IBM launches two new Thinkpads with Centrino

 

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By Steve Malone

Posted on 12 Mar 2003 at 09:49

The race is on to get your Centrino based notebooks to market. Amongst the early leaders, IBM has announced two new notebooks. At the top of the range is a full featured Thinkpad T40 with an ultraportable X31 for those who like to travel light.

The flagship Thinkpad T40p weighs in at around 2Kg. Based around the basic Centrino components of a 1.6GHz Pentium processor and Intel 855 chipset, the machine is also equipped with an ATI Mobility FireGL 9000 graphics processor with 64Mbytes of RAM, a 14.1" Samsung SXGA TFT display and 512Mb of RAM expandable to 2Gb.

Currently the T40 is fitted with a 5400rpm 40Gbyte Hitachi drive. The T40p also has a DVD/RW drive fitted as standard.

The Thinkpad X31 is around 2cm thick and weighs as little as 1.64Kg. The machine is equipped with either of the new Pentium M processors and 128 or 256Mbye of DDR memory, and ATI Mobility Radeon graphics.

All new Thinkpads have built in antennae and some models in the range have 802.11a and b support built in. Other versions have the option of adding wireless support through either an Intel Wireless mini PCI card (formerly known as Calexico) a Cisco Aironet wireless card.

Whilst Intel is making great claims that Centrino technology extends battery life, IBM says that its technologies push battery time up to 8 hours for the T40 and 9 hours for the X31. This claim has yet to be verified by PC Pro Labs.

Prices for the T40 start at ï1750 ex VAT. IBM could not confirm X31 pricing at the time of writing. With these machines though IBM is maintaining its strategy of targeting ts major accounts with corporate grade solutions rather than getting down and dirty in the consumer and direct markets. "We expect the vast majority of T40s to be sold into existing corporate accounts," IBM Europe's Thinkpad Specialist Adrian Horne told us. "We also expect to sell the X31 to large enterprises as an ultraportable."

However, Horne admitted that the market for wireless solutions hadn't quite taken off yet. "We would love it if we could offer end to end wireless solutions through Global Services and bring in the PCD (Personal Computing Division) sales team to sell these too. But at the moment the market for end to end solutions is very small and is already very competitive. At the moment, the selling point for these machines will be the battery life."

IBM says that it has some 3000 machines ready to go which should be in the channel by Friday.