Thinkpad W701 and W701ds specs revealed!

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/19/thinkpad-w701-and-w701ds-specs-emerge-from-a-leaky-faucet/

Looks like Lenovo finally uses some decent screen on the thinkpad after all.
And USB 3.0 is nice!
No FirePro GPU option is a kinda a let down.
I'm hoping it will have the slice battery option.

 

how could it only have 1 USB 3.0 port when the W510 has 2?

I like how they consider Wifi and Bluetooth to be advanced communications

 

Why would they use a 9.5mm DVD in a 12.7mm ultrabay? Or are they separate?

 

Up to 16GB RAM???? On a notebook???!!!! Wow.

 

Nothing new. Just means 4 memory slots. Dell Precision M6400 had it last generation, I believe. Several more have it now such as Lenovo W510, HP Envy, HP Elitebook 8540w/8740w, Dell Precision M6500, etc.

 

That's just crazy. Some day we'll need that much RAM, but not for quite a while I suspect.

 

Not to long ago computer were shipping with 16mb of ram... at this rate, in 10 years we're gonna have 8TB of ram in out computers!

 

Not to long ago computer were shipping with 16mb of ram... at this rate, in a decade or so we're gonna have 8TB of ram in out computers!

 

That's very true.

:laugh:

 

Depends what you do. My desktop just choked when a MATLAB run took up more than 6GB of RAM and I'm thinking of upgrading it to 12GB...

 

Thinking about this laptop...

What do you think the price would be for 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 500GB HD, 3800 GPU, single screen?

Also, will this have HDMI out?

 

From the specs it won't have HDMI.

 

Nearly all laptops built for businesses will NOT have HDMI, but DP due to their original design purposes (the connectors they're meant to replace).

 

What is DP? New to this...

 

DP = Display port
It's different from HDMI, but you can use a display port to hdmi adapter if you need to. It will charry audio too, but I'm not 100% if you need an Nvidia graphics card in your thinkpad to do this now, or if you can do it with the intel integrated graphics

Good article on display port v1.2, not sure if this on thinkpads or any other laptop yet.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/home-...layPort-1-2-Confirmed--Blows-Away-HDMI-1-4/p1

display port website
http://www.displayport.org/consumer/

 

given the fact now lenovo is using DP with Audio enabled, whether or not the W70x has a HDMI is no longer important.

The provision of 4 ram slots is nice, as we can get the cheaper 4 of the 2 gig ram sticks to make up to 8 gigs of ram, which would still cost less than one single 4 gig DDR3 ram stick.

 

Rgb Led Baby! All 17 Inches Of It!!! Probably Will Be An Expensive Upgrade Though!

Too Bad We Wont See Nvidia Optimus Switching On This Little Puppy As It Uses Clarksfield Core I7?? I Cant Understand Why Intel Did Not Put An Igp On Clarsksfield-it Actually Makes More Sense Than On Arrandale.

 

Because they used the older generation manufacturing process. Arrandale is actually more like a half generation ahead of Clarksfield.

 

The thing that satisfies me the most the 16:10. As HP has moved to 16:9, this is really nice of Lenovo.

 

The 17" HP 8740w is also supposed to be 16:10, like the corresponding Dell and Lenovo. Unfortunately I doubt they'll be any 16:10 displays left anywhere in the not too distant future...

 

The HP 8540 and HP 8440 are all 16:9, I doubt HP will offer 16:10 on the 8740w.

 

But the W510 is, and the M6500 will be, 16:9...yet both Lenovo and Dell were able to hold onto 16:10 for their 17" models. I doubt HP will offer 16:9 on the 8740w.

 

It seems that most expectations are that the 8740w will have a 16:10 Dreamcolor 2 panel.

 

I wonder why Lenovo is going with W701 instead of W710.

 

It doesn't seem to be a major overhaul of the W700, if that picture is accurate at all. While the Tx10 series and the W510 both have an entirely new chassis and components, the W701 seems to be mainly a component upgrade, with minimal changes to the chassis (if the picture is accurate).

 

well the M6500 is 16:10. Were you referring to the M4500?

 

Yes, I meant M4500...otherwise my post is self-contradictory.

 

ah good. So it appears that all these 17 inch business laptops will stay at 16:10, at least for now. It's a real shame about the 15 inch ones though, I much prefer 1920x1200 to 1920x1080. If the M4500 is 16:9, it will be a real shame, and it's looking like it will be 16:9.

 

There aren't any official specs yet, but this guy's info has been pretty accurate so far:

http://hpfansite.com/category/hp-elitebook/page/3/

so I think the HP 8740w will be 16:10.

 

Ok, so it seems 17'' will be 16:10's last stand.

 

Lowering vertical resolution on a business laptop, where you need to be able to work on DOCUMENTS which are VERTICAL, is complete madness. When did documents start to be produced in 16:9 format? Did I miss something here?

It is commonly established that a document should be printed at least at 300DPIs. For a standard letter, that means 2550x3300.

Do manufacturers seriously believe we will jump on any product that has a maximum vertical resolution of only ONE THIRD of that?

Come On! What's Wrong With This Picture!!!

I have been using computers since the days of punch cards and paper tape and have followed the increase in resolution with great interest.

However, in the past decade or so, we have actually seen screen resolution GO DOWN whereas our lives have become to rely more and more on increased information!

Why is it that we can cram 10 megapixels or more on a digital camera sensor (and easily process it onboard!) yet we are told my many experts that "it is too difficult to implement" when in reality we are dealing with machines that have tons of space to play with compared to a digicam and much, much more processing power!

Come On! What are LCD and laptop manufacturers waiting for? How long will I have to hold on my long discontinued but high resolution 15 year old 2048x1536, 3 megapixel Trinitron CRT?

What we need is MORE RESOLUTION, NOT LESS! And by the way... As long as monitors will stay at these ridiculously low resolutions, I will keep my old 3MP camera, Thank You, because IT'S MORE THAN ENOUGH!

 

not really. Wasn't the highest resolution 15 inch laptop 1440*1050 at 4:3? Then in 16:10 it was 1920*1200. Yeah, it is lower as 16:9 at 1920*1080. Also the new Vaio Z is a 13 inch laptop with 1920*1080.

Of course, you know what I hate? when you see an awesome laptop that gets saddled with a low resolution screen, like the Ideapad Y series or the Macbook Pros. And then you have the HP Envy 13 with a 1600*900 laptop screen but with ULV or LV internals.

 

I'm afraid so --- and probably doomed there too I'd guess.

 

Actually, the ThinkPad R50P series was available with a QXGA (2048x1536) 4:3 screen in... 15 inch size!

And before someone says "it's too hard to read", look at your modern intelligent PDA cell phone... 480x640 on a 2.8" diagonal, and no one complains, even if that represents 2400x3200 on a 14 inch screen!

So my question remains: what the hell are LCD and laptop manufacturers waiting for?!

Absolutely. Laptop screen specs are rated in luminosity (NITS) and refresh rate, which is only useful for playing games, while resolution is usually only mentioned quickly in passing, as if it was the least important attribute!

Is no one WORKING on their laptops anymore?

Computer monitors and HD TVs have become like our Fast Food Nation... Overweight (Large Screen) and Stupid (Low Resolution)

 

Isn't that the only laptop screen with > 1920*1200 resolution?

good thing we have notebookreview to make a point out of it I think every 15 inch laptop that shows up with a 1366*768 screen is immediately hammered around here.

 

I am not sure, this is just the best known example that came to mind.

Anyway, I know I'm not alone in my quest for high vertical res laptops, see what this guy made recently...

I believe the problem comes from the fact that laptop specs are pretty much driven by the recreational/games market which probably makes up the majority of new buyers these days, not professional/nerds like us anymore

 

4 memory slots, holy moley, never seen these kind of specs before, but i think the cores part in the GPU used section is kinda a typo, since when have we suddenly gotten into many core computing? Do they mean stream processors?

 

Ah no, i own a 14" 1400x1050 T43, It is now mostly 1080 because of the stupid 1080p standard. I hate how the WUXGA standard is mostly ignored even when it is a higher better resolution, just because the "HD" standard is 1080 vertical pixels. The highest res 15" 4:3 screen was probably the rare QXGA screen custom ordered ones. You also get lower yields as the screen size decreases, but the pixels increase, therefore contributing to making higher res screens more expensive.

 

I'm pretty sure those are referring to the stream processor count.

 

I just realized one good reason why you can't compare high resolution monitors with high resolution camera sensors... Most of these sensors actually have defective pixels, but they are mapped out and the missing pixel are extrapolated on the final picture creation...

With a high res monitor, however, there is a higher risk of getting dead pixels, which cannot be mapped out...

It's sad, really, because it means that LCD manufacturing, for unknown technical reasons probably related to its complex manufacturing, has been unable to manufacture high MP screens economically...

 

There are several notebooks with 4 memory slots now...

 

I meant I've not seen those specs before. Yes it does rather suck that we can't get high quality for cheap eh..? Well you get what you pay for.

 

its a minor upgrade, just like X300 to X301.

 

Well if it turns out high resolution LCDs are expensive because of the reject rate due to the increased occurrence of dead pixels and similar defects which cannot be mitigated, it is quite understandable they are so expensive therefore less popular and therefore less developed as a technology.

However, looking at this logic it is difficult to understand how manufacturers have apparently been able to cram hundreds of millions of components into CPU cores Without serious yield problems.

Which brings me back to my original question... Why is it so difficult for LCD makers to make high resolution LCD!

Well that is not difficult to understand. With the move towards 64 bit OSes, more RAM can be used (cmpared to the present limit for 32 bit OSes of 3GB).

Now the question that begs to be asked then is, if you look at present day programming practices, WHY do we need programs that take 100 times more space to do things we used to do happily before with much, much less memory? What improvement has Windows brought in the past ten years that it needs FIFTY TIMES the amount of space to run properly?

If you will permit me to conclude... To me it seems like we've become sloppy and our computers are at the stage where the automobile was 40 years ago, before the oil crisis... Big vehicles using a lot of gas with huge engine bays and small interior space (no kidding, I used to own one), falling apart in three years...

Of course, I would love nothing more but to see computer manufacturers REALLY innovate so that we can FINALLY get rid of paper once and for all, and that will require substantially increasing screen resolution.

 

Screen-wise - it's a revolution!

 

well it's arguable...the t400s to t410s upgrade isn't that much different to the w700/w701

 

How does it work to get one of these if you are in Canada.

I have noticed that Lenovo Canada doesn't even have the w700 listed yet...

Is there a reputable reseller that allows customization of these machines in Canada OR at least in the US that ships to Canada reasonably.

Thanks!

I am VERY interested in the w701...but am curious of the price for the specs I am looking at.

 

If I ordered from Lenovo Canada, would I have trouble using the warranty from a US address or extending the warranty from Lenovo US?

 

Ah - Simple question - does anyone know when they are releasing this for purchase? Q1? Q2? Q3? ..

 

I'd say Q1. For warranty, you can email support. For example, I know with Dell, if you get 3+ years warranty, it is international.