Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

General Questions, Rumors, Real news & More
Post Reply
Message
Author
Puppy
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2821
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:52 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#1 Post by Puppy » Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:40 pm

https://mspoweruser.com/lenovos-upcomin ... op-leaked/

According to the latest leak from WinFuture, it looks like Lenovo is planning to introduce a brand new series of laptops. The Lenovo V730 will be one of the first laptop in this series and it is a business laptop that blends the design elements of both IdeaPad and ThinkPad brands. When you look at the above image, you can notice that ThinkPad’s unique keyboard and pointing stick are missing, but the its body is similar to that of ThinkPad.

As some of us already predicted, Lenovo is going to kill original ThinkPad design including trackpoint slowly. This is first attempt.
ThinkPad (1992 - 2012): R51, X31, X220
Huawei MateBook 13

MikalE
ThinkPadder
ThinkPadder
Posts: 1451
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2015 9:51 pm
Location: Marissa, Illinois

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#2 Post by MikalE » Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:57 pm

I hate progress and innovation in some things.
A31p P-IV 2Ghz, 2MB, 2653-R6U
T500 T9600 2055-BE9
T510 i5 4384-DV7
T510 i7 4349-A64
T520 i7QM 4242-4UU Highly Modified
T16 i7 1260P 21BV000SUS

Ibthink
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 966
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:28 am
Location: Gelnhausen, Germany

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#3 Post by Ibthink » Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:26 am

Puppy wrote:
Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:40 pm
As some of us already predicted, Lenovo is going to kill original ThinkPad design including trackpoint slowly. This is first attempt.
Only if you want to pretend that this V-laptop is a new thing. Lenovo has had this sort of "small business laptop" line for years, starting with the old Lenovo 3000 systems.
IBM ThinkPad R50e | lenovo ThinkPad X301 | lenovo ThinkPad Z61t

Puppy
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2821
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:52 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#4 Post by Puppy » Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:03 am

Not sure whether Lenovo 3000 was targeted to (small) business. I think it was rather Edge that has trackpoint.

As for removing trackpoint from ThinkPad, we already know Lenovo can do it, if it saves $1 and won't affect sales in total. The number of current ThinkPad corporate customers who prefer trackpoint over touchpad is very low, unfortunately.
ThinkPad (1992 - 2012): R51, X31, X220
Huawei MateBook 13

Ibthink
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 966
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:28 am
Location: Gelnhausen, Germany

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#5 Post by Ibthink » Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:42 am

Puppy wrote:
Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:03 am
Not sure whether Lenovo 3000 was targeted to (small) business. I think it was rather Edge that has trackpoint.
Lenovo 3000 was Lenovos small business effort long before ThinkPad Edge was announced. You can see this here in an old commercial where Lenovo talks about which Notebook line is right for which business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cugy8XcOCCY

Lenovos small-business efforts shifted to ThinkPad in 2008 with the announcement of the ThinkPad SL-Series. ThinkPad SL actually shared some design-similarities with late Lenovo 3000. Later SL was replaced by Edge, which was essentially the same, but more "modern" design. Edge is now E-Series, so Lenovo still has the "ThinkPad Small business line".

But Lenovo 3000 was never really "ended" and this V-Series is just a modern Lenovo 3000, in essence - this line has existed for years as a separate "small business" option. For example, these V-Series models from 2010.
Puppy wrote:
Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:03 am
As for removing trackpoint from ThinkPad, we already know Lenovo can do it, if it saves $1 and won't affect sales in total. The number of current ThinkPad corporate customers who prefer trackpoint over touchpad is very low, unfortunately.
As the ThinkPad 2013 generation and the buttonless TrackPad showed, things are a little bit more complicated than that. There are still enough customers who want a TrackPoint, thankfully.
IBM ThinkPad R50e | lenovo ThinkPad X301 | lenovo ThinkPad Z61t

Puppy
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2821
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:52 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#6 Post by Puppy » Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:46 am

Ibthink wrote:
Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:42 am
As the ThinkPad 2013 generation and the buttonless TrackPad showed, things are a little bit more complicated than that. There are still enough customers who want a TrackPoint, thankfully.
There were also a lot of them who wanted a real keyboard.
ThinkPad (1992 - 2012): R51, X31, X220
Huawei MateBook 13

Ibthink
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 966
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:28 am
Location: Gelnhausen, Germany

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#7 Post by Ibthink » Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:15 am

Puppy wrote:
Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:46 am
There were also a lot of them who wanted a real keyboard.
Apparently not enough to make Lenovo rethink their decision (which they would have, if companies really complained about it in mass).
IBM ThinkPad R50e | lenovo ThinkPad X301 | lenovo ThinkPad Z61t

TPFanatic
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2213
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:29 pm
Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#8 Post by TPFanatic » Tue Dec 05, 2017 3:50 pm

How come this thing can have dedicated touchpad buttons and Thinkpads outside the P series can't?

Systematician
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 6:15 pm
Location: Bergen, Norway

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#9 Post by Systematician » Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:34 am

Yes, that is a very relevant question. How does Lenovo consider a clickpad to be more business-like?

Puppy
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2821
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:52 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#10 Post by Puppy » Wed Dec 06, 2017 7:06 am

Systematician wrote:
Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:34 am
Yes, that is a very relevant question. How does Lenovo consider a clickpad to be more business-like?
By cloning other vendor's features and removing unique ThinkPad ones. Do competition has ThinkLight? No, we remove it. Do competition has useable keyboard layout? No, we break it. Do competition has big touchpad? Yes, we make it bigger in favor of past ThinkPad classic features. That's Lenovo logic. If they could stick an apple logo on the back side of the display lid they'd do that :( Just to be average, generic, non-recognizable and replaceable.
ThinkPad (1992 - 2012): R51, X31, X220
Huawei MateBook 13

dr_st
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9691
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:20 am
Location: Israel

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#11 Post by dr_st » Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:27 am

TPFanatic wrote:
Tue Dec 05, 2017 3:50 pm
How come this thing can have dedicated touchpad buttons and Thinkpads outside the P series can't?
You know, the P series are really awesome laptops. A friend of mine has a P50, and other than the fact that it's still a 6-row keyboard, it has a very good selection of features, and is the closest to classic Thinkpads in many aspects of the design.

I think I would be happy if Lenovo followed up the T25 with a P25 (or P26). Classic 7-row keyboard + numpad (like on W70x) would be a very nice addition to the workstation line.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

Dekks
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 583
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:38 am
Location: Birmingham, UK

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#12 Post by Dekks » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:20 am

Puppy wrote:
Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:03 am
As for removing trackpoint from ThinkPad, we already know Lenovo can do it, if it saves $1 and won't affect sales in total. The number of current ThinkPad corporate customers who prefer trackpoint over touchpad is very low, unfortunately.
Wrong but that's never stopped you before.
Home - Win 10 MSi GF63 Gaming Laptop /Arch GNOME 3/X230 Tablet /X61 [Korean] - Debian 10/T60p - Ubuntu 20.10 Helix 2
Work - Win10/Thinkpad X1 Tablet Gen 2

Puppy
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2821
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:52 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#13 Post by Puppy » Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:26 am

Dekks wrote:
Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:20 am
Wrong but that's never stopped you before.
If you know a large company that use ThinkPads (there are very few of them now over there) check how many people actually use trackpoint. It'll give you the answer.
ThinkPad (1992 - 2012): R51, X31, X220
Huawei MateBook 13

Summilux
Junior Member
Junior Member
Posts: 497
Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2010 8:02 am
Location: Paris (Latin Europe)

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#14 Post by Summilux » Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:50 pm

I agree with Puppy. Most people haven't been comfortable with the trackpoint. In this day and age where touching the computer screen is seen as an input, I very much doubt there are many trackpoint users left. They (we) are a dying breed.

One more reason for us to go our own way and finally crowdfund a proper laptop, because nobody should be so deluded as to believe that Lenovo will stand up for us.
Deathwisher
T60 2007-FSG (stolen)
X220 4287-CTO

dr_st
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9691
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:20 am
Location: Israel

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#15 Post by dr_st » Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:28 am

Puppy wrote:
Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:26 am
If you know a large company that use ThinkPads (there are very few of them now over there) check how many people actually use trackpoint. It'll give you the answer.
It doesn't matter how many people actually use the trackpoint; at this point it is still a a checkbox item on business-class notebooks. My company uses laptops from Lenovo, HP and DELL - all of them have trackpoints.

Would IT departments of large companies object to purchasing trackpoint-less laptops in the future? No idea. It may be a matter of who blinks first. As long as HP and DELL have them, Lenovo will not remove the trackpoint from actual business Thinkpads. Mess with it (like they did with the keyboard) the may, and in fact they already did, making it shorter.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

Puppy
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2821
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:52 am
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Re: Lenovo’s upcoming non-ThinkPad business laptop leaked

#16 Post by Puppy » Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:32 am

dr_st wrote:
Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:28 am
Would IT departments of large companies object to purchasing trackpoint-less laptops in the future?
I'd expect it because:
  • MacBook doesn't have it
  • People want bigger touchpad
  • People don't like the trackpoint on the keyboard
  • Removing can save at least $1 and can be promoted as innovation
Note that the thread started by Lenovo news promoting trackpoint-less laptop as new model for companies. They've started to try it and waits for response.
Last edited by Puppy on Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
ThinkPad (1992 - 2012): R51, X31, X220
Huawei MateBook 13

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “GENERAL ThinkPad News/Comments & Questions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 25 guests