Lenovo Readies New ThinkBook Family of Laptops
by Anton Shilov on May 3, 2019 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Lenovo
- Notebooks
- Whiskey Lake
- ThinkBook
Lenovo is gearing up to launch a new series of notebooks aimed at mainstream users. The new ThinkBook laptops were recently showcased at a trade show in China and are currently listed by at least two European retailers. Meanwhile, based on model numbers, it looks like that when they launch in the coming weeks, the new ThinkBooks will succeed certain IdeaPad models within Lenovo's laptop product stack.
First demonstrated at CITE 2019 in Shenzhen, China, the new Lenovo ThinkBook S laptops come in machined aluminum chassis and feature a rather strict business-style designs that somewhat resemble Lenovo's IdeaPad 500-series mobile PCs. The manufacturer showcased two models at the trade show — the ThinkBook S540-13-IWL and the ThinkBook S540-14-IWL — featuring 13.3-inch and 14.1-inch Full-HD IPS displays respectively.
Image Source: Notebook Italia
The flagship Lenovo ThinkBook S models are based on Intel’s Core i7-8565U (Whiskey Lake) processors and are paired with 16 GB of RAM as well as a 512 GB M.2 NVMe SSD. Select models will also come with a discrete AMD Radeon 540X GPU, but expect this one to be available only inside premium SKUs. In fact, based on Lenovo’s usual approach, expect to see the Lenovo to release the ThinkBook S in a wide variety of configurations in order to cover several market segments.
Both demonstrated ThinkBook S models will also be outfitted with Lenovo’s Accutype keyboard, a rather large touchpad, a 720p webcam with IR sensors for Windows Hello, stereo speakers with Harman badge, a microphone array, three USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI output, and a 3.5-mm audio jack for headsets. As for dimensions and weight, the 13.3 and 14.1-inch machines feature 15.9 and 16.5-mm z-heights and weigh 1.34 and 1.5 kilograms respectively.
Image Source: Notebook Italia
At present, Ennebi Computers from Italy and Dateks from Latvia list ThinkBook S 13-inch laptops featuring unknown configurations. The former lists the PC for €963, whereas the latter says that the notebook will be available on May 25.
Lenovo yet has to formally confirm the plan to replace certain IdeaPad models with ThinkBooks, but based on the fact that the company officially showcased the machines at a trade show and two retailers are already listing them, it's clear that their launch is imminent. What remains to be seen is how exactly the company intends to clearly distinguish between ThinkBooks aimed at consumers and ThinkPads engineered for business and corporate users.
Related Reading:
- Lenovo at CES 2019: ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gets Thinner Aluminum Body, 4K HDR LCD
- Lenovo Re-Engineers ThinkPad X1 Tablet: 13-inch LCD, Quad-Core i7, TB3, 9.5 Hrs
- Lenovo Reveals Yoga C930 Convertible: 13.9-Inch LCD with Dolby Vision, 8th Gen Core i7
- Lenovo Launches Yoga 920 Convertible: 13.9” 4K LCD, 8th Gen Core i7, TB3, 3 Pounds
- Lenovo’s Yoga Book Convertible Scraps Physical Keyboard in Favor of Touch-Sensitive Surface
Sources: Notebook Italia, Liliputing
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Targon - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
It's too bad that they are still spending too much effort on machines with Meltdown and Spoiler Inside processors.HStewart - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
Old news - please get off this stuff - I still have yet to see a real cases of this #@@##PeachNCream - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
It is still relevant and there are exploits in the wild. Ignoring them or discouraging discussion about them due to brand loyalty as a consequence of being a janitor at a nameless Intel campus a decade ago doesn't excuse the company and OEMs from working together to address the problem.HStewart - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
I have to see a real exploit of this and it not just Intel. AMD and ARM also have issues. This is not about Intel and should not be used it discuss on a product that uses Intel CPU. BTW 8th and 9th generation cpu pretty much have most of issues resolved and Sunny Cove takes it further.brakdoo - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
Intel fan? First your comments on Movidius, now this.Intel is promoting hardware fixes right now and all you have is "please get off this stuff"...
arashi - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link
Intel marketing. He's in every Intel thread proclaiming them as the Messiah.Alexvrb - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
I agree that it is mostly old news, and even the software-based mitigations don't generally hurt late-gen models too much (varies by workload, though). If you have a slightly older chip well... sucks to be you. If you have a fairly old chip, you're probably not very well protected at all. At least there's more competition in the market when you're ready to buy now.Either way you likely wouldn't know if any given piece of malware was using these or similar vulnerabilities. Just because you're not aware of something, doesn't mean malware authors don't know about it. That assumes the software makes its presence known in the first place, rather than just collecting information and relaying it back.
One more thing: There's no guarantee current mitigations will help with future variants.
Irata - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link
While AMD and ARM are partially affected, Intel CPU are fully affected by *all* discovered flaws.So it really is not the same. Not even close.
GreenReaper - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
Well, Whiskey Lake *does* have _some_ hardware fixes inside:https://www.anandtech.com/show/13301/spectre-and-m...
They don't have it for BTI, which is unfortunate, but arguably reptoline-based solutions will help decrease the impact of mitigation.
The big question is whether this is a 15W or 25W design - judging by these test results, this is far more important for performance, at least under any kind of sustained load:
https://www.techspot.com/review/1782-intel-whiskey...
HStewart - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
I have gone though 2 different generations of ThinkPad's with my work and one thing I am concern is since IBM sold off ThinkPad and other computes that the line is degrading in quality. I personally have two Lenovo based computers ( Y50 and S100 ) and I would said the quality of these computers is nothing compare to my work computers.My work has switch from Lenovo Think Pads to Dell laptops and I personally have two Dell ( XPS 13 2in1 and XPS 15 2in1) and except for some issues with video in XPS 15 2in1, the quality is 2nd to none in my opinion.
I hope this ThinkBook line is not just Lenovo monopolizing on Think Pad line. Of course newest Lenovo has 4th generation CPU while Dell has 8th generation which probably makes a big difference but I think most is just construction of the laptop. It might just me, but I see nothing warrant complaints about Dell laptops. Lenovo is a different story, I will never purchase another one.