Lenovo laptops: what is expected in 2012?

Most recently, in a Lenovo blog, I summarized and talked about the most noticeable trends in new models of laptops in 2011. The time has come to talk about what can be expected this year. Especially since Lenovo’s new products, introduced in January this year, will soon appear on sale. Under the cut - a description of the most interesting models, including the new gaming laptop IdeaPad Y580, the first ultrabook ThinkPad T430u, the first Lenovo with the Thunderbolt interface and a couple of other new products.

If you briefly summarize everything that awaits us in the world of laptops (I already told about tablets before), it will turn out like this. In ultracompact models, discrete graphics will increasingly be used, and in terms of data storage (up to 1 terabyte) they will not be inferior to full-sized laptops. Of course, USB 3.0 will appear in almost all models, and not only in select ones, as is happening now. Ultrabooks will be somewhat cheaper, including the ThinkPad T430u model, the cost of which, by the standards of the ThinkPad, will be low. Finally, due to the long-awaited change in the generation of processors (because of this, most models will be available only at the beginning of summer) the battery life and overall performance will increase.


IdeaPad Y580 - higher gaming performance
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Overall, the design of the gaming series of Lenovo laptops has become even more concise, which was already noticeable in the current Y570 / Y470 series, where the plastic palmrest and the display lid were replaced with a noble metal. In Y580, the trend continues, but this is probably not the most important. It is much more interesting that these home laptops will radically change in terms of stuffing. You need to start with the fact that in the 15-inch Y580, and in the 14-inch Y480, FullHD displays will appear (finally!). For gamers, this may not be the best news (the load on the video card will increase), but for other tasks the resolution of 1920x1080 will be much nicer. Another important innovation in terms of hardware is the keyboard backlight.

The gaming capabilities of the Y-series should not be seriously affected by the new NVIDIA GeForce 660M graphics card with 2 gigabytes of its own memory. There is no benchmark online for this accelerator, but you can familiarize yourself with the technical specifications on the NVIDIA website. Compared to the GeForce 555M video card used in the Y570, the number of shader units has significantly increased (from 144 to 384), the memory bus bandwidth has increased (from 43.2 to 64 GB per second). The new accelerator will only use GDDR5 standard memory, while DDR3 was allowed for the GeForce 555M. In general, the new Y580 is quite ready for increased display resolution in terms of games.

On sale, IdeaPad Y-series notebooks will appear in April in the US, we are likely - a month later. The declared value of laptops (from $ 899 in the US) - has not changed compared to Y570, despite the much more interesting iron stuffing. In addition to this series of laptops, the more affordable IdeaPad Z (will be equipped with GeForce 640M graphics) have also been updated, and in the IdeaPad U series there will be two low-cost (from $ 700) ultrabooks. It is noteworthy that both series promise full support for Intel Wireless Display technology.

Lenovo G580 - cheap, but not angry



Affordable Lenovo G-series notebooks will also remain in about the same price category as before - from $ 400 in the US and about the same with us. Nevertheless, this series of laptops will “grow” in terms of technical characteristics, which will most noticeably affect the video card. If this year’s models did not use far from the integrated AMD video graphics (with the exception of the powerful G770), the NVIDIA GeForce 630M (96 processor units, at the level of the productive video cards of the season 2011) will appear in the updated version. Otherwise, these models will receive only a small cosmetic update.

ThinkPad T430u - the first ultrabook in the series



The thickness of this 14-inch laptop will be only 21 millimeters (as usual for Lenovo's ultrabooks, this is the actual thickness in any part of the model), weight is less than 1.8 kg. But under the standard coating, universal for almost all ThinkPad notebooks, this time hides not a magnesium alloy, but aluminum. As a result, the first ultrabook in the ThinkPad series turned out to be 5 millimeters thinner and 100 grams heavier than its predecessor - the T420s. What else will change? Exact specifications have not yet been disclosed, but the battery life will surely increase - up to six hours with a standard battery.



But this is probably not the most interesting thing: after all, changing one iron case to another may not impress those who are familiar with ThinkPad notebooks. It is important that in this slim package they promise to fit discrete graphics and a terabyte data storage (or a full-size SSD, to choose from). But this is already a serious progress for compact models: in the current thinnest ThinkPad, models X1 can save up to 400 gigabytes of data, and video is only integrated. The cost of the model will be at a reasonable level - from $ 900 in the US, which is somewhat cheaper than the first Lenovo ultrabook - the U300s .

ThinkPad Edge S430 - now with Thunderbolt



The new ThinkPad Edge S430 continues the series of thin models of the ThinkPad Edge, last year its analogs were the Edge E220s and E420s notebooks. Deprived of Lenovo’s proprietary technologies, such as the docking connector, the new S430 doesn’t lag behind the classic ThinkPad hardware. This is the first Lenovo laptop (and generally the first laptop on Windows) with support for the “normal” version of the Intel Thunderbolt interface. I specifically made a reservation about the "normal" implementation, since one of our competitors has, uh, not the most normal, compatible only with itself. In addition to Thunderbolt, the laptop claims USB 3.0 ports and NVIDIA Optimus hybrid graphics.

For the first time in the Edge series, the built-in optical drive can be replaced with a second hard drive: previously this option was available only in the ThinkPad T and W series. With this operation, the laptop can get up to a terabyte of additional space for data. Model cost in the USA will make from $ 750 dollars and on sale it will appear approximately in the beginning of summer. Besides it, other Edge notebooks were updated, including a 13-inch version (E330 / 335) with Intel or AMD processors that returned to the market.

As you can see, Lenovo continues to develop the direction of ultrabooks, and the models of this year, among other advantages, will differ and reasonable price. Another nice trend is the emergence of FullHD screens in a larger number of models, as well as the possibility of replacing a not always current optical drive with a second hard disk. There will be no revolution in the notebook market, but the new models will clearly become more productive and autonomous, so those who plan to buy at the end of spring can recommend waiting until summer. It will be interesting!