Sixty million ThinkPads sold to date, Lenovo updates the T Series with NVIDIA Optimus in celebration

Yes, Displayport (depending on generation/model) is available on many ThinkPads either integrated or via ultrabase.

The "lower end/not traditional" ThinkPads like SL series and Edge come with HDMI as well.

 

My school recommends not carrying Thinkpads by the screen, they claim they've seen it damage machines in the past (they've had Thinkpads since 1998).

 

Well, technically, you shouldn't be carrying any laptop by the screen...

 

while, it is not recommended, you can still do it. I have tried to do that on the first generation Macbook Pro, it bent the aluminium screen casing a bit.... after that i never did it again. I still carry the Thinkpad by the screen on many occasions just to do show people that it can be done.

 

the price differences between US and the rest of the world are due to the following reasons mainly (there are other reasons too).

1. US is the largest consumer market in the world by value. The market is extremely competitive, in order to increase one's foothold in that market, the product pricing must be competitive. So most mass-market consumer product companies operate on a best-price strategy.

2. Also, the higher volume of sale also allows company to lower the product unit pricing to make the product more competitive in the market against the competitor.

3. There are different tariffs and taxes imposed on imported electronic products in different countries, which affect product pricing.

4. In many countries or regions there are greater no. of tests that need to be carried out before these products can be sold. This adds to the product pricing.

5. In Europe the cost of running a company or operation is higher than that of USA, since there are greater corporate taxes and worker benefits that need to be paid out.

 

I don't know if X200/X201 is lower end (you can get with i7 620m) or not traditional Thinkpad, but it doesn't come with one. Even though ultrabase won't really help you if you want display port outside your office or home, but it is better than nothing.

 

Please correct me if I am misunderstanding you. Are you suggesting:

1. The total size of the US market is larger than the market for ThinkPads in the rest of the world?

2. That the US market (in the specific context of Thinkpads) yields the highest sales and profit numbers?

If the answer to #1 is "no" which means that sales in the "rest of the world" is higher than the US market, it would mean that more Thinkpads are sold outside the US.

If this is so and given the current price-differentials between US and non-US prices, I would think that the "rest of the world" market is larger in "size" AND in "value" terms

I am tending to think in this way because as you say - the US is a highly competitive market, which it certainly is. And, that as a consequence, the sellers in the US slash prices to remain competitive. This would apply to Thinkpads too, which would also explain the relatively low prices (as compared to the "rest of the world" market prices) for them. This does not necessarily exclude the possibility that the Thinkpad - inside the US market - may be comparatively more expensive than a comparable class of machines.

But this would also mean that the US market could not be yielding the highest sales and profit margins because the US market is - globally considered - is not the largest market and because being the most competitive market, the US you also offer only wafer thin margins.

 

1. USA is the largest single national market.

2. US market yields the highest sale figure for B2B and B2C (not counting the government sales) of any single country.
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Thinkpads are about the same price as the comparable Dell Latitudes and HP Elitebooks RRP.

While, per machine profit level maybe lower, but the higher number of overall sales would collectively give a greater profit level. This is what makes the US market the single most important national market in the world.

Basically, the commodisation of laptops has driven tier one computer companies (Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo) to chase after sales volume rather than profit margin on a single unit product. Price and Spec are the most important factors a customer looks at for comparable class laptop (if you can sell more products, the price of parts comes down, as the more you order from the parts manufacturers the cheaper they get)

Also, for Lenovo the cost of maintaining the current large US Thinkpad customer base is easier and cheaper, than to dump the US market and build up another customer base in a different country. For every dollar you spend for maintaining an existing customer, you would at least have to spend 2 to 3 dollars for getting a new customer. When a company has no smart marketing strategy for a product in mid of its lifecycle, then it is easier to maintain the existing customer base rather than trying to aggressively win over new customers with expensive marketing campaigns that may not produce the necessary outcome.

Furthermore, becoming number one in US electronic market, is like winning the Nobel Prize... it is like having a boutique store on the Fifth Avenue... so most electronic company competes vigorously for the US market.

If you want to look at the importance of US market, just check out how many electronic consumer websites (forum, news, review sites) are US based.

 

Haha, it's funny to think that my family contributed to 4 out of 60 million.

 

So, are you saying that this is the problem for Lenovo at the moment? Any speculative ideas on what a smart marketing strategy would be?

Also, I think if Lenovo reduced prices (though local import taxes would play a major role) in the rest of the world market, their sales would see a much higher jump even without a sustained marketing program - though for B2B would need a marketing framework.

 

That is just a generalist comment about what many electronics company do when they have not yet decided what they should do to expand their businesses in a new market. As i have no affiliation to Lenovo, i wouldn't know their future marketing plan. If i do know it, then i would probably bound by a NDA, which meant i can't even make speculations like this.

But given that Lenovo has hired a former HP marketing VP to be their new Chief Marketing Officer, then you should expect something dramatic in the next 3 years. I think the increased number of blogging posts and product videos on Youtube, shows that Lenovo is moving away from their past marketing strategy to a more consumer orientated method that seek to engage the customers in a more intimate and direct way.

Lenovo appoints HP's David Roman as senior VP and chief marketing officer - CEI

 

Lower end/not traditional ThinkPad is i.e. SL series or Edge. The mainstream models if you like. I do not consider CPU power when classifying if it is lower end - rather I look at build quality, finish and traditional ThinkPad qualities

Even though it may not be ideal, the ultrabase is portable (a slice, not a dock) and does not require a power adapter to work.

Keep in mind what the X200/X201 is made for. It is still primarily designed for business users like myself who plug in the projector to VGA and the majority of business users do not need Displayport/HDMI on the go. I believe I fit in to the typical target group for the X20X series. Frequent flyer, laptop was issued to me by my company, Ultrabase at my office desk. Never been a need to use displayport on the go.

Will features change in the future versions of the X-series. Probably. Is it nice to have a lot of the latest features and specs? Sure. But it all depends on priorities and what makes the most sense for the main target crowd for that particular type of laptop.

 

Optimus equipped T410 laptop is already available on Australian website for sale... but Lenovo also offers the NVS3100m with no Optimus feature. The Optimus feature right now is a no cost feature.

 

This is a pretty interesting turn of events, as I haven't really heard of Lenovo putting out a major hardware modification like this in mid-stream. Enabling a switchable GPU(especially since it's on the fly) is a great addition to the system in my opinion, although I really wished they released that feature on launch.

I ended up going for my T400 instead of a T410 because of the lack of switchable graphics. I would have definitely dug deeper into my pockets(or kept my T60p and waited for the Optimus refresh) had I known switchable GPU capabilities were coming to these systems.

That said, this won't really compel me to get a T410. However, I will be looking at the SB refresh(T411, maybe?) pretty closely to see what comes out. The best case scenario for me is that the new system will have Optimus switching and a better selection of i7 processors in the current T410 hardware, meaning we'll still see 16:10 displays at least until the next major refresh. That may also mean I could refit my new LG LED display into the new machine, but I'm not sure how interchangeable displays are between the T400 and T410. It'd be the icing on the cake if it were possible, but I wouldn't be holding my breath.

 

Agreed, and I don't think it will ever come to the Xs. Considering SandyBridge is around the corner, the GPU performance of the 2011 Xs will get a great boost without the added problems of a discrete card (heat, battery drain, fan noise, etc).

I can't wait!

 

I removed a few off-topic messages. Stay on-track, guys.

 

Thank you! I was reading though the post and as I went down the pages I thought to myself that I must have clicked elsewhere rather than "next"!

 

In this thread at Thinkpads.com forum they are discussing if current T-series laptops can be upgraded to support Optimus.

So, it seems all that is required is a graphics driver update (exists on Lenovo site), bios update (also on Lenovo site) and reprogramming of the EEPROM.

Upgrade could and should be offered by Lenovo in my opinion.

 

this is a very interesting update, if this is doable, then there are many older Nvidia T410 on offer that i could potentially get for 1000 AUD and still get the 4 LCD support.

 

Maybe I missed it....but does the optimus for sure support up to four monitors?

drake

 

per russ compton here, such an upgrade will not be offered.

to my knowledge reflashing that EEPROM would require desoldering it from the system planar as it cannot be flashed in place.   this is why it's being considered a non-upgrade path for end users.

 

According to the press release the Lenovo Thinkpad's implementation of optimus will allow for 4 LCDs by activating both the integrated and discrete graphics card. This will also explain why the mini dock plus series 3 have so many video ports (2 DVI + 2 DP + 1 vga), Lenovo planned this all along.

 

Did some searching on Google and according to this site desoldering is not required.

 

at this time there aren't any plans to upgrade EEPROMs.   whether or not this changes in the future, i don't know.

 

this is getting more interesting by the minute....

 

Lenovo-Optimus video FYI:

YouTube - ThinkPad T Series and NVIDIA Optimus Technology

drake

 

That woman looks like she's on crack.

It'd have been nice if they showed off the 4 displays thing.

 

how will the new SandyBridge integrated GPU compare to the NVIDIA 3100m?

 

Yeah, have fun whitelisting your apps daily. Btw, creepy video. And quite a big lie. Optimus works pretty primitively, by "automatically" switching display adapter according to the list of applications ("whitelist") which you need to manually update if you want to add a new application. I don't know if they're going to make manual switching an option as well... with full manual you can just press a key or click and it will switch. I never really saw a need for this Optimus poop.

On a serious note, this technology exists for quite a while on other notebooks (e.g. Alienware m11x-r2), except for the fact that it doesn't support more than one display output. And I guess that would be the main convenience for people who need that. Other than that, manual switching would be far better, imo.

 

Optimus doesn't work with linux at all. -> crap.

 

i hope that thread and this thread continue to develop

just bought my T410 less than 3 weeks ago

 

regarding to the four monitors display, what is the maximum resolution for each monitors? And what connect would be used? Where are the connection ports located?

 

using the dock 3 plus, you can use 2 dvi and 2 dp, dvi should support up to WUXGA and WQXGA for DP.

 

are there any demonstration video or pictures showing four monitors being powered by T410?

 

i asked for one, Russell Compton (ThinkPad Product Marketing Manager) said yes to that request.

http://lenovoblogs.com/lenovofiles/...hybrid-graphicsbattery-saving-combo/#comments

 

can you post once you have new information or video on this feature? And another question, can the four display be form into one large display like eyefinity?

 

what do you mean form one display? you mean in extended mode, where all 4 displays are independent?

I will keep you posted with any updates on this matter.

 

like four monitors put together to form one large monitor like eyefinity. For example; four 1920x1200 into one 3840x2400 resolution.

 

okay, hum i am not sure, probably not.

Since this 4 monitors implementation is not done by Nvidia, but rather by Lenovo. Optimus was designed as an on the fly switching system for discrete and integrated GPU, it wasn't really designed from the grounds up as a multi display system implementation.

While, AMD trail Intel in terms of CPU development, the ATI arm has the upper hand in the graphics card development department (Nividia still has the edge in the workstation grade graphics card).