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Lenovo Intros the Monstrous ThinkPad W700
Engadget recently got their hands on an early delivery of Lenovo's new powerhouse of a laptop, the W700. Aimed at graphic artists and photographers, this beast is designed to really pack a punch. No word on how much for the extra fusion generator to power it for longer than 20 minutes. "Containing enough computational artillery to level a small village, this for-creatives-only behemoth is designed for sheer pixel pushing ... and little else. The system packs in two features aimed at graphic artists and photographers which are fairly unique to a laptop: a built in Wacom digitizer just to the right of the trackpad, and an on-board color calibrator. But what's happening under the hood you ask? Well, for starters the 17-incher sports the first-ever Intel Quad Core Extreme CPU in a laptop (no word on speeds at this point) as well as the first showing of NVIDIA's Quadro FX 3700 graphics chipset (with a hefty 1GB of memory on-board). The workstation also serves up dual hard drive bays configurable as RAID 0 or 1 (SSD or traditional disk, naturally), up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and an optional Blu-ray burner. Of course, that's fully kitted out -- the W700 starts at $2,978 and moves skyward from there."
hot enough to fry your eggs for breakfast.
a built in Wacom digitizer just to the right of the trackpad
Ideal unless you're left handed and therefore cursed to spend all your time catching the trackpad while trying to write/draw anything.
Nope not even ideal. I dont know of a single artist that would be caught dead using that tiny digi.
a 8X10 Wacom is easier to pack in the laptop bag than a mouse... so adding a digi onto the laptop is like having spinner rims on the car.... useless and for show only.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Funniest part? It's creatives who use Macs, exclusively. Having worked for many media companies, they only consider Macs. This beast will maybe find some gamers who like it. The rest--nah...
Indeed. So where would you put the Wacom on this laptop, assuming you still have to be able to sell a lot of them to make it worth making them in the first place?
(This is a serious question. Is there a solution?)
I am an graphic artist (3d/2d) and a Wacom smaller than A5 is quite useless for serious production.
Also, i don't see when i would require a portable workstation (for that is what this monster is trying to be). Better to keep the field- and office-work seperate.
I'd rather have my 24'' monitor too (even though the laptop's panel has quite nice resolution)
The T43 is much flimsier than the T60 or T61. It cracks if you look at it funny.
Or just the typical reaction when learning it doesn't run your OS of choice and the applications you use daily?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If she was rejecting any non-Mac product without having experience with Windows, possibly.
But I doubt that any computer user in the world has too little experience with Windows. If you've used Windows and you still don't like it, that's a rational choice (obviously one you disagree with, but de gustibus non erat disputandum), not prejudice.
Anyone interested in a digitiser probably already has one, and a separate one is more flexible and probably better than a fixed one.
Analyzer schmanalyzer.
Take those out and you have an OK power laptop.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Don't fool yourself. For as much as "creative" people like to separate themselves from other people they are just as much victims of branding and "the hip factor" as anyone else. Their fashions may appear different from the outside but their attitudes are the same from the inside.
I know just as many "creative" people who like to name drop as anyone else. They're just as much concerned with the utilitarian factor of an object as the teen-aged girl who needs a cellphone based on it's looks over it's functionality.
Oh I don't know, on the screen, maybe? You know, like a normal Tablet PC, which is exactly what this is except that Tablet PCs have bigger digitizers and work better because the strokes appear where the user actually drew them.
I mean really, what kind of idiot would want this?! It's like getting a really tiny Intuos when you could have had a nice big Cintiq for less!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I agree - why is there a trackpad? Surely that's redundant given the wacom tablet? But that's the least of this beasts problems.
It weighs in at a minimum 8.3 pounds. Battery life is not stated, but, given the alienware "desktop replacement laptop" I'd bet a 2 hour battery life will cause this to weigh in at over 10#s easy.
So, for comparison, a MBP 17" with same screen resolution and a 7200 rpm drive starts at about 2900. And you get 2-5 hours battery life (depending on what you're doing) at 1.5#s less weight.
The only thing we'll be waiting on is a quad core CPU. Then again, 4 cores won't do you any good if you'll only be able to run it for 30m on battery...
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
No. Cintiqs are used for serious drawing. The thing about Cintiqs is that they aren't touch screens. They're tablets with a LCD screen built you. You have to use a Wacom stylus. If they built the monitor like a Cintiq on a laptop, it would not be like a tablet PC at all. Stylus only. It would also make it a bitch to draw on. Screen would have to lock at angles, and you would have to counterweight the keyboard so when you press on the screen it doesnt flip over.
In any case, serious artists use whatever tool they're comfortable with. Some swear by the Cintiq, others by Intuos.
Did you not see that Lenovo has made IBM Thinkpads for years? And no, being (pretending to be?) a level 1 tech support monkey for IBM doesn't make you any more of an official resource.
:P
Now, as far as 'valid real world' experience goes, I have quite a bit. I work with all brands of laptops on a daily basis. I replace internal and external parts, rework them etc... I've worked on scores and scores of Thinkpads, including many T4Xs and T6Xs. In my opinion, they are well-built compared to *any* other major notebook brand (HP, Dell, Acer, Tosbhia etc..) and just as well built as the T2Xs and T3Xs. I even used to own a T21 AND T30, both of which I put together using parts and reassembled/disassembled numerous times.
In short, when it comes to build quality, my opinion is better than yours.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
I'll tell you what, when I do live performances of sound and video art, where I need a powerful laptop connected via firewire to digital audio interfaces and HDMI and where every new input method (Wacom tablet!) is precious, I would be thrilled to have this "monster" sitting next to me.
Admittedly, this thing ain't for carrying around to the Starbucks and showing off, it's for special applications where you need a powerful workstation you can fold up and carry home when you're done.
If you want to look cool and be a visibly connected member of the hip generation, and you want your laptop to coordinate with your other digital accessories, and you've used the word "meme" more than once in the past month, then the MacBook Pro is for you. When you really need to be pumping that digital wattage out of your portable cottage, pick this new Lenovo.
You are welcome on my lawn.