Hi,
here is the first picture of the L430/L530:

http://www.lenovo.com/images/products/n ... s/L530.png

The new hinges are looking much classier than the old L-Series and it looks much thinner than the L420/L520. It also shares the new chiclet keyboard with the T/W(and maybe the new X)-Series.

This thinkpad is begging for speakers at the side of the keyboard. Also I think it's kind of stupid to have 6 row keyboard on a thinkpad this size. I do enjoy chiclet style and feel for a change but larger thinkpads such as T/W and L should have full size desktop style keyboard. Kind of odd design.

The speakers are at the front. Maybe speakers on the sides are a premium feature only for T-series? But overall I think this new design of the L-series is better than the old style of the Lx20-series, which was essentially the SL style.

Also I think it's kind of stupid to NOT have a numpad !

No, I think it is good that they abandoned the numpad, because with a numpad, the keyboard and the Ultranav would be shifted to the left. That would destroy the ergonomics.

Quickly enough you're got used to

Why? I don´t need the numblock and I never use it when I use a desktop keyboard. There are enough 15,6" notebooks out there with numblock, and I am happy, that Lenovo still makes some without.

Actually the speakers at the front are good. Soundwaves bounce off of the table and the overall sound is much better and louder. You can hear it if you lift the laptop, the sound is much worse.