ThinkPad W500 and W700, we find out more!

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And show you evidence that the ThinkPad W700 reall does exist.

Lenovo has officially announced the ThinkPad W500 but said nothing about the much anticipated W700, 17” Workstation, nor indeed about a W400?

Well, we were digging through a Press Release we have just had from Lenovo and what to we find? No, not a hidden W700 Specification, but certainly a clue. This is what it said.

“Lenovo is introducing the ThinkPad W-Series, the first in a new class of mobile workstations with models offering the mobility of an Open-GL Graphics performance notebook.”

Notice the words in plural? They are ‘workstations’ and ‘models’. The ThinkPad W500 is certainly set to replace the T61p, and we now firmly believe this will be closely followed by the 17” W700, probably with the capacity to run two drives in a various RAID configurations. Whether it will have the dual touch pad seen on some recent images remains to be seen.

But here is the final thing that really does convince us that the ThinkPad W700 is real, and that is a statement on the Lenovo Site appertaining to the specification of the new ThinkPad range of Carry Cases. Take a look at the screen shot. Notice any clues?

This is a screen shot of the list of Targus carry cases for the new range of ThinkPad’s. Need we say more?

Notice what it says at the top in the right hand column? ‘All ThinkPad Systems except the ThinkPad W700‘. And why would that be then? Because, the ThinkPad W700 is a 17″ model and it wont fit in those standard cases! Come on Lenovo, everybody is gagging to know, so why the secrecy? Maybe they are worried that the new ThinkPad W Series will over shadow the release of the ThinkPad T400 and T500?

Take a look at the anticipated specs of the Lenovo ThinkPad W500

Processor Options, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 - 2.6 - 2.8 GHz 1066MHz FSB, 6MB L2 Cache

Graphics - ATI FireGL V5700 (512 MB)

Displays Options, 15.4″ TFT display with 1680×1050 (WSXGA+) resolution or a 15.4″ TFT display with 1920×1200 (WUXGA) resolution.

Memory - 2 GB PC3-8500 memory standard upgradable to 8 GB!

Hard Drives, 200 GB 7200 rpm 2.5″ SATA HDD - 320 GB 5400 rpm 2.5″ SATA HDD or a 64 GB 1.8″ Solid State Disk Full Disk Encryption available on some models.

Other stuff that catches our eye are the proposed DisplayPort and the two MiniPCI Express Slots, Slot 1 either empty or with an Intel WiFi Link 5100/5300 WLAN controller or a Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5150/5350 WiFi/WiMAX controller, and Slot 2 with either a Verizon 1xEV-DO WWAN Card or Cingular HSDPA WWAN Card.

We have an Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controller, the UltraBay Slim with an UltraBay Slim Super Multi-Burner Drive and hopefully a Blu-Ray option

Intel® Turbo Memory hard drive cache up to 2GB

1 CardBus slot - Type 2

1 Slot with either a ExpressCard/54 slot or a SmartCard reader

There should also be a 4-in-1 Memory reader, Integrated Fingerprint Reader on select models, Bluetooth as an option, IEEE1394 Firewire on select models and the ThinkPad signature UltraNav with its red TrackPoint and TouchPad combination.

ThinkPad W700

Now the only real difference we can discern on the ThinkPad W700 workstation, is the bigger 17” screen which should be a 17″ TFT display with 1920×1200 (WUXGA) resolution.

Apart that, is from the obviously bigger chassis and that  improbable looking double TouchPad, one of which could of course the a digitizer for graphics and CAD? We will see. One thing is for sure, we have the breaking news here first!