A ThinkPad Netbook? Sign Us Up!
April 24th, 2009 by Dana Wollman 
Lenovo’s already delivered netbooks to the consumer and eduction markets, and now an exec says the company is considering making a ThinkPad-branded netbook for business customers, too. According to Matthew Kohut, Lenovo’s Worldwide Competitive Analyst, netbooks are just what businesses looking to save money during the recession need. He told APCMag:
“Businesses are definitely asking about netbooks, they’re wanting them more and more. Business problems, whether the economy is good or not, remain the same: do more with less, be more efficient and all that. This ties in very nicely with netbooks.”
Other notebook vendors have had the same idea. Dell recently announced the business-friendly Vostro A90 and Acer made the Aspire One Pro 531 official. Meanwhile, we’ve reviewed the HP Mini 2140 and the ASUS N10j-A2. The big question, aside from cost and whether or not we’ll ever see one is, what would a ThinkPad netbook look like, anyway? Will it have a red trackball in the center of the keyboard? Might it forgo a trackpad in favor of a more spacious keyboard, a la the X200? And to what extent will it leverage Lenovo’s ThinkVantage suite? Would you buy a ThinkPad-branded netbook? And what do you hope it includes? Tell us what you think in the comments.
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April 24th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Push the limits a little and I might.
Sturdy metal case. 7,200rpm drive, or an SSD worth the name. 11″ display with minimal bezel. 4 cell battery, but flush with the unit. Maybe a switchable graphics chip, allowing for a trade-off between power an battery life. Good speakers. A reliable hinge mechanism. Anti-glare screen.
And yes, a trackpoint. And a trackpad with multi-touch gestures. A good one.
The usual rubbery black look of a Thinkpad.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Low-voltage Core2 derivative (CULV) and either GMA 4500 or GF 9400 integrated. Definitely a trackpoint and NO TOUCHPAD (IBM/Lenovo has made the right move by never trying to squeeze a touchpad onto a X-series thinkpad; I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea for the even smaller Ideapad netbooks). I’d prefer it to be quite small, 9″ screen (maybe 10″ is more realistic tho)- others may disagree but I think that portability is key and that if it gets bigger than 10″ you’re really just asking for a cheap X series knockoff and will cut into X series sales. WXGA/720p resolution (1280×720, 1366×768, 1280×800, whatever). Bonus points for having a convertible tablet (the X series tablets are well-liked).
I’d buy that.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
That’s the only reason im still thinking to get a netbooks. Coz thinkpad keyboard still the best of all. Just make it plain thinkpad looks. with atom processor. thats all. or maybe nVidia ion.