Lenovo is revamping its ThinkPad T61p workstation notebook with a new widescreen display, enhanced graphics from Nvidia and better wireless support.
The PC vendor is looking to complete the refresh of its enterprise lineup since Intel released its Centrino Pro mobile platform earlier this year.
The ThinkPad T61p, as well as the display and graphics enhancements for the ThinkPad R61 and R61e, is available as of July 10 and will start to ship to customers later this month.
In addition to the updates to its workstation, as well as the enhancements for other ThinkPad models, Lenovo will also jump on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star 4.0 initiative and begin offering a number of models that meet the new standards.
Along with select models from its ThinkPad lineup, Lenovo will offer Energy Star 4.0 standards with its 3000 series of PCs, which are geared toward the consumer market as well as small and midsize businesses.
“We are providing Energy Star 4.0 options on every single platform available with Santa Rosa,” said Tom Ribble, director of product marketing for Lenovos ThinkPad lineup, referring to Intels Centrino platform by its original code name. “We really believe that this is industry leading. While many of our competitors pick and choose certain models for Energy Star 4.0 standards, Lenovo is offering 4.0 across the ThinkPad and the 3000 series lineups.”
These updated configurations from the EPA, which go into effect July 20, call for 80 percent efficient power supplies and lower idle wattage ratings. Several other of the top PC vendors, including Dell and Hewlett-Packard, are also offering models that adhere to these energy standards.
Lenovo, which is based in Raleigh, N.C., and HP were also some of the first major PC vendors to offer Intels Centrino Platform when it debuted on May 9. Dell, which was the major holdout at the time, has now started to offer models with the new mobile platform as well.
One of the Dell PCs with Centrino Pro and the new Energy Star 4.0 standards is its M4300 workstation notebook, which launched June 27. Ribble said Lenovos ThinkPad T61p is a lighter and thinner workstation notebook that offers the graphics capability needed by workers in verticals such as accounting and the industrial sector.
In addition to a 15.4-inch-wide display, the ThinkPad T61p, which weighs between 5.9 and 6.2 pounds, is designed to support a number of wireless technologies, including support for draft 802.11n WLAN (wireless LAN) and embedded WWAN (wireless WAN) technologies. The workstation also supports ultrawideband technologies—a short-range technology designed for personal area networking.
The updated ThinkPad T61p offers a number of Intels new Core 2 Duo processors, including the T7700, T7500 and T7300, which offer clock speeds ranging from 2.4GHz to 2.0GHz, 4MB of L2 cache and an 800MHz front-side bus. Lenovo is also offering users the option of including Intels TurboMemory, a NAND-based flash memory.
For graphics, Lenovo is offering Nvidias Quadro FX 570M chip set.
In addition, the workstation includes up to 4GB of RAM, a SATA (Serial ATA) hard drive with a maximum capacity of 160GB, three USB 2.0 ports and a CD-RW DVD combo. The laptop also supports 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsofts Windows Vista operating system as well as support for Windows XP. Plus, the T61p includes Microsofts Live Windows products, which include Live Search.
Lenovo will also support several Linux operating systems, including Novells SUSE, Red Hat and Turbo Linux.
The ThinkPad T61p mobile workstation starts at $1,814. The ThinkPad R61 and R61e notebooks start at $1,119 and $1,069, respectively.
Lenovo acquired the ThinkPad name in 2005, when it bought IBMs PC division.
