Some news from the european "LenovoLive 2007" Tour

[vkyr]

Today I visited a LenovoLive 2007 event in europe, in order to see and get some infos on the new (and maybe future) Thinkpad models.

At the Lenovo exhibition have been among the actual Thinkpad and 3000 series models (T60, X60, N100, V100 etc.) also some of the new 14" widescreen T61 and R61 models and one (hopefully soon to be announced) X61Tablet. - They didn't showed any of the the other new awaited X-series models (X61, X61s) there, but I was told that there are only minor internal differences between the actual and new X-series models.

I compared the new T61 and R61 models close to each other and realized only minor optical differences between the two. However, the T61 is only slightly a little bit smaller and more rounded at the front in contrast to the R61. Interestingly the materials used for the palm rest of the two seem to be different, overall I would say that the T61 has the better haptic feeling here. Also the outer display cover of both is slightly different, I was easily able to cave the R61 display cover, so it did some flexing, were in contrast the T61 display cover was rock solid and didn't bend or flex when pressed hard from the outside. - Thus I would say, that the outer side used materials of the new T61 series are still a little top notch better than those used for the R61 series.

The X61Tablet I saw, was a sort of early pre-production model, which had a glossy piano like palm rest instead of the usual one, which will be used in the production models. Other than that pre-production model palm rest and it internals, I wasn't able to realize any differences between the actual X60T and X61T models.

Some infos I got about the T61 and R61 were, AFAI was told...

- T61 will only be available with 14" 4:3, 14" and 15,4" widescreen TFT panels, so there will be no 15" 4:3 T61 model.

- R61 will be offered additionally with 15" 4:3 TFT-panels, but sadly of course, as we all already know, there will be no 15" IPS panel anymore.

- The new X61/X61s/X61T series will mostly only have internal santa rosa based changes. The X60/X60s have been internally changed (...so I've been told from one Lenovo guy) to address the palm rest heat problem and they also seem to use internally new fans and slightly different heat pipe ways to handle the heat. The position of the fingerprint reader has been moved to the right and the position of the Thinklight has also slightly changed. - There will be for the next year only 4:3 TFT panels for the X-series and it seems you still get a SXGA+ resolution TFT panel only for the X60Tablet.

- The Z-series, as we all also already know will die in favor of the T61/R61 widescreen models. And thus (AFAIK) there won't be any titan based covers offered for the other series.

[noetus]

Does killing the Z and changing the T to widescreen amount to an admission that the previous marketing strategy - T 4:3 "business" and Z widescreen "multimedia" was a failure, do you think? And why drop the titanium cover - also a failure?

IBM Thinkpads used to be the vanguard in innovative changes - and changes that STAYED. Witness trackpoint, security subsytem, and many others. Since Lenovo took over, the innovation has seemed more fashion-driven and more reckless, don't you think?

[Tholek]

And why drop the titanium cover - also a failure?

I was about to post the same. I guess the silver finish may have been too unpopular with die-hard TP fans.

Is there a black titanium? Maybe a black rubberized titanium would've done. Either way, any titanium would interfere with wireless radio, and we know that was an impetus for the roll cages. I guess titanium is gone for good.

[vkyr]

I don't know the exact reasons and motivations for why Lenovo changed it's minds related to killing the Z-series and thus maybe also Thinkpad titan-covers. But one of their arguments, for killing the Z-series was, that the new T61/R61 widescreen models would otherwise overlap too much with the actual Z-series models.

I also don't know and can't tell you, if they instead might plan to offer maybe some future T61/R61 models with titan display covers.

The LenovoLive 2007 event I visited was more business-partner concentrated and it seemed at least to me, that Lenovo is more listening to their resellers and business partners than to individual endusers or low quantity customers.

When I criticised their display panel strategy, which will undoubtly be, that they sooner or later in the near future will also only offer widescreen display panels, they told me that the market forces them to do so. - In other words, they said that their competitors (mainly HP etc. in the business domain) also only offer widescreen panels and that they have difficulties to still get 4:3 TFT-panels or specific 4:3 panels, like the 15" 4:3 IPS panels, at all.

However, of course I believe that also a tendency to be cost-effective may play a huge role for Lenovo here, since actually widescreen panels are offered much cheaper on the market as certain 4:3 panels. Thus there is also nowadays a problem in getting specific 4:3 TFT-panels still in higher quantities, since most TFT-panel producers are more and more only concentrating on producing widescreen panels and panels for the lucrative LCD TV domain. - This and maybe some other factors, maybe the reasons why Lenovo decided to overall change some of it's previous strategies. However, these are just my personal assumption and thus they might not be the real reasons behind the doing of Lenovo.

Is Lenovo more fashion-driven? - Well, I would say that actually the whole market in the notebook consumer and business domain is somehow more fashion-driven and thus Lenovo might be trying to also be a little bit more up-to-date with their competitors in this segment. - One thing I realized today is, that they are trying to leave the IBM image and logo behind them, meaning that they trying to push the Lenovo brand and just to keep the Thinkpad name.

[Tholek]

One thing I realized today is, that they are trying to leave the IBM image and logo behind them, meaning that they trying to push the Lenovo brand and just to keep the Thinkpad name.

They may be in for a rude awakening there. Their self-branded notebook series hasn't yet truly proven itself. I've known a few who only considered them thinking some of the IBM techs may have worked on them as well.

[vkyr]

Maybe I didn't explained it well, when I said "...they are trying to leave the IBM image and logo behind them...". This statement I made was meant for the Thinkpad line and related to the "IBM Thinkpad" stickers/buttons on these. Lenovo is now trying always to put "Lenovo Thinkpad" now on these instead. So they are trying to push their "Lenovo" name brand instead of the former "IBM" brand name.


Related to the Lenovo 3000 series, the guys from Lenovo were telling to the audience, that the same people who designed the Thinkpads, had also designed the Lenovo 3000 series and so on. They (Lenovo) think the 3000 line doesn't look this bad, where most visitors were different opinion. - In sum up, one business partner said, ...that he can't sell such things with a glare panel to his customers, nobody of his customers would be willing to buy these 3000 line notebooks.

However, there are still huge differences between the Thinkpad line and the Lenovo 3000 line. - The Thinkpads have protection rollcages, overall a by far better build quality and also other goodies, like matt anti-glare panels, spill prove keyboards and drain holes inside the chassis etc. etc. The Lenovo 3000 line in contrast here has only a slightly better than usual keyboard and that's mostly all.

It was pretty obvious, that the audience was more interested in the Thinkpad line than anything else.

[Tholek]

No, I understood.

The reaction they got was what I was referring to.