Lenovo intros Sandy Bridge ThinkPads, 30-hour battery option
updated 12:00 am EST, Tue February 22, 2011
Lineup geared for mobile business users
Confirming a recent leak, Lenovo has officially unveiled six new ThinkPad notebooks based on Intel's Sandy Bridge series of Core and Core vPro processors. The T420s, T420, T520, L420, L520 and W520 models are all geared for business users, with improvements to battery life and performance compared to the previous generations.
The T420 is claimed to allow users to work for up to 15 hours with the standard nine-cell battery, while adding an additional nine-cell battery accessory doubles the life to reach 30 hours. The T420s integrates a smaller six-cell battery that reportedly enables up to 10 hours of use. All of the T- and W-series offerings take advantage of NVIDIA's Optimus technology for automatic switching between integrated and discrete graphics components.
For video and voice conferencing, the notebooks provide separate microphone modes for private chat and conference calls. Noise canceling technology is also claimed to help reduce keyboard noise or focus on a single voice.
The company has worked to standardize accessories for easier deployment in large enterprise environments. The T-, W- and L-series notebooks all utilize the same docking station, while batteries can also be swapped between different models. Other enterprise features include encrypted hard drives, remote management capabilities and fingerprint scanners for authentication.
The T420s, T420, T520, L420, L520 and W520 will ship in March, with respective prices starting at $1,329, $779, $909, $719 and $1,329.
T420 and T420s
L420 and L520
