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Lenovo's New ThinkPad Has 2 LCD Screens, Weighs 11 Pounds

ericatcw writes "With many users now used to having multiple monitors at home or work, you had to figure someone would try to offer a 'desktop replacement' laptop that offered the same. Lenovo is the first. Its new W700ds laptop will offer a 10.6 inch LCD screen in addition to the 17-inch primary display. The W700ds also sports a quad-core Intel Core 2 CPU, up to almost 1 TB of storage, and an Nvidia Quadro mobile chip with up to 128 cores. A Lenovo exec called this souped-up version of the normally buttoned-down-for-business ThinkPads the 'nitro-burning drag racer of ThinkPads.' There is even a Wacom digitizer pad and pen for graphic artists, who are expected to be the target market, along with photographers and other creative types who are willing to trade shoulder-aching bulk (11 pounds) and price (minimum of $3,600) for productivity enhancements." At the other end of the laptop size spectrum, Dell recently announced plans to launch a rival to the MacBook Air. Called "Adamo," it is supposedly "thinner than the MacBook Air," though further details will have to wait for the Computer Electronics Show in early January.

19 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. What's the point? by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess I'm missing the point of this. At work I plug my laptop into my docking stataion, with a 26" monitor attached (with the same setup at home - the two monitors cost far less than this silly laptop!). I *don't* want to lug the monitor around with me! If I have a desk where I work frequently, I can provide it a much bigger monitor. If I'm just walking around, I want my laptop to be as light as possible.

    Really, the more I think about it, the more I'm really just carrying my disk drive around. Maybe in a year or two I can just switch to carrying a poket-sized SSD around, and have desktops at home and work that boot off that.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    1. Re:What's the point? by chaossplintered · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe in a year or two I can just switch to carrying a poket-sized SSD around, and have desktops at home and work that boot off that.

      I do almost exactly that. I carry around a 32GB flash drive and I run Portable Apps off of it. Since my work, school, and home computer all use Windows, I basically have the Desktop wherever I go. The only difference is that my home computer actually has Firefox, Open Office, etc. installed, as opposed to using the portable version.

    2. Re:What's the point? by timeOday · · Score: 3, Informative
      My experience watching people use laptops around the workplace is that, outside of airplanes, they usually don't run on batteries. Mostly it's people moving their laptop to work in somebody else's office for a few hours, or giving a presentation, or taking notes at a meeting, and generally they are plugged in.

      I also have a good number of co-workers who choose 17" laptops. They are relatively big, but when it gets right down to it, it doesn't take them any longer to put those in a laptop bag and go somewhere than it does anybody with a smaller computer.

  2. Needs More Symmetry by lobiusmoop · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sorry, that laptop in the article just looks lop-sided and ugly with the sidecar-screen pulled out. Once somebody does a triptych version, let me know.

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  3. The perfect laptop by CaptainPatent · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm a huge fan of dead laptop batteries, burning hot pants, and scoliosis.

    This has to be the perfect laptop for me!

    --
    Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
  4. A bit on the heavy side by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Lenovo's New ThinkPad Has 2 LCD Screens, Weighs 11 Pounds "

    Maybe a car battery wasn't the best choice?

  5. Re:Not worth it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    At least some of us know how to post while signed in

  6. Interesting idea, poor implementation. by Shag · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1920x1200 main screen, and 720x1280 side screen... did it not occur to them to have 1200 vertically on both? Also, I'm kinda thinking that for this kind of money, I should be able to buy 2 laptops providing a total resolution in excess of 2640x1280, and whatever software I need to share the screen of one as a second display on the other... and have 'em weigh less, together, than this monstrosity. ;)

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
    1. Re:Interesting idea, poor implementation. by Kris_J · · Score: 3, Informative

      And that software would be Maxivista.

  7. Why? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why? I see this word a lot in laptop threads. It's in the luggable monster threads like this one and its often in the netbook one too. I would have thought the answer was obvious, really. What I have trouble understanding is how people can fail to understand that not everyone has the same computing needs.

    If you still don't understand, use the following guide:

    Need as much power as you can get in a portable bos? Get one of these.

    Need great portability but not much CPU? Get an eee or whatever.

    Need something in between? Get a laptop.

    Need a laptop which can be run over bay a tank while under water? Get a toughbook, etc...

    And so on. If you're on /. and still can't see how other people still have different computing needs, then hand in your geek card on your way out.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:Why? by XMode · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Please can you come and explain that logic to my boss.. Ans can you also include the following.

      Need large amount of computing power than you never need to move, BUY A DESKTOP.

      All our work desktops are slowly being replaced with laptops. No one ever moves them. They stay setup, open, on people desks, over the weekend.. I'm surprised that the cleaners haven't stolen a few buy now.

  8. Re:128 cores by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think we should make a system of rating computing power that's applicable to a CPU or GPU and is measured in Internet Penis Inches. Then you can settle graphics card debates by saying "This one is rated at 6.3Epeens and this one is 7.2Epeens" and be done with it.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  9. Re:The Point is... by Sethumme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's perfectly valid to ask what the point of a product is. Not only does it invite answers that may describe a perspective not imagined by the inquirer, but it also raises the point that the product might not be worth the trouble to make if there is no interest in it.

    Sure, the OP doesn't have to buy it if he or she doesn't like it. But that doesn't mean the product has any value to anyone else either. If you decide to make ice cream that tastes like shit, and you can't answer the question of "what's the point?", then what will you have after you've spent $400,000 in research, design, production, packaging, and marketing just so you could sell your product to one *somebody*? Nothing but a big pile of (cold) shit. So the question remains, who needs a 4 grand laptop that weighs 11 pounds, and are there enough of these people for the product to turn a profit?

  10. Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lenovo has always made Thinkpads, or at least has for a decade or more. IBM just decided to sell the rest of the business to them but let them use the IBM name for a few years.

    dom

  11. Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck by Andtalath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lenovo always did the manufacturing, it's just that IBM did the designs before.

  12. Re:128 cores by Rufus211 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I thought they were normally called 3dmarks, but I guess Epeens would work.

  13. Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck by file-exists-p · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am the proud owner of a 570e, T41p, T61p and X61s. And indeed, the T61p is the most Lenovo of the four, and it sucks (huge and hot). The X61s is wonderful (netbook sized and amazing keyboard, CPU, HD, screen and linux compatibility) but it seems that it was IBM designed.

    One of my relatives just bought a T400 and his comment was "pretty cool, but the keyboard sucks a bit" ... Knowing that one of the main reason to buy a Thinkpad was the quality of the keyboard, this is bad.

    Now, maybe the expensive ones are better ? People do not seem to complain about the X[23]00, do they ?

  14. 11 pounds is 5kg by xaxa · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'll save everyone else having to look it up.

  15. Re:The Point is... by maxume · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes, the proper analogy is that shit flavored ice cream tastes like shit.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.