I mostly understand the numeric XXX, Z, T, R, A, G... stuff but I have always been interested in the letter designation after the number.

So "p" obviously is the premium line, and this designation has been around since the A2Xp (I did hear of a T23p but can find no reference of it anywhere in in any of IBM's t*books).

Before the "p" was the X and Z designations, 240X, 240Z, 600X, 600Z(??), 770X, 770Z, and I assume the X was premium and Z enhanced premium (faster CPU etc).

Then we had the "ED" both for the 760 and 770 (and the "D" for the 765). Unsure of what those indicated? And also the "m" in the A2X line...

So... 1999-2003 we had "X"/"Z"
2003- present "P"

Any others?

Well, recently (In the 200/300/400/500 series) they've done away with the "p" designation, and models previously distinguished by P are now a whole new line (W series).

So if you had T61/T61p - the subsequent generation changed to T500/W500.

Then they added the "s" suffix to indicate slim models. So you had X60/X60s with the latter being a slimmer and lighter model. This continued with all the 12" X series so far except maybe the X220, for which there is currently no corresponding s model. Also for 14" T series since T400 there has been a corresponding "s" model - T400s, T410s, T420s.

Apparently not so obvious. The 'P' designation was for 'performance' not 'premium'.

Oops I did mean performance, sorry
I'm not sure why I stated premium (probably because of the price!)

yes, the "s" obviously.. forgot that one as well.

Did the X/Z designation imply a "performance" model, I think so, meaning that the X/Z was IBM's designation before putting the "p" on the A2X line (and beyond).

The 760XL enhanced version was the 760XD, no logic there. And I am curious about the "ED" designation, that came with the 770 ("ED" introduced with the 760)... (I assume the range went 770, 770ED, 770X, 770Z).

1992-1999 (No real designation for performance, ad-hoc)
1999-2003 "ED", "X", "Z" on certain lines
2003- "p"erformance (ED/X/Z dropped)
2007 "s"lim

roguetrooper wrote:



Not quite...

While it can be argued that 770Z was the crown jewel of the 7xx series, 240Z was a Japan-only model based on 240X but with a different screen resolution.

There never was a 600Z that I'm aware of, 600X being the top of that range. First it was 600, then 600E and finally 600X.

To confuse everyone just a pinch more you had 570 which was replaced with 570E...never got to the X version...

And the we have the ultimate maze in the guise of A2x series, where in most cases letters meant something only if you were aware of the screen size and resolution at the same time...

I think the letter was probably screen size and much better processors and such, I own a 380Z and I got in a 380ED for a repair. My 380Z is the top model out of the 380 series, a full size 13" LCD a 300MHz Pentium II and a max of 160MB RAM. The 380ED I was fixing had only a small 12" LCD with the low grade display having the brightness adjustment bar on the side of the LCD. The sticker said Intel Pentium MMX. Also to get into it, the 380ED didn't have the highend built in surroundsound speakers like my 380Z has. And can't remember if the 380ED had a USB port since this was like 2008, but my 380Z has a USB port. Also my 380Z runs Windows XP Professional very well.

But I could be wrong about it standing for the screen size as I own the top end 390X and it has a small 12" LCD and should be the large 13". The ThinkPads of that era was 13" as the largest displays you could buy at that time.

Back around 1995-1996, when CD-ROM was becoming more common on laptops, the 760/765 and 360/365 models used the D designation for the units with CD-ROM drives. E.g. 365XD. Otherwise they came with floppy drives in the bay.

Don't forget the "t" designation...no, not tablets!

The short lived Z-series had "m", "p", and "t" models, where the "t" was the smaller/lighter version. For example, the Z61t was pretty much the same guts as an Intel graphics T60 but with a widescreen and a tiny battery. My mother loves hers, though the battery life is deplorable.

I was looking up info on my IBM ThinkPad i1200 and came across this ThinkPad i1300, It dont have the "IBM THINKPAD" brand logo but a "LG IBM" The LG Corp. logo with IBM's blue logo.

http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/153/iseries.png

I even found a image of a ThinkPad 240 with the same logo