DailyTech - Lenovo Unveils Multi-touch X200 and T400s Notebooks

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Gadgets Lenovo Unveils Multi-touch X200 and T400s Notebooks
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - September 15, 2009 9:44 AM

13 comment(s) - last by sbtech.. on Sep 17 at 8:54 AM

Lenovo X200 (Source: Lenovo)

The X200 convertible laptop also has a sunlight readable screen option

Lenovo has announced new multi-touch tablet notebooks today called the ThinkPad x200 Tablet PC and the ThinkPad T400s laptop. The X200 also has a new option for a super bright optional screen that can be viewed in the sun. The X200 tablet is aimed at those who work in education and the medical fields and the new updates allow the users to control the machine using gestures like pinching, zoom, tapping, and flicking rather than using a mouse.

The Lenovo T400s laptop is for pros in engineering and design settings and has an optional multitouch screen that replaces the mouse and lets the designers move objects on screen using fingers. The firmware of both laptops is optimized to handle slightly imprecise taps on the screen like when closing a window to navigating to the Start menu.

The screens on both notebooks also have a fingerprint resistant coating to help keep smudges at bay and the screen clean. Battery life for the machines is claimed to be up to nine hours. The X200 can be fitted with Intel Centrino Pro processors and Intel Core 2 Duo Low Voltage processors. The system supports up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM and has available Intel Turbo Memory.

The X200 uses 2.5-inch hard drives including 5400 rpm 320GB units and 500GB 7200rpm units. Among the options for the system is an UltraBase that adds an optical drive to the machine. The new X200 with multitouch will start at $1,654 and the T400S multitouch starts at $1,999.

Both of the multitouch screen systems also feature SimpleTap that allows the user to double top anywhere on the screen to launch an app. A grid of square tiles can be opened to allow the user to control aspects of the machines like turning Wi-Fi on and off. Users can also create their own tiles for quickly accessing websites and applicators.

In August Lenovo debuted a new nettop computer called the Q100 along with the D400 home server.

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Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By Aeternum on 9/15/2009 10:08:58 AM , Rating: 2

Seriously though sounds like a good product with good features. I like the touch screen feature for not needing a keyboard for everything like with the EEE pc for example or HP Touchsmart but it seems it wouldnt be used often by people its geared towards. Am i crazy? :P Sounds like it would be great for photo editing or quick launching programs. Ive never owned a lenovo though. Are they good? anyone?

quote:
War is not about whos right....its about whos left.

RE: Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By Bremen7000 on 9/15/2009 12:25:17 PM , Rating: 4

You're asking if anyone has owned a THINKPAD and thinks they're good? Prepare to be flooded out from under your rock.

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RE: Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By omnicronx on 9/15/2009 2:54:13 PM , Rating: 2

Exactly.. Thinkpads are used in businesses everywhere. The last 3 companies I've worked for used them exclusively. I'm sure many others are in the same boat, I've never had trouble with a thinkpad aside from HD issues, which can happen to any laptop.

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RE: Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By Aeternum on 9/15/2009 6:15:37 PM , Rating: 2

Actually I was asking "anyone" who owns one to let me know what they think of the lenovos. Not if anyone has owned them lol. This Dell is the first laptop ive owned, always been tower type for gaming and video editing.

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RE: Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By retrospooty on 9/15/2009 9:09:02 PM , Rating: 3

Lenovo has continued IBM's lead in making solid laptops. Very low failure rates, solid, sturdy builds. Dell's cost less, but you have quality issues and kind of flimsy designs. You get what you pay for.

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RE: Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By Cheesetogo on 9/15/2009 10:59:23 PM , Rating: 2

I own the X61T (the X200's predecessor) and I've been very happy with it. Build quality is excellent, and it's very nice to use.

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RE: Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By sbtech on 9/17/2009 8:54:10 AM , Rating: 2

I own a X300. Its built like a tank. It's form and finish is a beauty to look at.

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RE: Sounds like an Ipod Touch

By ElderTech on 9/16/2009 4:46:22 PM , Rating: 2

Lenovo hardware is good. I own multiple Thinkpads and find they are well built. But I hate the Lenovo/IBM software package, particularly the ThinkVantage apps. They are so cumbersome in over-riding the intrinsic Windows functions that they simply bog down the system. And the drivers are often difficult to implement, unlike most other native ones from the equipment manufacturers.

As an example, a T61 purchased a couple of years ago wouldn't run properly with Lenovo's original Vista software package. It continually had mis-managed CSS issues and other compatibility ones. This is after multiple attempts to restore the OS to original condition from scratch, using supplemental OS CD's Lenovo provided. And any attempt to update the OS to Vista SP2 failed every time. Finally we simply purchased a clean Windows OS and installed it with the necessary hardware drivers from Lenovo, and it works flawlessly, with much better performance.

As another example, a recently purchased T400 came with a defective hard drive, which was promptly replaced by IBM's contracted Lenovo Support Department. (They are excellent and I always purchase the three year parts and labor warranty, unlike with other PC vendors, due to the use these units receive in the field.) But when installing the OS on the new drive from the included supplemental OS CDs, it took an entire afternoon to do so! In the meantime while waiting for the HD exchange, I had decided to try the unit with an Intel X25-M to see how it would perform. The install of either Win 7 RC 32 bit or Win 7 Enterprise, done later, took less than 1/2 hour.

Assuming this would be the case with the Lenovo Vista OS, I tried installing it on the Intel SSD after the extensive time it took with a normal HD. To my surprise, it took almost as much time! OUCH! And when it completed, it was missing a couple of hardware drivers that had installed properly on the regular HD. Bummer! Needless to say, we've returned to the Win7 Enterprise 64 bit OS on the Intel SSD for overall ease of use and performance. The only issue with this current release and Lenovo hardware is the lack of a proper driver for the discrete ATI graphics card, which isn't yet available from Lenovo, since they don't yet support Win7. That should be available shortly when they start shipping the free Win7 upgrades that came with these units.

As far as the new multi-touch units, the concern I would have is how Lenovo's implementation of their previously bloated software will affect the overall operation and performance of them. If it's anything like the past experiences I've had with it, they will not fair well compared to other competitors. But only a thorough and competent review by a trusted source will determine that for me.

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By ersts on 9/15/2009 7:34:14 PM , Rating: 2

It's kinda easier to do multi touch when the touch pad is made big enough to use more than a couple of fingers, so as to swipe across it.

For that matter, I saw Acer notebooks and net books claiming to have multitouch, but none of them did anything to what they claimed; none could enlarge or decrease anything.

RE: .

By Visual on 9/16/2009 4:28:57 AM , Rating: 3

Dude, this is about multitouch touchscreens, not some ridiculous touch pads.

I hate multitouch touchpads and I hate you for even mentioning them. Whoever invented multitouch touch pads, and especially whoever decided to include them on tablets with normal single-touch screens and advertise the tablet as "multitouch" deserves to die, as painfully as possible, for using cheap tricks to distract us from the real thing and slowing progress in the tablet convertible market.

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Umm, WTF?

By Visual on 9/15/2009 10:25:23 AM , Rating: 2

Lenovo have been marketing their X200t tablet with "MultiTouch + MultiView" display since forever, and I was fairly convinced that they did mean real multi-touch. Looking it up now, it appears that it was just some marketing speak for using dual digitizers, but supporting only a single point of input. Very lame.

Its good that they finally have the real thing, however I wonder if it's totally different hardware or they will be able to provide a software/driver fix with the new feature for customers that bought into their marketing lies previously.

It is terrible that they reuse the same model number and still have monitor options that don't include this feature though. Now the confusion will be even greater.

Can they build them with Wacom technology

By tygrus on 9/15/2009 9:33:46 PM , Rating: 2

It would be interesting to have a tablet style notebook with a Wacom Cintiq screen built with *IPS based LCD screen. This would be better for photo editing, desktop publishing etc. on the move.

Call the the electronic portable easel to "be creative anywhere you like".

Multi WHAT?

By goddamnit on 9/16/2009 8:28:48 AM , Rating: 2

To all the industry leading manufacturers,

Here's how its gonna be:

1. all the companies bring out multitouch laptops.
2. everybody is happy with it, seeing it as a replacement for the mouse (touchpad,...) to a certain extent.
3. Nobody thinks "outside the box".
4. Apple brings its multitouch tablet after thinking outside the box. It doesn't try to just replace the mouse, it will extend the users possibilities BEYOND that of a mouse.
5. Everyone wants to try to copy it, but it will not be as good as the Apple tablet.
6. I don't like Apple at all, but foresee how's it gonna be: The iPhone all over again, with everybody saying "we did that before", but surprisingly shortly after everyone designs a device very similar to the iPhone.