Lenovo is releasing the ThinkPad T400s laptop, a new type of enterprise-class notebook that bridges the gap between the company’s high-end ThinkPad X300 line and the standard ThinkPad T400 laptop family.
The ThinkPad T400s, which is available starting June 23 for a starting price of $1,599, offers some of the design features that Lenovo engineers used to create the thin-and-light technology that went into the X300 line. In addition, Lenovo plans to offer a SSD (solid state drive) option with the ThinkPad T400s along with a choice of two, 25-watt Intel Core 2 Duo chips.
In keeping with the current thinking that thin-and-light laptops are what both consumers and business users are looking for in notebooks, the Lenovo T400s measures 0.83 inches thick and weighs about 3.9 pounds. The ThinkPad T400s also offers a 14.1-inch display.
“We have taken the structure and some of the sub-components of the X300 and matched them with the manageability, performance and cost-optimized attributes of the T400 into this product, which is the T400s,” said David Critchley, a worldwide segment manager for Lenovo’s ThinkPad T-series. “It’s really light and really thin for a corporate system and we think it’s in a class by itself for corporate notebooks.”
The ThinkPad T400s uses the same carbon fiber technology found in the X300 line, which allowed Lenovo engineers to reduce the overall weight and slim down the laptop. This also let Lenovo to include a 9.5-millimeter Optical drive.
The LED WXGA+ display offers users about 300 nits, which makes it one of the brighter screens that Lenovo offers for corporate notebooks. Lenovo engineers also worked on improving the keypad and delivered what Critchley calls a cleaner overall look compared to previous ThinkPad laptops.
“We have taken the time to redesign the keyboard layout a bit, including the way the palm rest is situated with touchpad, as well as the top bezel, so it’s a cleaner look than we had in the past,” said Critchley.
Other features of the ThinkPad T400s include the choice an Intel Core 2 Duo SP9400 processor (2.4GHz) or the SP9600 chip (2.53GHz), as well as Intel 4500MHD chip set. The T400s offers up to 4GB of DDR3 (double data rate 3) memory, along with a hard disk drive with up to 250GB capacity. The SSD options run from 64GB to 265GB.
The ThinkPad T400s also offers 802.11 b/g and draft-n wireless technologies, along with options for WiMax and WWAN (wireless WAN). Lenovo is also offering Microsoft Windows Vista OS with the ThinkPad T400s, as well as the XP downgrade option.
Lenovo will also include better audio capabilities along with a 2 megapixel camera to improve the VOIP (voice over IP) capabilities of the T400s.
Finally, Lenovo will offer a 6-cell battery with the ThinkPad T400s that looks to offers about 5.5 hours of battery life. An optional, 3-cell bay battery will boost the battery time to 8.5 hours.
When Lenovo rolls out the ThinkPad T400s, the company also plans to offer a new docking station for the laptop, which can support two displays and it will offer support for USB, Display Port and eSATA.
The ThinkPad T400s is hitting the market at a time when the entire PC industry is down, except for netbooks or mini-notebooks.