Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds laptop review: two screens of fury in one hefty package
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 26th 2009 11:57AM
posted January 26th 2009 11:57AM
Design
Naturally the first thing you notice about the W700ds is its size -- for a "portable" computer it is massive. At 11 pounds and a full 2.1 inches thick it's over two pounds heavier and a half-inch deeper than its predecessor, the mono-screened W700. Since you're unlikely to make it long on battery power (the nine-cell unit managed a measly two hours and some change in our tests), travelers will need to factor in the weight of the machine's power brick, which at two pounds is itself heavier than many netbooks we've tested. The result is a package you won't want to carry far but also doesn't feel particularly grounded on a desktop. The bulky screen necessitates tight hinges for support and, despite that big battery in the bottom, makes everything seem top-heavy when open, feeling like a wayward nudge would send the machine toppling over.
But, for all its messenger bag-busting, disc-herniating, awe-inspiring size and heft, it is an impressive machine to behold. The keyboard is expansive to say the least, featuring a full number pad to the right and a proper complement of Function keys along the top. The dedicated number pad is handy, but its presence shifts the main keyboard off to one side, making you feel somewhat askew when typing. Pop open the auxiliary display and things feel even more off-center as the keyboard is on the left and the extra desktop on the right. Having that secondary display on the other side would seemingly result in a more balanced layout -- and perhaps a better flow of qi if you're into that sort of thing.
On the right is an 8x DVD±R, though a Blu-ray recorder is an option if your wallet is bursting, and on the left you can configure dual ExpressCard slots (one 54mm and one 34mm), a Smart Card and an ExpressCard slot, or a Compact Flash and 34mm ExpressCard slot, which is how ours was delivered. 801.11b/g comes standard, while a/g/n is optional, as is WiMAX.
Cursor Controls
There are three separate means to control the cursor: pointing stick, touchpad, and Wacom tablet. The touchpad is surprisingly small given the size of everything else, measuring 1.5-inches tall and just over 3-inches on the diagonal. It feels rather cramped and definitely wasn't our input of choice. The pointing stick, with a fat, grippy cover falls to hand (or finger) more readily, and then of course there's the tablet. It is thankfully much larger than the trackpad, but is a bit down-sized compared to most dedicated units, measuring 5.1- x 3.2-inches. This, too, feels poorly located; most digitizer users place their tablets to the right of their keyboards, but this one's position, below the keyboard and to the right of the touch-pad, makes sketching somewhat uncomfortable unless you tilt the whole laptop to the right. Casual users likely won't be too bothered, but those who switch from stylus to keyboard frequently won't enjoy this arrangement.
Just above the tablet is a Pantone calibration sensor (a $70 option) that enables the W700ds to give accurate color representation without sticking sensors on the screen or squinting through cellophane glasses at color bars. Just launch an included app, close the lid, and then twiddle your thumbs for about 30 seconds as the laptop goes into rave mode, emitting curious flashing lights and discordant beeps. When through, open the lid again to enjoy a fully calibrated (and totally chilled out) screen. It's like magic.
Audio
Naturally you can't enjoy a rave without speakers, and the W700ds has decent ones hidden beneath a grill above the keyboard. At full-blast they're loud enough to hear across a room, but sound rather distorted at that level. At lower levels they sound good enough, not fantastically good but better than your average laptop. And, having dedicated volume and mute buttons is a nice touch, meaning you can blast the jams and mute the lame tunes without having to remember any keyboard combinations. For those who prefer to not annoy their neighbors, a headphone jack is easily accessed on the front-right.
Displays
Pulling the hidden stylus from the right side of the machine is a neat trick, but it's the that auxiliary 10.6-inch display also hidden on the right that makes this laptop truly notable. It's oriented in portrait mode and curiously offers a higher vertical resolution than the primary display's 1920 x 1200, with its own coming in at 768 x 1280, leaving you with an unseemly 80 pixel black bar along the bottom. A quick press on the side of the display and it pops out, manually sliding the rest of the way and then swiveling inward or outward to face you. Sadly when extended the laptop disables any external displays, which could be rather limiting for anyone looking to enter the ménage à desktop scene.
In terms of the quality of the screens the primary, 17-inch panel is quite impressive, one of the best we've seen on a laptop. With plenty of pixels (2,304,000 of them) it provides all the real-estate that you'd typically need and gives a bright, colorful picture. It's not quite up to par with a high-end desktop LCD, particularly when it comes to viewing angles (which are good, but not great), but it isn't far off and is far more portable. Meanwhile, the trick auxiliary display can't compare thanks to its even more restricted viewing angles and overall dull look -- thanks in no small part to its proximity to the far superior main display.
However, the intent for this desktop extension is for things like floating toolbars in photo editing apps, chat windows, and lengthy media playlists. For those purposes high contrast ratios don't really matter and the portrait layout, useless for many tasks, is appropriate. We might have liked to see slightly higher quality from this much anticipated extension, but ultimately it works well as-is.
Performance
The W700ds we received to test sports an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor with quad cores spinning at 2.53GHz and 12MB of L2 cache, but those building their own have the option of a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo T9600 or a 3.06GHz X9100, which has a faster clock speed but half the cache of our QX9300. This one has 4GB of DDR3 memory, but the model is offered with anywhere from 2 up to 8GB. An NVIDIA FX 3700M GPU with 1GB of dedicated memory handles the pixels, but you can save $400 by going for an FX2700 with 512MB. Finally this model has 460GB of storage spread across two disks, the maximum config, but Lenovo's happy to sell you just a single 160GB disk if you please. All this is supported by a hefty 9 cell battery that, as mentioned above, manages to eke out just over two hours before expiring.
We ran a performance test in 3DMark Vantage and scored 4,994, 9,945 on the CPU side and 4,283 for the GPU. Those aren't stellar scores but are nevertheless quite good for a laptop, especially that CPU rating. The system came with Vista Ultimate, which boots in just over a minute and logs in quickly with a swipe (or two) of a finger. Once there, apps load and respond promptly, as you'd expect with this kind of firepower beneath your fingertips.
Wrap-Up
Lenovo's W700ds is a monster machine for sure; a freakish implementation of a power-user's wishlist created with little regard for practical concerns like portability or cost. If you'd like to buy a model a configuration like ours, according to current prices at Lenovo.com you'd be looking at a charge of $5,419 -- not small change on anyone's budget. You can get yourself into one of these for just over $3,000 if you can avoid clicking on any of those oh-so tempting options, but that's always a bit depressing.
So, if you need a machine with a lot of horsepower and find yourself moving around enough that a desktop isn't practical -- but then again don't move so much that you'd need to pick this up more than once a day -- this is the device for you. However, if you don't fit into that incredibly small niche of a niche then you'd be well advised to move along. There are plenty of other more general-purpose solutions that are smaller, lighter, and, perhaps most importantly, cheaper.
What's with the ugly Wintel stickers? Is there anybody left in the universe that doesn't know that these computers run Windows and Intel? Kind of pointless, just like the extra screen.
The manufacturers get paid for the stickers (because the average punter will NOT know that their laptop uses Intel - and if they have a good experience are likely to hunt out a computer with the same sticker) so most choose to put them on. Annoying, yes. But a necessity for some just like the DRM software in Windows and OSX because software developers would otherwise refuse to develop for the platforms.
PAC-man, the stickers are for advertising, and they come off in minute, it is no big deal. You knnow what I hate? When a company sticks a silhouette of half eaten fruit on the back of every laptop they make...
The extra screen however does seem like it could be a nice luxury. If you have ever used photoshop you would realize that. There are some weird things about this laptop but the features are unique and really quite cool.
@ sacapuntas
I can say from experience that these kind of stickers DO NOT come off easily, at least in every case. I've carefully tried to remove them from 3 windows laptops (2 HP's and a Compaq from before the merger), and each time the adhesive separates from the sticker, leaving a sticky residue on the machine. I honestly don't think they are designed to be removed but rather to look permanent.
goof off to the rescue
I have great delight removing windows stickers from laptops and replacing them with Ubuntu ones. Sticky stuff remover works a treat.
"Kind of pointless, just like the extra screen."
Really? I can think of many uses for it, hell, if you weren't such a blithering idiot, you would have seen one of them in the video....
2 screens overkill!!overkill!!state of the economy????
Funny, my much cheaper "Thinkpad" SL500 did not come with any of these stickers.
OOh! the extra screen will come in very handy working with photoshop!! Some people need to look at the bright side of things.. gosh..
The trackpad definitely isn't positioned well for lefties.
Forget the trackpad, the digitizer is an even bigger problem to lefties.
All in all, one kick a$$ laptop for those who can afford it. Better value than MBP, if those of you don't mind the ugliness.
How in the world is it a better value than a MBP. The laptop costs $5500, Weights 11lbs and is over 2" thick. For that price, weight and thickness you can buy TWO 17" MacBook Pros and you get 75% MORE screen. So, how is this a better Value again? Eh?
You can almost buy 2 17" MBPs for that price, or one 17" and one 15.4"... I'm not even a fan of Apple but I can still see that the Lenovo is comparatively expensive.
It'd be awesome if they could figure out a way to combine the track pad and the wacom tablet into one area. That way it can be much larger and appropriately placed.
Not only the trackpad and the digitizer, but the auxiliary screen is at a weird angle for lefties. If you're supposed to use that display for photoshop palates for example, a leftie's body would be tilted toward the auxiliary display and that's rather useless. It would be nice if Lenovo made a model that was reversed.
Review said w700ds starting at 3k and full blown features for 5k. While MBP 17 inch sells at 2800 at bestbuy.
@MadMike
Read the article at all? No, eh? Eh?
Well, I will quote it for you: "You can get yourself into one of these for just over $3,000 if you can avoid clicking on any of those oh-so tempting options".
In fact, a comparable configuration to the basic MBP - not really, because the ThinkPas is more powerful - is a little above $3000; and of course the MBP hasn't got the extra screen. Got it? Eh? Eh?
Jeez. That's one humongous laptop! You can bench press with that beast.
You only bench 11 pounds?
Actually, ever since I tore my rotator cuff, I haven't been able to bench anything. getting old sucks.
So your avatar sucks the most.
The difference in the screens would be really off putting for me, staring at 2 screens on the same machine of such different quality when next to each other (though the smaller screen is probably perfectly acceptable and found in netbooks and such), it's just one of the niggles that constantly annoys you like the off center screens in a few of the older thinkpads.
I like it. You can put all your RSS/IM stuff there like Twhirl, Miranda, Snackr and still do your work on the main screen.
"but, being a Lenovo, this luggable has little interest in games."
Ummmm...why not? Its more than capable of playing games, it seems. I play games on my T61p just fine.
I regularly play Portal and sometimes, um, SimCity 4 on my T61, and this thing would rape the shit out of my computer and soul. Crysis, you're fucked! Now that I'm a slave to TrackPoint, I'll be using Lenovos for the rest of my life.
I could pull that 2nd screen RIGHT OFF.
*SNAP*
The EEE looks really cute in comparison
You could yank that thing off the desk with the second screen and swing it around the room, it's not coming off. ThinkPads are built like tanks.
ThinkPads *were* built like tanks. I don't know many people who own one of the current Lenovos that would say that (including me).
Jackass.
I tried the tablet out in a W700. I'm left handed and it was useless. Poorly thought out design IMO.
Short of having TWO pop-out screens (which would rock), I don't know what else they could have done. Wikipedia says 90-93% of the population is right-handed, so given that this is the first time (that I know of) a laptop has ever done this, I think it makes sense they'd target the righties and not the lefties.
im left handed also, but i have to ask you how they could have done it better? i mean putting it in the center wouldnt have been good, so they just simply went with the majority :)
offer a left handed model. lol
Wow that thing is thick and huge!
(Yeah, I know. Thats what she said.)
lol, $5500, 11lbs + 2lbs for the power brick, 2.5" thick.
not for me! (obviously)
How in hell is it obvious to us that the laptop isn't for you??
Obvious FAIL!
Obvious troll is obvious.
I could care less about the weight of the laptop. If you think 11 lbs is too heavy, Staples sells nice coil ring binders with paper.
The 2nd screen is... well OK - however on my desk with 3 screens already, I'd have to move my lava-lamp, photo's and where would my coffee go!?
ON an air plane... that 2nd screen would be the vane of every stewardess walking the isles with beverages.
"Oops, sorry... you dropped your black piece of plasti.... oh was that part of your behemothic laptop? here have a free Sprite... damn that black pice of plastic is slipl.... fizzzzzzzz spark spark"
It also has the world's first 'spinning' processor.
I still can't believe this Frankenstein "laptop" exists. It's like they thought "hey, let's cram as many devices together as possible!" with no effort for seamless integration. They may as well have duct taped everything together.
"With those two screens and that pop-out stylus it's a little bit like a Nintendo DS that entered the Major Leagues and spent a few decades on the juice chasing home run records"
That analogy was taken further than the distance between two men, one at point A and one at point B, where point A is in New Jersey, and point B is in Hong Kong.
Maybe he was succinctly commenting as to the originality of the form factor.
The w700ds makes women get naked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhGkxkzmPbQ
I don't understand.
Doesn't Ibm know Apple exists ? (Design speaking)
(Woops. not Ibm but Lenovo…)
Not everyone cares for trendy, and some people want a machine. A work horse. I bet you could drop this from 6 feet and everything would be okay. Try that with an Apple design. Also some people would like the option to use another battery while out on the road.
The second screen is awesome. Anyone that cant see the possibilities of this is just completely clueless.
I can see why lefties are up at arms over this though. It does seem to be quite an imposition to use the digitizer. Being right or left handed should have no impact on the secondary display though. Unless your right hand is completely lame and cant pull the thing out from its storage slot.
"A work horse. I bet you could drop this from 6 feet and everything would be okay."
And that's the primary virtue of ThinkPads, their rugged nature. (I actually DID drop my old ThinkPad down a stairwell. It was fine; I was the one who's life flashed in front of her eyes.) Well, that and the TrackPoint, the best mini imput device ever IMHO.
I've seen a lot of people lugging around huge heavy 17" laptops. I don't think Lenovo is trying to go for the graphics design crowd, but field engineers and others who need to make onsite sketches might find the built-in features just what they need.
Want. When my Dell is docked I have it hooked up to 2 screens, but every time I'm undocked I find myself wishing I had a second screen. Honestly though I doubt I'd ever use the digitizer...I can see why some would like this though, my wife loves her Wacom. To be truly uber, though, the digitizer would have to be built into the screen like a tablet. Then you could draw directly on the screen, which seems much more natural to me than drawing on a pad and watching what you did appear up above.
"...leave it with two major handicaps to overcome."
It comes with Windows. ..that's three.
That auxiliary screen is novel, but ugly. Maybe it'd be awesome if it had one on each side so that it'd at least be symmetrical.