New Thinkpads are out with Sandy Bridge - T/W/L series

Engadget

 

seriously? 30 hours computing time??? That's unreal...

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6042

Yep, it really is crazy - the new T420 provides 15 hours on a 9-cell, and up to 30 hours with the 9-cell + 9-cell slice!

 

Wah!

THIRTY HOURS?!

Wow ... that certainly catches my interest to read further and see how real this estimation plays out in reviews....

 

Are these run times in line with other sandy bridge systems? They seem unreal.

 

is it physically possible?

amd fusion is much less powerful and doesn't last that long on the 'x120e' netbook.

 

Wow, 15 hours with one battery! Impressive! A pity the W520 doesn't have an AMD GPU option.

 

of course it's possible, it's 18 cells of juice!

 

no usb 3.0

 

9 cell + 9 cell... must be as heavy as hell.

But 15-hour with a single 9-cell is nice. Take 20% exaggeration off you still get 12-hour, which is good enough for me

 

USB 3.0 in the W520, though.

 

The 9-cell provides 15 hours, which is in line with current Atom-powered netbooks. For a full-voltage computer, that amount of stamina is quite amazing, if it really does pan out.

I'm not surprised. Intel still doesn't natively support it, so an additional USB 3.0 controller chip has to be included, and that's not really the priority of many users. Personally, I would even prefer eSATA/USB combo ports as I have so many more eSATA devices than USB 3.0 ones.

 

I wouldn't say 15 hours is standard for an Atom-powered netbook... Heck, I wouldnt even say 10 hours is standard. More like 7-8 no?

 

:O You must be kidding! :O 30?!?

 

With a 6-cell battery - if you scale up the Wh amount, it's in the neighborhood of 15 hours on a 94Wh battery, I would say.

 

Well the battery should be much larger than the Atom netbook battery sizes. those are typically in the 40-50 Wh range while Thinkpad 9 cells are 90+ Wh.

I'm definitely happy about the W520's battery life, the W510 had poor battery life with quad core, the W500 was pretty decent, and my T61p also has poor battery life. I think I might upgrade to the W520 at some point.

 

30 hours is insane!

what will the new x series be? 48 hours?

 

Rule of thumb - it's about 2/3 of the estimated figure under typical user. Still pretty solid 10 hours.

 

I have certainly used atom cpu netbooks with an "extended battery" (iirc I used an asus and an acer) and was able to squeeze 14 hours of battery life out of them....

I am currently able to squeeze about 15 hours of battery life from my asus ul30a-2 ... but that is with an "extended battery" and doing little else except word processing with all wireless off, power saving options at the ir highest and the screen at its dimmest.

 

Exactly - it would be shorter in reality. This might finally be a machine with battery that's not liability.

 

Ugh, glad I got a T410. Looks like they took half the ports off the T420. Rumor has it they learned nothing from Anand's grilling of the display ( Lenovo ThinkPad T410: Built for Business - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News ) and it still sucks, only now it sucks worse at 16:9. The NVS 4200m should be a doubling of GPU power, but honestly, that's not much when the 3100m was so anemic (3100m == on par w/ sandy bridge integrated intel 3000).

It all comes down to screen quality for me. It's the one thing I really despise on my laptop. There really is no excuse for it. They have 16:9, and we KNOW good LCDs are out there at 14" 16:9... because a lot of manufacturers have offered them.

 

ya i roll full brightness and high performance on my t510. no cutting corners on computing for battery life

 

15 hours is still amazing on a 14".

30 hours is not necessary for most people. who works more than 24 hours a day....

 

It's looking like the dates here are accurate, so expect availability on March 29th, the X220 to be announced on March 1st with availability on April 19th, and the discrete graphics T420s to be announced on March 15th with availability also on April 19th.

 

not really. longer is always better period.

maybe some business guy might be on the run and cant afford to go sit there charging. maybe the fact battery lasts longer now the business traveller can forgo his charger and travel lighter. maybe the business traveler is in a remote area with no electrical outlet.

more is generally better. kinda like money

 

I was just kidding. Of course more is better

 

Now I am waiting for their announcement on their edge line, especially the price and availability for the E420s


+ Look to like the l420 hinge is the same as the traditional thinkpad.

 

I wonder why no one is complaining about the looks like they did on the Dell thread?

 

For me the main things I look for in a laptop are the keyboard, battery life and durability of the chasis. Although I am all for an excellent quality screen, I find I will sacrific the image for the "portability aspects" I mentioned, i.e. can I type away on it without thinking "man this keyboard is awful" distracting me all the time, can I stay unplugged for lengthy periods of time - Long plane or car rides aside, I can sometimes find myself away from an outlet for days, and will the laptop be damaged from my hauling it around and from unexpected mishaps.

Everyone has their "most importants", of course, but these are mine - so for me the first things I am wondering about for the T420 atm is the durability of the chassis and the keyboard/typing experience.

 

I could still count 4 usb ports from the pictures of the t420: 2 on the left, 1 at the right and 1 at the back.

Still I'm happy that the t420 wasn't as much as an upgrade to the t410 as the t410 was to the t400.

IMO if I were to compare it to a software release;
the t400 is BETA
the t410 is v1
and the t420 is v.1.2
Only something I will refer to as v2 (worth of worthy upgrades) will make me become sleepless at night. Right now I'm happy I didn't wait.

right on with the screen; that's why I can't help to drool over other laptops' screens.

 

Personally, I am interested in the E220s but may go for the E420s depending on the portability. The new Edge series, in my opinion, seem like the perfect combination of style, power, and mobility.

The T420s does look tempting though! Probably couldn't justify the extra cost though as some of the features would be wasted on me.

Various sites mentioned E420s would start at $749 and E220s at $899. Not bad although not sure why the E220s is more expensive?

The wait is killing me! I think end of March these should start hitting the shelves worldwide.

 

I couldn't see display port or HDMI anywhere on the T420, just VGA.. :\ And still no USB 3.0.

 

The bottom portion of the screen bezel looks ridiculous on the T420 (and probably T420s). I can go along with it if the T420s has a decent screen now. I don't care about usb 3.0 as long as I can have an mSATA ssd and 2.5" hdd (without the ultraybay adapter). Displayport will be on production units Roger, how could they possibly drop that.

 

Those look exactly the same as the T410 so I wouldn't worry if you were content already... That said, I think find the Thinkpad displays worse than I do Dell and HP keyboard/chassis, so there's definitely room for reasonable improvement.

 

Is that rhetorical? The appearance hardly changed.

 

Displaypr0t is right next to ethernet. This is the best pic I could find.

 

Ah ha, I see it now.

 

If the T series came in a 13in model with that battery life, I'd be fully sold. I take it the screen quality of the higher res maybe better than the T410 high res option? Will the 15 hour 9-cell battery life be on the T420, T420s, or both?

 

According to this article on Thinkpadtoday dot com (sorry, posting link doesn't seem to work! help?), USB 3.0 and DisplayPort available on T420s!

"awesome-2011-thinkpad-t420t420st520-it-doesnt-get-much-better.htm"

link (seems to get screwed up): http://www./awesome-2011-thinkpad-t420t420st520-it-doesnt-get-much-better.htm

 

According to this, no USB 3.0.
Also seems like 1600x900 HD+ is new for the T4xx (any hope it's decent?)

 

Fixed link:

Awesome 2011 ThinkPad T420/T420s/T520, it doesn't get much better! | www.thinkpadtoday.com

 

SZQ's post/link says usb 3.0 on the T420 s.

 

Aye aye, just clearing it up about the T420. I wonder about the accuracy of that chart i found though--seems unlikely they the T520 wont have a combo usb/esata port, but the T420 will. Regardless, what's the rationale for not having usb 3.0 on these systems? Is it still not built into sandy bridge?

 

I dunno if that 230nit screen would be any good. Then again most screen I use are around 230nits, so it could be good enough for me.

 

vasra, thanks for fixing the link. Not sure what I was doing wrong.

I believe the latest Intel chipset does not support USB 3.0 so manufacturers will have to use 3rd party chips for that feature. This may possibly add cost, power usage, bulk, and more testing time etc...

I know the new Toshiba R830 will have USB 3.0 port so it's definitely possible.

Also, I remember reading somewhere that USB 3.0 ports should be coloured blue so as to distinguish them from USB 2.0, though not sure if that's a requirement.

 

You are right on all accounts.

 

230nit does seem awfully dim for an led screen, let's hope it's good in all other respects.

Historically, when can we expect reviews?

 

Well I know my Vaio is a 230nit screen and that is pretty good brightness-wise imo, but that could be because it is a better panel. Im wondering if the HD+ screen is a similar panel and/or quality vs the standard res screen, or is it noticeably better(and not better because of the higher res.

 

I hope reviews will not be all positive or the screens will not look too good/bright, because there are so many nice things that we know in advance, great battery life, Rapid Drive, etc

... must ... resist ... upgrading

 

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