thinkpad

We're admittedly confused by the press release for Lenovo's ThinkPad Reserve that went across the wires this morning. We already wrote about the leather case, the white-glove service and support, and the (ahem) $5,000 price tag in June. The formerly secretive marketing Web site has had plenty of specs available for months. But today, it seems, marks the official unveiling of the fancy-pants limited-edition laptop, which was created to celebrate the ThinkPad's 15th anniversary.

The specs--Centrino Pro with a Core 2 Duo L7500 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive--are fairly typical for … Read more

Lenovo plans to announce Tuesday that all of its X-, T- and R-series computers with Santa Rosa platforms will qualify for the Energy Star 4.0 rating that goes into effect on July 20.

The Energy Star program, which is overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, revised its voluntary set of energy efficiency standards for computers for the first time in over a decade. Among the standards required to garner an Energy Star 4.0 sticker is a decreased power consumption while a computer is idle.

Intel's Santa Rosa (Centrino Pro or Intel Duo) platform, which is being touted on many laptops, … Read more

The ThinkPad may be produced in China, but the hype surrounding the laptop's secretive "Reserve Edition" has had all the markings of a classic U.S. marketing campaign. First, word of a mysterious Web site featuring nothing but a teaser ad for the leather-bound notebook began circulating a few weeks ago. Then a few details were carefully leaked, like drops of water in a digital desert.

Now, the specs have finally come out--and, as PClaunches notes, they're decidedly underwhelming for a computer with a $5,000 price tag. Among the particulars: a 12.1-inch screen, an … Read more

Fast on the heels of the ThinkPad T61 and ThinkPad R61, Lenovo has announced six more laptops to make the switch to the new Centrino. First up, ultraportable ThinkPads: The new X61 Tablet and X61s include low-voltage Core 2 Duo L7300 and L7500 processors, while the X61 runs on normal-voltage Core 2 Duo T7100 and up. All three new models are built on the Centrino Pro platform, which means an 800MHz front-side bus, integrated Intel X3100 graphics, and 802.11n Wi-Fi, plus Intel Turbo Memory (code-named Robson) and Intel's Active Management Technology for remote maintenance tasks.

Also new with … Read more

It's taken awhile, but Lenovo seems to have caught onto the whole limited-edition marketing trend, especially for luxury laptops. Only a few weeks after introducing its "Cloud of Promise" laptop commemorating the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese PC maker has gone live with a Web site that cryptically teases a "ThinkPad Reserve Edition."

Electronista notes that the site implies a leather casing, speculating that it will likely include features using the latest Santa Rosa technology, but no details have been confirmed. (What's the deal with leather these days, anyway?) It will be interesting to see … Read more

Most consumers don't pay much attention to laptop-cooling technologies, but laptop designers tend to live and die by their thermals. That's because users will notice if their laptop gets too hot or if fan noise keeps them from enjoying their favorite movie. Plus, high heat inside the case can hamper performance if the processor has to throttle back to avoid overheating.

So when Lenovo's designers were challenged to fit Intel's new platform into a more compact ThinkPad case without raising temperatures or increasing fan noise, they turned to nature for inspiration. Specifically, they studied owls, whose … Read more

Intel doesn't plan to introduce the next version of its Centrino notebook technology until May 9, but Lenovo is all ready to start shipping ThinkPads with the new chips.

DailyTech spotted specifications for new ThinkPad T61 and R61 laptops up on Lenovo's site Tuesday, but they are gone now (hopefully not along with the guy who posted them). The systems used Intel's next-generation Santa Rosa notebook technology, with four Core 2 Duo processors between them at various clock speeds up to 2.4GHz, a new graphics chipset, and Intel Turbo Memory, which is what the marketing department … Read more

Here we go again. Last year, Lenovo recalled more than half a million batteries as a participant in the widespread Sony laptop battery recall that included Apple, Dell, Toshiba, and others. Lenovo today announced it is recalling 100,000 Sanyo batteries that it sells with its ThinkPad laptops.

The company has received four complaints about lithium ion batteries overheating and damaging ThinkPad laptops when the batteries were dropped or otherwise struck on the corner. The batteries in question are the extended, nine-cell battery, which Lenovo sells as an upgrade option on three ThinkPad lines: the R Series (R60 and R60e), … Read more

Following up on my fetish for getting my Thinkpad's motion sensor to do more than just protect the hard disk, I checked out a clever hack that turns the sensor into a motion controller and makes games respond when you tilt the laptop. Just like the Wii's motion-sensor controller, but way more expensive.

An introduction to the process, and relevant links, are on the Lenovo "Inside the Box" blog.

I followed the instructions and was quickly playing Tux Racer, a game where you guide a belly-sliding penguin down a snowy slalom course. The Thinkpad's tilt … Read more