IBM unveils ThinkPad T41 line, with new Active Protection System

By Alun Williams

Posted on 6 Oct 2003 at 16:18

The successor to the ThinkPad T40 line of IBM notebooks has been unveiled. And some of the T41 models feature what IBM describes as the world's first automatic hard-drive protection technology.

It seems that the Active Protection System is similar in principle to the use of airbags in cars. A microchip is used to detect 'system acceleration' - ie the laptop falling - upon which it will park disk drive heads to help minimise damage and avoid total loss of data.

'Applying this life-saving technology to personal computing is revolutionary. If you're rushing to finish a report in an airport and you accidentally drop your notebook, with any other machine you'd face a greater potential for losing all your data,' said Peter Hortensius, VP, Think Offerings, IBM Personal Computing Division. 'IBM is committed to providing our customers with the most reliable notebooks in the industry. This new technology and Rapid Restore Ultra are two great ways of doing that.'

IBM points out that of the three notebook components most prone to damage - hard drive, display, and keyboard - it is the disk drive that could represent the greatest loss of productivity.

The T41 models can be official Centrino machines or implement IBM's support for the 'a' and 'g' flavours of 802.11 wireless networking.

Other security features in some T41 models include support for wireless security as defined by Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), and the IBM Embedded Security Subsystem, which combines an integrated security chip with IBM's Client Security Software for extra confidentiality.

With the T41 line IBM has also updated its 'ThinkVantage Technologies', including Rapid Restore Ultra (for system recovery after software crashes), Access Connections 2.7 (for saving wireless network settings for different environments) and Access IBM 4.0 (online support info to reduce help desk calls).

Prices for the ThinkPad T41 start at £1,830 ex VAT.