Thinkpads Forum

Has the W700 been discontinued? Will there be a 17" replacement?

I've been told twice by Lenovo sales reps that the W70x line is DEAD. Today's announcement of some new laptops suggests that it is, indeed, extinct.

Most(but not all) of the goodies from the W70x line are available on the new W520. Whether the W520 will work for you is dependent upon how much you need some of those missing goodies.

Hard to argue with a speedy Intel cpu chip, up to 32G ram, and some USB/ExpressCard options.

That said, the W520 is not a -complete- replacement for the W70x laptop.

WHAT??? Are you serious??? What a tremendous disappointment. How funny to find this out the same day the MacBook Pro's got their hardware refresh. The 17" MBP (as do all the others) now has Intel's "Light Peak" 10Gbps (in each direction) ThunderBolt port where you can daisy-chain up to 7 devices, everything from RAID storage devices to super high-resolution monitors. Therefore: USB 3.0 is dead. eSATA? Ditto. Dead as can be. In fact, SATA III @ 6Gbps is now a bottleneck. LOL...

I guess Lenovo doesn't even want to compete in the 17" high-end notebook market any longer. This is quite shocking. I was hoping for a W710 or W702 or 705, whatever was behind the W70x vs. W7x0 naming convention non-sense. I guess we can add the W700 ThinkPad series to USB 3.0, eSATA, and FireWire 800 list: D.O.A. Deader than dead. This blows.

Dumping the W7xx series does blow. For the first time in my computing life I am actually thinking about going to the dark side (Apple).

Give me a break - this cannot be true. The 15" models was marginal for me when they went 16/10. Now, with the 16/9 displays , there simply isnt enough vertical real estate available for the work I do. Either bring back the choice of a 16/10 15" or bring a 17" model. Otherwise I'm off to MBP after beeing a dedicated Thinkpad fan for 13 years.

It remains to be seen if this "ThunderBolt" tech catches on in a big way. Most important to me is compatibility with all the software I use. These Intel Apple computers have never been very good about running Windows (in my experience), so if that's what you're counting on, good luck. And the screens on all Mac laptops have been, and will likely continue to be, TN lcd's.

I think there were a few problems with the W70x series, that if fixed, could return it to being a viable competitor:

1.) Price. It's just too expensive for what it offers- especially the 'ds' models which pushed 3200 bucks with no options and even the standard ones. It doesn't have a proper graphics card for the work you'd want to do with one- it shouldn't have been an Quadro 880FX in the first place, and for 3200 bucks everyone expects more than that (and they have every right to).
It also doesn't have a 3-year warranty as standard- if I'm paying 3200 (or even 2000) dollars I want that machine to be guaranteed to last and the company to stand behind what it sells.

2.) Competition. It's hard to justify the cost of a 3200 dollar machine with a mobile processor when there are laptops that, for about the same price, offer desktop processors and vastly more powerful graphics options,

3.) Just the 17" screen. That screen isn't 4:3 or even 16:10 anymore (I believe it was 16:10 on the W700 and 16:9 on the W701). If you're doing serious development work, that is unacceptable- you need more vertical space to do work. For 2000-3200 dollars asking price, Lenovo should be able to order some of those screens: since it is, after all, a premium product.

Also, 17" screens shouldn't be exclusive to the W70x series.
I don't know if they ever plan to make a T720, but if they do I think it would have more sales than a W72x- since the T520 (on which a 720 would be based) is almost as powerful, it would have a keypad, and a 17" screen.

So, in summary:

1.) Needs more powerful hardware (desktop-class processors)
2.) Needs to be less expensive (or have more powerful hardware and stay the same price).
3.) Needs to have a 4:3 screen (or 16:10 if that's not possible).

It's a powerful machine, but it's unmarketable and loses to more powerful laptops that cost less.

So, if you want the 17" real estate you need to leave Lenovo. So be it.

drewk425 wrote:So, if you want the 17" real estate you need to leave Lenovo. So be it.

Or you get a smaller notebook that you can actually carry with you and you use a big monitor at your work place.

This is dreadful news, if true. I also absolutely must have the vertical space. Fortunately my W701 is only a year old and the market may change again by the time I'm ready to replace it, but just out of curiosity, has anyone compared the Lenovo W7xx's to the Dell M6500's? I switched from Dell laptops to Lenovo 10 years ago because I found them of higher quality than Dell, but if Lenovo doesn't find my market niche profitable I'll have to give Dell another try.

I used to have an M6400. The M6500 is an incremental upgrade. The build quality was fantastic, top notch really. All metal, loved the backlit screen. Very fast wit a Q9300 quad core, came with a monster 210watt ac adapter. Easy to scratch the metal exterior, sadly. The LCD was difficult/next to impossible to color manage (I had the RGB-LED screen and Windows XP Pro), and I hated the Dell management software. If you're a fan of Lenovo's system software, you will hate Dells. The M6500 does have the option of the Premier Color LCD panel, which is probably a pretty high quality display. I would consider the HP 8740W, which I have, first, especially if screen quality is a concern. The Dell isn't going to be cheaper, after all.

Well, now that the W520 is HERE TODAY, I went over to Lenovo.com and did a dry run on configuring one the way I'd want it. Some $4400 later(plus tax), I had a little sumpin' sumpin' to crave

Dunno if/when I'll get one, but for W70x fans, there does appear to be a little something in this for monitor expandability: ala the minidock, part # 433830U. Over at the Lenovo site ==>> http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... =823948232
the description is typically "Lenovo vague". Mentions two DVI and two DP ports, but no info on whether the DVI is DVI-I or DVI-D. DVI-D being the preferable port, for more bandwidth. Some verbiage about "Select systems, including those with NVIDIA Optimus technology, allow for up to three video ports on the dock to be used simultaneously."

Surprisingly, in view of the latest 'no ExpressCard port' trend, the W520 still allows for -one- ExpressCard slot, so anyone addicted to ViDocks has a little more time left...

So, for those of us who are 'monitorly challenged', there looks to be a way to stuff several external monitors into this baby. Exactly how many, and which 'best' way to do it remains to be seen.

Anyone who actually buys one of these, please start a new thread on monitor hookups, please

For those who like LOTS of hard drives, I'd guess we're back to the Primary + Ultrabay setup, altho I didn't see anything (or check) about ultrabay capability; I'm just assuming it'll have one. For my usage, SSDs can be found with combo SATA/USB ports, so I can plop 'em outside the laptop and just run a USB cable(not as fast as eSATA, but good enough for me). At this point, I would surmise a typical setup would be for an SSD for the primary(fast), combined with a conventional high capacity hard drive for data, plugged into the ultrabay slot(assuming it -does- have one). If one wants additional conventional HDs, I suppose an enclosure plugged into a USB 3.0 slot would be the way to go.

So, not as slick as a W70x, but still somewhat workable.

In my particular case, I could probably squeeze by with a W520 vs. my W700, assuming I can cram lots of monitors into it...time will tell, though...

I actually had the pleasure of having one of the new i7 quad core MBP 17-inch'ers down for a test for the last 2 weeks.
Great machine - not a thinkpad though, and sadly my loaner was equipped with the mirror screen instead of the matte option.
Despite the mirror, one could see that the display is of good quality, and colors was quite accurate right out of the box.
My W700 is still holding is own with the Qx9300, FX3700 and raid-0 SSD's .. The one thing I envy the most is the battery life
But anyway, I'll probably keep my W700 for another year and wait for the next gen Macbook Pro, but for me it will be the only way forward - Windows 7 will run fine in VMware and I like OSX too.

Wouldn't mind if there was a practical comparison between the w701/w701ds and the (presumed follow-on) W520. Some of us don't mind huge if it means that cooling is done right. The W520 seems to be more of the same cut down of good features.


That said, how far would one have to equip a W520 to match a w701ds?

based on the CPU benchmarks itself, even the fastest W701 cannot match with new sandy bridge processors.

commander wrote:based on the CPU benchmarks itself, even the fastest W701 cannot match with new sandy bridge processors.

My point was that since it has been discontinued, was looking for where the W520 would meet the well-stocked W701ds. I know that I'm not going to see dual screens onboard, a numpad, or an onboard digitizer; I'm wanting to know how far upward to take a W520 to make up for the lack of the W701/W701ds.

The CPU and battery life appear to be a step up, but the graphics may be a step down outside of the texture memory.

(n.b. - if this is too far offthread of a question, I'll split this into its own thread)

They thing I like most about the W700/W701 series is the expandability. Compared to the W520, more hard drives, more display ports and more expresscard port possibilities. Better cooling doesn't hurt, too, although the W520 looks pretty good in that respect.

Still waiting to see if Lenovo will change it's mind and come out with another W70x product...

AMATX wrote:They thing I like most about the W700/W701 series is the expandability. Compared to the W520, more hard drives, more display ports and more expresscard port possibilities. Better cooling doesn't hurt, too, although the W520 looks pretty good in that respect.

Still waiting to see if Lenovo will change it's mind and come out with another W70x product...

For such a discontinued laptop, Lenovo still features it in their advertising:
http://www.lenovo.com/images/products/p ... s/tab3.jpg - still referring to the discontinued model.

Well, on the negative side, it's pretty much all been said...dead & done; end of that story.

On the -hopeful- side:

* Maybe the W70x is in the pipeline, but hasn't popped yet.

* Maybe Lenovo is waiting to judge potential demand for a new W70x.

* Maybe Lenovo is waiting to see how the W520 is received and sells. If significant number of the higher end quad chip versions sell, that could mean the W70x crowd is being met via these. It could also mean there's enough high end demand to warrant a W70x.

* Otoh, if high end W520s don't fly out the doors, then Lenovo saves production costs that would be wasted on a W70x, with way too low demand. No need to develop a production with very low demand.