant to be used (in absense of a real mouse anyway), ie. using the red button of happiness.
Please don't tell me this thing only has touchpad...?
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Bundled extras? (Score:2)
Re:Bundled extras? (Score:4, Funny)
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Slashdot would like to thank (Score:4, Funny)
Laptop market trends (Score:5, Funny)
I predict that by the end of this year Thinkpads will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.
No SLI!!! (Score:2)
Dammit! They could've made the first and the only laptop with SLI video card.
Seriously, why not just attach a carrying handle to a desktop and strap LCD monitor on the side?
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Creatives Use Macs (Score:2, Insightful)
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"Chinese crap" by another name... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Creatives Use Macs (Score:4, Informative)
*Looks around huge creative design agency office with around a 3:1 XP-PC:OSX-Mac split, all running CS3 collaboratively and scratches head.*
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My wife's reaction... (Score:5, Interesting)
... (she's a graphic designer):
"Ooooooh!" (based on in-built Wacom thingie). - Interest level: High
Seconds later, "But it's not a Mac!" - Interest level: None
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or just the typical reaction when learning it doesn't run your OS of choice and the applications you use daily?
Re:My wife's reaction... (Score:5, Insightful)
If she was rejecting any non-Mac product without having experience with Windows, possibly.
But I doubt that any computer user in the world has too little experience with Windows. If you've used Windows and you still don't like it, that's a rational choice (obviously one you disagree with, but de gustibus non erat disputandum), not prejudice.
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The first laptop for left-handers! (Score:4, Funny)
Left-handed users everywhere are cheering the W700, with its digitizer thoughtfully placed on the right so they won't inadvertently jog it when using the trackpad. "It might make more sense to turn the entire area in front of the keyboard into a trackpad/digitizer with software control," said Sandy Sinister of the Southpaw Liberation Army, "but instead they struck a blow for the cause! We're buying ten for our new HQ at Undisclosed Location."
I don't see the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone interested in a digitiser probably already has one, and a separate one is more flexible and probably better than a fixed one.
Analyzer schmanalyzer.
Take those out and you have an OK power laptop.
Color Calibration (Score:5, Interesting)
I deal with pictures occasionally in my job, and I've had to manually/ocularly calibrate my monitors more than once. Big pain, especially when you don't have adequate lighting in the room.
The automatic calibration video really struck me as innovative, though nowhere close to game-changing, at least for a portable monitor. However, I don't understand where the system gets color information from.
The laptop has a camera on top of the LCD, so if there were, say, a tiny mirror near the trackpad it could see the monitor when the lid's down; but I see no reflective surface in the keyboard area--how does it see the monitor ouput?
Anyone care to share their take (or knowledge) on this? Just curious...
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Bullshit. I have a T43 and a relatively new T61... The T61 easily matches the T43 in terms of build quality, and both of them are rock solid compared to my wife's MacBook.
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Re:Very small niche - maybe? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Lenovo monster is just barely transporable, but so is a desktop.
It blows my mind how WHINEY techy people are today. Just barely transportable? what are you incredibly weak and cant carry that much weight?
Cripes I carry around over 45 pounds in my backpack daily. on my back on the bike, in my hand up the stairs. and this laptop would make no difference in my day. Take out all my test gear that makes up the most of my weight problems. Plus the Toughbook I carry weighs twice what this could soaking wet.
It's VERY transportable. If I can lift it and carry it without hurting my back or getting winded walking up 3 flights of stairs, it's incredibly transportable.
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