Following the unveiling of a pair of Sandy Bridge equipped ThinkPad Edge laptops at CES, Lenovo is refreshing the rest of its business-oriented lineup with new 2011 Core i5 and i7 processors, integrated and discrete graphics options, new video and voice calling functionality, better power management, and new features for better IT management.
The company claims the new laptops incorporate "self-aware and adaptive technologies" to power down components not being used for certain tasks. So, for instance, when somebody's watching a movie, Lenovo is able to reduce power draw on the e-SATA port, SD card, or different places where power isn't needed. This, combined with power-efficiency features on Intel's Sandy Bridge chips, will reportedly boost battery life by up to 30% over previous models.
Lenovo's entry-level business laptop line saw the addition of the 14-inch L420 and 15.6-inch L520 starting at $719. Both models can be configured with up to a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 2620M CPU and a maximum of 8GB of DDR3 memory, while sporting 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 eSATA port, a 54/34mm ExpressCard slot, a multimedia card reader, and DisplayPort.
New models in the ThinkPad T series of performance laptops include the 14-inch T420 and the slimmer T420s version along with the 15-inch T520. The first two are priced at $779 and $1,329, respectively, and will be available with Nvidia Optimus graphics. The slim, four-pound T420s will reportedly boot 30% faster than the previous model, and the slightly thicker and heavier T420 will last up to 30 hours on a charge with its nine-cell slice extended battery.
Lastly, Lenovo also updated its W520 workstation with a range of Core i5 and i7 processors, up to a whopping 32GB of RAM, and Nvidia's Quadro 100M or 2000M graphics featuring up to 2GB dedicated graphics memory. It also houses two USB 3.0 ports and can be configured with up to a 160GB SSD. The W520 starts at $1,329 and comes with ISV Certification for DSS CATIA, SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, Adobe, and Maya.
Lenovo updated the voice calling features on its new ThinkPad range with dual array microphones, a LED-lit microphone mute key, and keyboard noise reduction technology, while some models are also bundled with Intel's Core VPro hardware and software platform for IT managers to remotely manage and secure laptops. All six laptops will be available in March from Lenovo business partners and at www.lenovo.com.