Thin, light yet powerful: Lenovo unveils latest ThinkPad

MANILA, Philippines - Lenovo recently took the wraps off the ThinkPad T400s laptop, created to give business users a thin and light yet powerful, feature-packed PC.

Lenovo designers included a series of enhancements designed to make the laptop more intuitive and easier to use, leading to an improved overall computing experience.

Inspired by Lenovo’s thinnest and lightest full-function laptop, the featherweight ThinkPad X300, Lenovo engineered its latest laptop, the ThinkPad T400s, to be super-slim at just 0.83 inches thin at its slimmest point and ultra-light with a weight of under four pounds.

The laptop achieves its slim frame, thanks to the thin 14.1-inch LED screen, solid state drive storage and the second-generation Top Cover Roll Cage, which Lenovo first introduced in the ThinkPad X300 laptop.

The roll cage’s carbon-fiber-reinforced (the same material used for Formula 1 cars) monocoque helps keep the laptop extremely light yet surprisingly sturdy. With this exotic material, the notebook weighs nearly 20 percent less than its ThinkPad T400 predecessor.

“We’ve created products like our ThinkPad T400s laptop to bring thin and light computing to mainstream corporate users,” said Peter Hortensius, Lenovo’s senior vice president for ThinkPad.

“We’ve applied thoughtful design in balancing the need for greater portability with strong performance and usability,” he added. 

ThinkPad T Series

The ThinkPad T Series comprises Lenovo’s most powerful and performance-heavy laptops. The ThinkPad T400s, whose retail price starts at approximately P120,900, allows users to enjoy the best of both worlds — thin and light mobility without sacrificing the powerful performance they need.

The T400s comes with Intel 2.53GHz Core2Duo processors; solid state drive storage of either 128GB or 250GB; a 9.5-mm DVD burner or Blu-Ray player; ethernet, Wi-Fi (with optional WiMAX3), WWAN 3 Bluetooth and ultra-wideband connectivity; 34-mm Express Card slot or five-in-one multimedia card reader; support for Lenovo’s ConstantConnect and Protect technology that allows users to maximize integration of their BlackBerry smartphone and ThinkPad laptop; close to six hours of battery life (with six-cell battery); support for up to two monitors via a Display Port and VGA connector; Energy Star 5.0 compliance; and built-in USB/eSATA port.

Lenovo is also introducing three new options for ThinkPad T400s users who want to expand their workspace by connecting to other peripherals such as mice and keyboards, printers and monitors.

The ThinkPad Port Replicator Series 3, ThinkPad Mini-Dock Series 3 and ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus 3 feature new slim and sleek footprints, provide one-step “rip and go” docking and include a range of multi-monitor support while meeting a variety of needs, including support for USB, Display Port and eSATA.

The ThinkPad Port Replicator Series 3, Mini Dock Series 3 and Mini Dock Plus Series 3 are available on order with prices starting at P6,090, P9,490 and P9,490, respectively.

Perfecting the keyboard

Users spend a lot of time on their keyboards (Lenovo found that the average user hits the Delete and the Escape key 700 times each a week) — and a comfortable, easy-to-use keyboard plays a big role in their overall satisfaction with their PC. Knowing this, Lenovo spent a lot of time perfecting the design of its keyboard.

To help improve the typing experience, Lenovo made these buttons larger. With many people eating lunch at their desks, Lenovo tightened up the spaces between the keys to help avoid crumbs that would otherwise fall below the keyboard.

Improvements were also made to the touchpad to help keep the laptop thin. The new touchpad lays flush with the palm rest and has a new, textured feel that allows users to feel the touchpad’s location without looking down. And with multi-touch technology on the touchpad, users can easily scroll, pinch and zoom through documents. (Lenovo designer David Hill discusses many of these improvements in a video on his blog.)

Because more people are using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for communicating at the office, at home or on the road, Lenovo optimized its latest laptop to make VoIP calls simple while improving the quality of the video, the audio and network connection.

For a great VoIP experience, Lenovo equipped the laptop with a two-megapixel camera for high-quality images and to help in low-light conditions. Lenovo also pumped up the speaker volume more than two times greater than audio levels on the ThinkPad T400 and added a convenient toggle switch at the top of the keyboard to adjust volume.

Connectivity options

Finally, Lenovo’s range of connectivity options gives uses flexibility in how they want to connect online. The constant clicking of keys can be distracting when on a conference call, so Lenovo added dual digital microphones. This helps reduce ambient noise and improve speaker clarity.

And to let users know whether they are on or off mute, Lenovo added separate speaker and mute buttons with LED lights to indicate which button is on. For an even faster VoIP experience, users can activate VoIP applications using the HotKey combination of the Function and F6 keys.

Lenovo also added the ability to power on the laptop with just the swipe of a finger on the fingerprint reader. And an always-on USB port keeps MP3 players, cameras and other peripherals charged when the laptop is in standby or hibernate mode.

The ThinkPad T400s laptop is available through Lenovo business partners and at Lenovo Exclusive Stores located in SM Mall of Asia, SM Megamall, SM North Edsa, SM Marikina, SM Cubao, and SM Cebu.