Lenovo Unleashes The ThinkPad W700 Mobile Workstation

No, it isn’t a Tablet PC, although select models do come with a Wacom digitizer and pen for use on the handrest, and Lenovo is calling it a beast. The ThinkPad W700 Mobile Workstation is getting announced today (Tuesday) at Siggraph and is being touted by Lenovo as the first mobile workstation with a number of innovations and first’s. Two of those innovations include a built in digitizer and color calibrator built into the palm-rest.

Designed to give desktop workstation power to those in the field, the ThinkPad W700 has a 17—inch widescreen and is built for graphics intensive tasks, running the new NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics and it supports the next generation Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad Core Processor technology. If you’re looking for some power and mobility this might be something worth taking a look at.

Lenovo Unleashes PC Beast on Mobile Workstation Market with ThinkPad W700

Delivers Industry’s First Built-in Digitizer and Color Calibrator Along with Ultimate Power, Multimedia and Display Technologies

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC — August 12, 2008: Lenovo today introduced the ThinkPad W700, a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation engineered with game-changing technologies and innovations to exceed the demands of the most data and graphics-intensive users. Lenovo brings the industry’s first built-in digitizer and color calibrator to a mobile workstation and combines these innovations with first-in-market technologies such as new NVIDIA ® Quadro FX mobile graphics and supporting next-generation Intel ® Coreâ„¢ 2 Extreme Quad Core processor technology. Other features such as optional dual hard drives with RAID configurations, up to 8 GB of high speed DDR3 memory, a range of wireless connectivity options and excellent multimedia capabilities including an optional Blu-rayâ„¢ DVD burner/player make the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation the ultimate power and performance mobile workstation.

““Lenovo has engineered a new breed of mobile workstation with the ThinkPad W700,” said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president, Notebook Business Unit, Lenovo. ““No other PC manufacturer has a mobile workstation that delivers the sheer power, performance and cutting-edge innovation that Lenovo has packed into the ThinkPad W700. Gone are the days of compromise as the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation flat out delivers performance our customers demand at the desk as well as in the field.”

The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation extends Lenovo’s commitment to workstation users, complementing Lenovo’s W500 mobile workstation and ThinkStation S10 and D10 workstations. As workers in fields such as digital content creation, computer-aided design and manufacturing, digital photography and science fields including the oil and gas industries become increasingly mobile, they are demanding the full-featured performance of a desktop workstation in a mobile workstation. According to IDC, the compound annual growth rate for the worldwide mobile workstation market has been more than 60 percent per year since 2002.¹

First-in-Industry Engineered Innovation

The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation takes customer driven innovation to a new level with an optional built-in palm rest digitizer and color calibrator. Designed for digital content creators and users, the mobile workstation’s digitizer helps them easily configure an image, either mapping it to the entire screen or to an area defined by the user. High performance users, especially digital photographers, will benefit from models with the built-in color calibrator as color continues to play an important role in their work. The calibrator automatically adjusts the display’s color in up to half the time of many external calibrators and with higher accuracy, resulting in the most accurate, true-to-life images in an integrated package.

Super-Charged Performance Unleashed

Supporting the latest Intel processor technologies including the next-generation Coreâ„¢ 2 Extreme Quad Core processor, the mobile workstation can be configured with up to 8 GB of memory with an additional 2 GB of Intel Turbo Memory. Lenovo also offers models with Intel ® vProâ„¢ technology for complete manageability. The mobile workstation can be equipped with dual internal hard drives, including solid state drive storage. The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation offers both the NVIDIA ® Quadro ® FX 2700M and 3700M Open GL graphics processors with up to 1 GB of dedicated video memory for exceptional graphics performance in a 17-inch mobile workstation. The hard drives can be configured for RAID 0 to help users access and save their data faster than traditional disk-writing methods, or users can choose RAID 1 for mirrored data redundancy.

The mobile workstation includes WiFi wireless connectivity. Additionally, users can connect to other devices wirelessly using mobile workstation models featuring Bluetooth and ultra wideband technology. Models supporting WiMAX will be available later this year.

New Heights in Display Technology and Multimedia Excellence

As the company’s first product with a 17-inch display, the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation delivers an unparalleled viewing experience with a combination of leading technologies. Its optional 400-nit WUXGA display provides up to twice the brightness of earlier ThinkPad mobile workstation models, and the 72 percent wide color gamut provides more than 50 percent greater color intensity. The high resolution, extreme brightness and wide color gamut coupled with the NVIDIA Quadro FX MXM graphics solution results in a user experience unequalled in a mobile workstation today. For external connectivity, the ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation provides support for Dual Link DVI, Display Port and VGA. A 7-in-1 multicard reader, and five USB ports give users flexibility in transferring and accessing digital content. Additionally, the workstation comes with an optional compact flash reader and Blu-rayâ„¢ DVD burner/player. An optional mini-dock extends the mobile workstation’s capabilities with eSATA and digital audio ports as well as convenient cabling for power, external monitors and peripherals.

Packed for extreme performance, the mobile workstation also features BIOS/port disablement and an optional fingerprint reader, a smartcard reader and hard drives with full-disk encryption. It will carry more than 20 certifications from independent software vendors.

““Our engineers use Lenovo ThinkStation workstations to help them design the next-generation of Williams F1 race cars, making them faster, more agile and more performance-driven than ever before, said Chris Taylor, IT Manager, AT&T Williams. ““We’re thrilled to see Lenovo deliver the workstation performance we’ve come to rely on now in a mobile, portable solution.”

Pricing and Availability²

The ThinkPad W700 mobile workstation will be available beginning in September with models starting at $2,978. It is available through Lenovo Business Partners and www.lenovo.com.

About Lenovo

Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is dedicated to building the world’s most exceptionally engineered personal computers. Lenovo’s business model is built on innovation, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as a focus on investment in emerging markets. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services worldwide. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information see www.lenovo.com.