Lenovo's New ThinkPad Has 2 LCD Screens, Weighs 11 Pounds

ericatcw writes "With many users now used to having multiple monitors at home or work, you had to figure someone would try to offer a 'desktop replacement' laptop that offered the same. Lenovo is the first. Its new W700ds laptop will offer a 10.6 inch LCD screen in addition to the 17-inch primary display. The W700ds also sports a quad-core Intel Core 2 CPU, up to almost 1 TB of storage, and an Nvidia Quadro mobile chip with up to 128 cores. A Lenovo exec called this souped-up version of the normally buttoned-down-for-business ThinkPads the 'nitro-burning drag racer of ThinkPads.' There is even a Wacom digitizer pad and pen for graphic artists, who are expected to be the target market, along with photographers and other creative types who are willing to trade shoulder-aching bulk (11 pounds) and price (minimum of $3,600) for productivity enhancements." At the other end of the laptop size spectrum, Dell recently announced plans to launch a rival to the MacBook Air. Called "Adamo," it is supposedly "thinner than the MacBook Air," though further details will have to wait for the Computer Electronics Show in early January.

Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck

[religious freak]

Am I the only one that has found this? I purchased a new Thinkpad ~6 months ago and it's terrible for a variety of reasons...

I had great experiences with my previous two (IBM manufactured) Thinkpads.

Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck

[FSWKU]

I've got a T60 that I bought about two years ago from Lenovo. Haven't had a single problem out of it. The only two bluescreens I've ever seen on it were related to the fact that I accidentally covered the vents and it crashed due to being too hot. Other than that, it's been a perfectly stable machine. I get around 4:30 with the 9-cell battery with the screen at full brightness and the wireless going (although constant streaming from, say, youtube, takes it to around 2:15. Who wants to watch youtube for that long, however?).

Wait, I take that back. The optical drive doesn't seem to be worth a crap anymore, but since I so rarely use discs it's not much of an issue. I have an external that I bought so I could burn lightscribe discs anyway. Thinking of swapping the optical drive for another HDD soon (320gb in there now, with the stock 100gb going in the PS3, probably going to add another 320).

Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenovo has always made Thinkpads, or at least has for a decade or more. IBM just decided to sell the rest of the business to them but let them use the IBM name for a few years.

dom

Re:128 cores

[Rufus211]

I thought they were normally called 3dmarks, but I guess Epeens would work.

Re:Interesting idea, poor implementation.

[Kris_J]

And that software would be Maxivista [maxivista.com].

Re:Interesting idea, poor implementation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Synergy provides similar screen sharing functionality and it's opensource:

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Re:A bit on the heavy side

[theaveng]

Wow that was an obscure reference. I remember hearing the word "Osbourne" but didn't recall what it was (24 pounds): http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html [oldcomputers.net] - Now if you had said "Commodore 64 portable" then I could relate (23 pounds): http://oldcomputers.net/sx64.html [oldcomputers.net] ----- The heaviest portable ever made was the IBM PC at over 30 pounds!!! Ouch.

And finally the first laptop PC (12 pounds). It ran over 10 hours! Why don't today's laptops run ten hours? http://oldcomputers.net/ibm5140.html [oldcomputers.net] ----- And the Macintosh laptop. I like the image of a beautiful woman doing computer work *in her pool*. Yeah that would happen. Beautiful women don't use computers (ducks a spitball). http://oldcomputers.net/pics/macuser1189.jpg [oldcomputers.net]

P.S.

Free games: http://oldcomputers.net/games.html [oldcomputers.net]

Other pics here

[tubeguy]

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/First-Look-Lenovo-ThinkPad-W700ds-Mobile-Workstation-Laptop/ [eweek.com] I want one. I admit it. That thing is sick, as the kids say.

11 pounds is 5kg

[xaxa]

I'll save everyone else having to look it up.

Re:What's the point?

[timeOday]

My experience watching people use laptops around the workplace is that, outside of airplanes, they usually don't run on batteries. Mostly it's people moving their laptop to work in somebody else's office for a few hours, or giving a presentation, or taking notes at a meeting, and generally they are plugged in.

I also have a good number of co-workers who choose 17" laptops. They are relatively big, but when it gets right down to it, it doesn't take them any longer to put those in a laptop bag and go somewhere than it does anybody with a smaller computer.