Thinkpad W520 tomorrow?!?!?

I don't think I have ever been so excited for a laptop to be available (assuming its available tomorrow). Thing is a beast, hopefully I will be ordering it very very soon. Pointless post, but I thought I would share my excitement!

 

I can bump this.

I still am a bit torn about fast and light and superfast, stronger than a locomotive and about 6 lbs, but probably will go with the W520 as my current T61 is about the same weight and size and I probably lust after the powerhouse more than I do the ultralight.

It is now 8 pm out west and 11 pm in the east. Maybe it will be up tonite. Nope, still "coming soon" on Lenovo.com.
Perry

 

Lenovo ThinkPad W520 - mini review - Keith Combs' Blahg - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

"It’s that much better. Really. I’m not kidding."

 

Oh no! Charlie Sheen is on the ThinkPad forum area. Run!

 

The W520 is up on my student site for a base price of $1,921.50.

Base stats include:

Core i7-2620M
15.6" HD 1366x768 LED Screen
Quadro 1000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3
4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory
320 GB HD @ 7200RPM
No Bluetooth
ThinkPad b/g/n Wireless

Needless to say that price made my decision for me... I'll be getting either the T420 or T520.

It also appears as though the Quadro 2000M is only available on the quad-core models for an extra $250, and the upgrade to the 1920x1080 screen is also a $250 upgrade.

 

Way too expensive for that machine. What are they "thinking"??

 

I'm going to get a T420 as well. I considered the W520 but the price is way high and the 170W adapter is absolutely massive. The 90W I currently have for my T400 is around half the size and the 65W I'm getting is about 1/3 the size.

I considered the T420s but honestly there are too many downsides and not enough upsides. The T420s is about 0.2" slimmer (which isn't a whole lot) and about the same size otherwise. The T420s is 3.7lbs without the optical drive or bay battery vs. 4.3lbs for the T420. But instead of a 57Wh (T420 6-cell) battery it has a 44Wh battery, so to get the same battery life as the the T420 you need a bay battery which adds 0.5lbs, so it ends up being 4.2lbs. That's only 0.1lbs lighter than the T420 with the travel bezel. You also have to deal with 7mm HDDs/SSDs (which basically eliminates all of the SATA 6Gbps SSDs on the market right now).

At the same price I think it would be a wash. Do I want a slightly thicker and heavier machine with better HDD compatibility and better battery life? Or do I want a slightly lighter machine with USB 3.0?

But the problem is that the prices aren't comparable. The T420s CTO is $1800, which is double the price of the T420. Even the much more reasonable TopSeller models are around $300 more than a similarly configured T420, which is a lot.

 

While I agree that I don't feel like it is priced very competitively compared to the T420/520, I can find some comfort in the fact that they priced it far enough out of my price range that I can't "bite the bullet" and purchase it anyways! I will appreciate the mobility of the T420 anyways this summer as I'm packing it back and forth to campus for my summer coding internship.

 

Lenovo - Laptop computers - ThinkPad W520

Prices looks quite reasonable.

Oops sorry They raised price just before I posted. They were list the old W510 price at the begining. It may change yet before morning.

 

That blog has an interesting info on the 3 bricks...the 65 w, the 135 w and the 170 w.

The blog states the new 170w brick is lighter than the 135 w brick used for the W510. So progress is apparently being made in a lot of areas.

Perry

 

This link is showing considerably cheaper models than the student site is! Maybe we should all just check it out again tomorrow and they will have some sort of consistency!

Actually I just checked the student site again and now the base model starts at $1,169.10... damn Lenovo and their tempting me!

 

Lenovo - Customize your ThinkPad W520 Mobile Workstation

pretty dam amazing laptop, for $2300, may order it tomorrow

edit: didnt save my settings, but basically everything top of the line (except for 2720 processor and 8 gb of ram instead of 32 haha

 

Don't forget the RAID option now available. Now I WANT one. Dammit.

 

but price goes up with RAID drive selection

 

no sign of it in the UK yet

 

$70 USD extra to turn on RAID and get two 320GB 7200rpm drives instead of one seems like a decent price to me. I'd certainly pay that.

 

does that help compare to main 96GB SSD on W510 & second one in place of DVD drive? I got NEW kingston 96GB SSD for $110 & $500GB 7200 RPM to put in DVD drive.

 

it now starts at 1299$.

 

Its still 1499 here

 

Woot! One can configure a dual-core with the 2000M.

 

Aha!

The Quadro 2000M is available with the dual-core models.

YES!

 

Uhg. I can configure a W510 and a T420 with the same hardware (different graphics cards, and the W520 has the i7-2620 compared to the i7-2520 on the T420) and the W510 is only $75 more... Also with the review online where the guy quotes 6 hours of run-time on his new W520 with the 9-cell battery....

At that point is it worth it to move to the W-series? Is there any advantages to the W-series apart from the high specifications?

 

What is going on? All the customization pages gives me a 404 error page. Arrrr!

 

Graphics card and quad-core availability.

That's about it.

It's a big difference, though.

 

Ok, I got it to work in Internet Explorer. I found out that the tech bargain 10% off couoon still works!! quad-core W520 with FHD for only $1650!

 

That Quadro 1000 seems very decent for gaming. If europe prices are decent this might be my next laptop

Btw any difference on the screen other than the resolution? Like the old 1920x1080 was 95% color gamut, is it the same here or do you only gain more screen estate

 

No Rapid Drive available yet, but I have pretty much decided to buy my own SSD and replace the HDD and move it to the Ultrabay Caddy.

Also no WWAN chip yet, although that can be purchased and added as the antennae are there.

Perry

 

You can't do both since the use the same slot.

 

Does anyone know the difference between the following?

Primary SATA RAID 0 - (2 HDDs required)
Primary SATA RAID 1 - (2 HDDs required)

Also, where are the two HDD when configured withr Raid?

 

RAID 0 is striped with no parity (read/write is doubled but if one drive fails the whole array is gone)

RAID 1 is mirrored (read speed is doubled but write speed is the same, one drive can fail without losing the array)

the second drive goes in an ultrabay adapter.

 

@erik, thanks. makes sense now.

 

I'm assuming it must be 95% color gamut as it's a $200 upgrade over the HD+ screen. Seems like I saw in tabook that it was 95% color gamut as well but it may be worth looking up!

 

i might be buying this laptop today, hell yes

 

is "internal RAID: not enabled" simply RAID ready without the second disk.

The other option is "internal RAID: configured by Lenovo".

Having just googled RAID, I am thinking no need for personal/small business purposes. If you don't need a mirrored hard drive nor need a doubled up capacity situation than it is not necessary.

What US codes are working today?

Perry

 

For me the Pixels per inch are too high on FHD display. HD+ is adequate for its screen size.

Anyway, do you know if the FHD/HD displays are 8 bit? Because in the past displays were 6 bit so it couldn't be 95% at all. (I have IPS display on T60 and it is 6 bit)

 

What is up on the site today are the 4270 CTOs. (or at least that is what my order calls it).

According to tabook.pdf they shouldn't even be available with quad core but those are the only 3 options showing. 2720qm, 2820 qm, and 2920xm.

So much for relying on tabook.pdf.

I ordered mine with 500 GB 7200, the 2720QM, FHD, 1000M (2000M was $250 more!), Inel 6300, and only one DIMM of 4GB (I will add another or 3).

After LOGICBUY10 off and adding back in about the same for tax, it was mid $1800's here in Ca.

Now to figure out the best SSD to replace the HDD and get an Ultracaddy III to hold the HDD, and buy my Gobi WWAN card and away we go.

Perry

 

i really want this laptop but im a little concerned about it using the recently flawed cougar point. what are your guys thoughts?

 

I don't believe W520 is affected.

forum.thinkpads.com • View topic - Intel finds flaw in Sandy Bridge chipsets, halts shipments

 

thank you for the link.