Just a heads-up here. Saw this over a china-based thinkpad forum. It's about the 13.3" thinkpad Lenovo is currently working on.

http://www.51nb.com/forum/thread-625281-1-1.html

This "Kodachi" is a 13.3" thinkpad utilizing LED display and has an integrated optical drive.




http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii83 ... 04/tp4.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii83 ... 04/tp5.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii83 ... 04/tp6.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii83 ... 04/tp7.jpg

To Mods: hope this is not a re-post, but if it is, please remove it. Also, not sure which forum I should post it on, move it if you like.

MOD EDIT: Overlimit pictures converted to links.

So Lenovo is copying from Dell's M1330.

or apple's 13.3 in macbook. In anycase, i've just canceled my thinkpad order with lenovo... i can hold off until the update for this one.

Is there anything more to translate or pictures available that you could repost? I think the content of the posts is blocked off to unregistered users.



Which in turned copied from IBM's ThinkPad 600.

I hope they don't copy M1330's design (?) clues... or the keyboard...

I don't see any pictures on that link but I guess/fear it will be more Lenovo 3000 than ThinkPad design. The most important is whether the keyboard layout is screwed or not.

BTW Happy New Year

sorry guys, didn't notice the picture issue. Already updated the original post with pictures.

Thanks for the link....interested to see what comes from it

The pictures look pretty good, thin too

I guess that's a wireless kill switch on the back? Interesting placement of indicator LEDs on the side of the machine. I'd love to see more pictures (including of it opened to see the keyboard and screen), but I guess we'll have to make do for now.

I just noticed the date on the slides though, 2006?



If it's an actual notebook in design stage (see date), with just over 100 made so far, I wouldn't count on it being available any time soon. Four months would be an optimistic guess...

Hopefully the display bezel won't be as wide as the 14.1" widescreen T61's.

so let me guess.. no more 14.1" Txx series?

Based on the VGA port and the width shown in the picture with some calculation, the new thinkpad is about 320.3mm wide. Since a 16:10 13.3" LCD is 286.5mm wide, bezel width = 33.8mm.

Width of 14.1" WXGA LCD T61 is 335mm.
A 16:10 14.1" LCD is 303.7mm wide.
Bezel = 31.3mm.

In other words, the bezel of the new thinkpad is unlikely to be any better than the 14.1" WXGA T61.

I think I'll wait until penryn in any case



If it's an actual notebook in design stage (see date), with just over 100 made so far, I wouldn't count on it being available any time soon. Four months would be an optimistic guess...[/quote]

LOL, I was just thinking about calculating the width using the VGA port as a guide a few minutes ago....

I'm still concerned about the 2006 date on the slides. It sounds a little dated even if we assume the notebooks are to become available Real Soon Now (tm)...

Personally, I'm not going to hold my breath over this. It looks like engineering test platform to me and the chances that it has anything to do with aNY device that will ever go into production are probably fairly slim.

Cheers,

bill b.

I used a different approach. I opened the image in Photoshop and resized it so that my USB flash drive's plug could fit snugly into the USB port. Then I measured the width of the Thinkpad in that resized image to be 315 mm. That agrees very closely with your measurement. So the combined bezel width is about 30 mm, or 15 mm on each side. That's not too bad. For comparison, my R50p's display bezel width is 14 mm on the left and 13 mm on the right.

EDIT: After second thought, 15 mm for such a small screen is actually too much! 13-14 mm for my R50p looks fine because it has a bigger screen.

Do you think there will be reasonable display resolutions option ? Or we get the ultra-low-res W/XGA only like usually

I think all the currently available 13.3" LED screens are WXGA.

So no improvement over X series at all, low-res, TN, no DVI ... (I don't need optical drive).

Well, it has 30% more pixels than the X series. But of course, 1280x800 is a bit low for a 13.3" screen. 1440x900 would be more reasonable, and I would even prefer 1680x1050.

I'd prefer 4:3 but ... I agree that 1440x900 is the lowest acceptable resolution for a 13" screen, 1680x1050 would be good option.

Disagree, I think that 1280x800 and 1440x900 are the only acceptable resolutions. 1680x1050 is pushing it even for 14" (and there isn't a single 1680x1050 14" display), and you want to cramp it into 13"?

A 1680x1050 13.3" display has 148.9 dots per inch, virtually indistinguishable from the 147 DPI of the 1920x1200 15.4" display. And I use 15.0" 2048x1536 screens most of the time, which have 170.7 DPI.

The thinkpad seems quite slim to me (a bit like my macbook, though I would hope lenovo has better cooling).
There are some weird things on these pics however:
1 - no steel hinges? (or just painted black maybe?)
2 - where's the battery?
3 - why the hell is the wireless switch on the back (only reason I could think of is that they couldn't get it anywhere else while keeping the form factor but still...)
(4 - I want to see dvi, don't really understand why it isn't standard yet, a dvi-to-vga convertor is cheap if I'm right)

As for the bezel width, on macbooks etc it's also a thick border... anyone an idea why? It makes the device thinner (probably less sturby) and wider (place for speakers? better to hold on your lap? better for heat?)...

Puppy mentioned no improvement over x-series, but would it really be an x-series replacement? It seems to me that those who buy the x-series mostly want a machine that is as light as possible, so no optical drive etc.
This one seems more as a thinner/lighter t-series model for people not wanting to give up advantages (to eithers opinion offcourse) like the optical drive, "big" screen,...

I love Thinkpad hardware, but I think I need to start getting away from Windows.

You mean would have 148.9 DPI, cause, of course, no such display exists. I never claimed that WUXGA @15.4" was usable, and in fact I don't find it such.

Your preferences regarding resolution are known to me, and I respect them. However, they are very different from those of the average person.

In theory, high resolution should only be an advantage, not a disadvantage. In practice, until there is a way to upscale everything (fonts, images) properly in all aspects of the computer (OS, desktop, browser fonts), using a resolution that is too high is just an eyestrain. Perhaps you are not sensitive to it or willing to live with it, because high resolution is crucial for your tasks, however the majority of users has no need for QXGA or even UXGA, and using ultrahigh res panels would be unnecessary strain.

Vista is supposed to greatly improve upon XP in the font scaling department, but I have yet to try it to see if it really works.

You need to look at the context of the discussion between me and Puppy. We were not saying that all 13.3" screens should be 1680x1050. We were just saying that we wanted 1680x1050. There are multiple resolutions for 17.0", 15.4" and 14.1" widescreens, so why should 13.3" be available only at 1280x800? I agree that few people would want 1680x1050 on such a small screen, but I bet 1440x900 would be very popular.

Then use a different OS on Thinkpad hardware. The first thing I did with my X61s was install Linux (and I'm willing to argue its a more useful machine for it).

For people that want this form factor its sounding like a great concept for a machine. But I am with snessiram, where is the battery? I don't like not having the option of an extended battery. But that all depends on what the battery life would be like in the first place.

++

Thinkpads are great machines to use non-Windows OS's on. In fact, if you were going to get a machine with the intention of wiping Windows I'd think you'd be stupid to not get a Thinkpad.

Let me try to translate the 4 pictures (from the links) if you want to know what they say. However, the translation won't be very precise because sometimes I don't understand the terminology they used.

1/4:
Current status:
The production of SIT has ended. The meeting about MDRR will be held on Dec. 4.
Because of the delay of materials, the production of SVT has been postponed, and will start on Dec. 16.

CMI readiness:
LCD, assembling(?), and packing of WI at SVT level is ready.
The assembling process is being edited. The draft is ready, and will be renewed in SVT.
Something are in the purchase process. Low risk.
The SVT operators will be trained online. Low risk.

Table:
The gap between the LCD and the low part of the front bezel is oversized. It will affect the quality of the product.
After runin(?), dissemble the LCD will result in something which I don't quite understand. This will affect the product cost.
When turning on the keyboard light, there will be light leak from the front bezel. This will affect the quality of the product.

2/4:
The first table is in English already.
The second table:
1. The problem of the location of the S/N sticker is closed. Time is xxxx.
2. The problem of the location of the MAC address sticker is being monitored right now. Time is xxxx.
3. The confirmation of the new version of the S/N sticker is ongoing. Time is xxxx.
4. The determination of the locations of the stickers of the MS and intel label on the palmrest is ongoing. Time is xxxx.
5. The management of the special screws that are required on Japanese UWB version (of this machine) is ongoing. Time is xxxx.

3/4:
This table basically has four columns. The 2nd column is the problem from MFG. The 3rd column is the feedback from WW. The 4th column is the response from CMI. The last column is items that are traced.
1. MFG: The LCD is so thin and so fragile. We are concerned with if the LCD panel will be damaged under production.
WW: 1. The use of this kind of LCD will result in decreasing the thickness of the laptop, and this will enhance the "competition" (I don't know how to translate this one, but I know what it means in Chinese) of our product. 2. This LCD panel will be a standard in the future laptop production.
CMI: 1. This issue has to be highlighted. 2. Enhancing the online trainling of SVT and SOVP.
Tracing: 1. Highlighted. 2. online training: xxxxx.

2. MFG: TP card cannot be reused. This will increase the production cost. We hope that it can be reused after tearing down.
WW: 1. Traditional TP card can not be used because of the limitation of the construction of Kodachi (no space). 2. The market demand Kodachi has TP function. 3. To ensure the functionality of TP, the teardown TP card can not be reused.
CMI: 1. There is only one version of palmrest for Kodachi. The CMI team will try to resolve this problem (the Chinese says too much, and I guess it means this), and ensure that the TP card can be reused. 2. Highlight this issue.
Tracing: 1 and 2 are not important. 3. Try to attach with the palmrest so that it can be teardown together with the palmrest.

3. MFG: The wire of the keyboard light is too thin, and it might be damaged during the production.
WW: 1. If changing the design, some of the parts will be changed as well. So for now we will keep this. 2. No report on this issue in production yet. Monitor this issue.
CMI: Highlight this issue, and report to WW if there are really something wrong.
Tracing: not important.

4. MFG: One can see the cable throught the hole of the keyboard light.
WW: Change the color the the cable to black.
CMI: Monitor this issue.

5. MFG: Need to increase the "support" between the mainboard and the base.
CMI: Tracing and verifying.

6. MFG: Need workers to secure the screw for the fan.
CMI: That can be done on desk. Will be verified in SVT.

7. MFG: Worries about the interference of the keyboard support(?) and the LCD link bar.
CMI: Tracing and verifying.

8. MFG: Worries about screws falls into the holes of heatsink fans.
WW: Low risk.

9. MFG: The wireless wire is hard to be positioned (need to go through a hole of the mainboard).
WW: Need this due to the construction.

10. MFG: The LCD cable is hard to be positioned (need to go through a hole of the keyboard support).
WW: 1. That hole is being maximized. 2. Need this due to the construction.

11: MFG: Should change the torque of the Hex(?) screw to xxxx.
CMI: Don't do that. According to the design requirement, need to have this large torque.

12: MFG: Light leaking of LCD panel.
WW: We think that's a problem. In the SVT level, keep the current situation. In the SOVP level, resolve this problem. WW CMI have opened CMVC.
CMI: Verify the improvement during the SVT and SOVP levels.

4/4:
Characteristics:
1: The number of the total mechenical parts: 13 in total, 5 for LCD and 8 for the assembling.
2. The type of the screws: 5 for assembling, 2 for LCD, 6 in total (don't ask me why 6 in total, I have no idea as well).
3. The number of screws: 52 in total, 15 for LCD.
4 and 5: don't really know how to translate that due to the lack of understanding of the terminology.

Hope this helps.