Lenovo ThinkPad Screens Get Touchy

Lenovo’s SimpleTap utility at work. Click to enlarge.

Today Lenovo took the wraps off several features set to debut on upcoming ThinkPad laptops that promise to make working with the laptops easier for field workers, road warriors and everyday business people.

The enhancements will debut on the company’s ThinkPad X200 Tablet ultra-portable model and its workhorse ThinkPad T400s thin-and-light laptop, and will eventually propagate to other ThinkPad models.

For starters, both the X200 Tablet and T400s will benefit from the new touch-screen capabilities in the soon-to-debut Windows 7 operating system from Microsoft. “Touch input is everywhere — smartphones, GPS devices, the screens at the checkout counter — and young people especially are looking for touch capabilities,” said Aaron Stewart, senior human factors engineer at Lenovo. “Our focus was to allow you to interact more naturally with the PC.”

The next-generation screens on the X200 Tablet and T400s support a range of gestures or executing tasks. For example, a finger tap replaces the need to use the cursor control and mouse buttons to select an on-screen program icon or dialog-box button.

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