Latest Lenovo Notebooks Fastest and ‘Greenest’

Lenovo continues to expand and enhance its notebook line with the addition of wide-screen models and a new high-end mobile workstation. Just last month, Lenovo added to its Ultra-portable “X” series.

The company also announced compliance with the latest Energy Star 4.0 ratings for notebooks and its ThinkCentre M55 desktop which features up to a 52 percent improvement in energy efficiency.

On the notebook side, the biggest performance news is with the new ThinkPad T61p based on Intel’s Centrino Pro and nVidia Quadro FX 570M graphics chips. Starting at $1,814, the T61p mobile workstation includes a 15.4-inch wide screen and is Lenovo’s highest performance notebook to date.

“The T61p carries on the same form factor as our earlier mobile workstations, but with better performance with Intel’s latest Santa Rosa chips and nVidia graphics,” Tom Ribble, director of ThinkPad product marketing at Lenovo, told internetnews.com. “But with all the new stuff we’ve managed the thermals to make it a cooler, quieter system than earlier models.”

Lenovo said the system is three decibels quieter than before and up to 10 percent cooler even under the most intensive tasks.

Road warriors will also have an array of connectivity options with the T61p, including Lenovo’s Ultra Connect II wireless design for WWAN1 and WLAN 802.11n2. Users can also opt for next-generation wireless capabilities with Ultra-Wideband , a personal area network technology that offers faster data rates and higher bandwidth compared to Bluetooth .

“Think of it as investment protection for next generation peripherals coming out later like printers and hard drives,” said Ribble.

Lenovo said the T61p is certified by more than 20 independent software vendors related to engineering, design and other workstation apps. The system is also certified to run the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 operating system, Red Hat and Turbo Linux operating systems.

On the “value” side, Lenovo announced the ThinkPad R61 (15-inch standard) and R61e (15-inch wide-screen) notebooks priced at approximately $1,119 and $1,069 respectively.

Lenovo also announced that customers with earlier ThinkPad models based on Intel Centrino Pro or Intel Duo mobile technology will now be able to download an update to the BIOS  at Lenovo’s Web site to bring their system up to compliance with the Energy Star 4.0 standard.