Lenovo launches Centrino 2 notebooks

Lenovo's ThinkPad range was extended today, with nine new notebooks based on Intel's new Montevina platform, which was officially launched todayand features integrated mobile broadband modules.

Lenovo said that all its new notebooks would feature integrated Ericsson modules, as IT PRO reported previously.

David McQuarie, executive director for notebooks at Lenovo, said that the company wanted to offer integrated mobile broadband to its notebooks customers for no extra charge. As such, it expected to see the take up of mobile broadband increase rapidly.

A highlight of the product launch was the Thinkpad X200, a smaller, lighter follow up to the successful X300, launched in February 2008. The notebook is Lenovo's first widescreen 12-inch model and offers a 1,280 x 800 resolution display and a slightly larger keyboard than the previous generation X61.

The X200 is powered by a Core 2 Duo processor from the Centrino 2 platform, running at either 2.26GHz of 2.4GHz, which should deliver more real world performance than the 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo in the X300. It also weighs only 1.34kg and storage will be provided through conventional hard disks up to 320GB in size.

Lenovo claimed it offered up to an impressive 9.8 hours of battery life through the use of extended batteries. Despite this, Lenovo claimed that the new model has heat and noise savings over previous generations.

McQuarie said: "[Lenovo] already led the industry for noise and heat and this generation takes it even further."

Lenovo also announced an entirely new range of laptops, the SL. This is the first ThinkPad range to be aimed specifically at small and medium businesses. The SL300, SL400 and SL500 sport glossy black covers, and dual graphics - with the ability to switch between a discrete nVidia graphics chip or integrated Intel graphics - giving the user the choice of performance or battery life. Multimedia is also catered for with larger speakers, an HDMI output and the option of specifying a Blu-ray drive.

Additionally, Lenovo also announced a W500 Mobile workstation, featuring ISV certification and ATI FireGL graphics with OpenGL graphics support.

Along with this, Lenovo announced an ambitious sounding support program around the notebooks. The ThinkPlus Secure Business offering features online data backup, while the top-tier Complete IT solution includes support for third-party applications on the notebooks.

Fergal MacConuldh, vice president EMEA services at Lenovo, said: "People are fed up with poor service. We want to be the best at the customer experience. We know we're a long way from where we want to be but we're putting a lot of time and effort into this."