Lenovo debuts new SL, R, T and W series ThinkPads

by Paul Miller posted Jul 15th 2008 at 12:14AM

Calm down, would you? It's not like there's a brand new chipset on the scene or anything, Lenovo, what's the hurry? Lenovo just busted out four new or refreshed lines of ThinkPads, in addition to that new X200 we saw earlier, and those four new IdeaPads. It's pure and utter mayhem. First up is the brand new SL series, which is Lenovo's new grab for the small business set, with prices ranging from $699 to $1199, an HDMI port and Blu-ray option for dual purpose friendliness. There's also going to be a super cheap 3G add-on from AT&T and Ericsson for around $30, and WiMax is in the cards as well. SL will be showing up in SL300 (13-inch), SL400 (14-inch) and SL500 (15-inch) flavors. Also new is the W series (pictured), a workstation line being split off from the T series with ATI Mobility FireGL graphics and Display Port. The T series keeps its chops with Switchable Graphics, which lets you switch from discreet to integrated graphics without rebooting the computer, along with Display Port, while the R series holds of the budget end of things. Many models include options for SSD and GPS, and of course they're all Centrino 2 powered. Interestingly, the introduction of the X200 marks the death of standard ratio LCDs -- Lenovo is officially an all widescreen outfit now. The SL400 and SL500 laptops start at $799 and are available now, while the SL300 and all the others hit in August and range from $899 all the way up to the $1,999 W500.

Gallery: Lenovo debuts new SL, R, T and W series ThinkPads

Filed under: Laptops

Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, lenovo, r series, RSeries, sl300, sl400, sl500, t series, thinkpad, TSeries, w500

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

cc154237 @ Jul 15th 2008 12:19AM

NotebookReview already has their review of the X200 up. It looks AMAZING! It's definitely going to be my laptop of choice as long as it comes out in time--9 hours of battery life FTW.

But more related to this post, I really hope that these laptops are as good as their new X200. Looks like it's a good time to be in the market for a notebook.

Highly Ranked

iofthestorm @ Jul 15th 2008 12:40AM

Holy crap, 9 hours? Why does Lenovo have such long battery life? Surely their batteries don't hold 4x more charge than the average laptop battery. I wish other laptop makers would do this, my HP tx2000 gets only 2.5 hours of battery life on light use.

Neutral

bob @ Jul 15th 2008 4:50AM

Actually, I hear you can squeeze 13.3 if you try hard enough.

The notebooks review got about 10 hours surfing web, etc

Squirm non thinkpad users!

Highly Ranked

Lance @ Jul 15th 2008 12:23AM

iDiot

Neutral

Ace b @ Jul 15th 2008 12:31AM

i dont kno what's worse, someone saying iPhone or First all the damn time.

Neutral

Abuzar Baloach @ Jul 15th 2008 12:34AM

iCe cReam

Neutral

admmck @ Jul 15th 2008 12:36AM

I use an older one (when IBM) made them. It's solid and full of features. Can't wait to get my little grubby techno paws on another one.

Neutral

JKT @ Jul 15th 2008 12:50AM

This is becoming such a Lenovo site. All I see is Lenovo, Lenovo, Lenovo. There are other companies out there (like, say, Apple) you could cover too. It's like IBM fanbois have taken over this site.

Heh.

Neutral

CraigJ @ Jul 15th 2008 12:50AM

I have no idea what you are trying to accomplish, but whatever it is you're an asshole.

Neutral

CraigJ @ Jul 15th 2008 12:52AM

The T500 looks sweet. My old T-series was the best laptop I ever had. Even though it only had a Pentium III it lasted me for 3 full years. The Dell 5150 they gave me to replace it was a POS.

Neutral

dagwud @ Jul 15th 2008 8:37AM

My wife has a T-23 at home, which is now 5 years old. I offered to replace it. She said, "No." But she does need a new battery.

IBM Thinkpads were great. The Lenovo Thinkpad I got through work isn't as great, but it's darned close.

Neutral

Randy @ Jul 15th 2008 10:45AM

T-series FTW, I own 2 (T43p and a T60p) and I love them. Thinkpads have the best keyboards of any laptop I've ever used (Macbook pro is a close 2nd).

Neutral

kyle @ Jul 15th 2008 12:58AM

and every single screen (bar the X-series) is off-center. dammit.

Neutral

LondonConsultant @ Jul 15th 2008 7:10AM

On the W700, the keyboard is off-centre...

Neutral

xqterry @ Jul 15th 2008 1:10AM

Excuse me, I dont have good eyesight, is the screen not at center position?

Neutral

Maxsquared @ Jul 15th 2008 8:01AM

I thought Sony patent the graphic card switch thingy

Neutral

Esse @ Jul 15th 2008 4:32AM

Stupidity is what it is - this widescreen thing has gone to far. On a laptop, when - except when watching movies - do we profit from the widescreen format? Possibly when working a spreadsheet, but exactly never else. On a 24" desktop, it's an other thing, but on my professional laptop I would take a 12" 4:3 over a 13" 16:10 any day, not to mention a 14" 4:3.

Time to stock up on T43:s then :-)

Neutral

bob @ Jul 15th 2008 4:51AM

I commend your thinking good sir!

Im stocking up on X61s's.

Widescreen=fail

Neutral

Dean @ Jul 15th 2008 10:18AM

I understand where you're coming from, but I think widescreen can be really helpful for having two word documents side by side. If only they were high enough resolution that you could fit enough there.

Are the dimensions of the new T series different from the old model? Does anyone know how it compares to the SL series?

Neutral

Esse @ Jul 15th 2008 4:45AM

And what is with the putting the audio connectors on the front-thing? How practical is that when attaching speakers? Digitally attached speakers, either via cable or Bluetooth are still rare birds.

Neutral

PiperSon @ Jul 15th 2008 5:47AM

I wish it was possible to vote some comments as uber low ranked...

Neutral

ramian @ Jul 15th 2008 7:23AM

*hugs my 15" 4:3 T60 and 12" 4:3 X61s*

Except for the wide-screen-ness and the off-centre LCD and the MASSIVE bezel, I would so whip out my VISA and add another Thinkpad to my collection.

I concur with Esse above; widescreen is only really only useful 20" and with WSXGA+ resolution or better. Anything less on a laptop, and the trade-offs from a similarly sized 4:3 screen make the entire laptop almost not worth buying at all.

I'm really hoping my current Thinkpads outlive my older T30 and T43 in terms of long-term usability (they're still working perfectly, just too slow for my needs, even my T60 is starting to feel a bit sluggish given all the number crunching I'm doing) as I currently cannot imagine myself getting a widescreen laptop.

Neutral

zargon @ Jul 15th 2008 8:16AM

Our Lenovo rep for work didn't mention when this refresh would be coming, had I known it would be soon, I may have held off on my R61 purchase.

Oh well, I doubt the R line up is going to change much. However, this does mean we are going to have to select a new T and X series for work since I mean sure they are going to be clearing the channels. Which annoys me since they seem to do it a lot and don't always seem to keep to their end of life cycle. At least our imaging server is dynamic instead of static, so I don't have to keep creating new images.

Neutral

Jeremy @ Jul 15th 2008 3:33PM

What type of imaging server do you use?

Neutral

zargon @ Jul 15th 2008 5:52PM

We keep it simple and cheap, Windows Deployment Services with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

We switched from RIS, which was a pile. It may not be the best or most elegent solution, but it is easy to use and works. No more static images like with RIS, when we get new systems, all I really need to add in any new device drivers. We are currently working on defining department software standards and incorporating it into the system so the machine will virtually be ready to go after the imaging process is done.

Neutral