The Lenovo design and engineering team has been working on this one for well over a year. It started out as a idea: let’s build the most advanced ThinkPad ever, in the thinnest and lightest package possible. What a great opportunity to exercise the world class technical capabilities of the Lenovo team. The best engineers and designers thrive on challenges like this. Who wouldn’t?
I was fortunate to have met Steve Hamm from BusinessWeek magazine early in the process and shared with him several design concepts that we were working on. Steve was so interested in the work we were doing that he asked to become a “fly on the wall” for the entire development cycle. Wow. A journalist integrated into the Lenovo inner workings was a totally new idea with lots potential reward, but also risk. After a few interesting discussions we decided to bring him into the fray.
Yesterday the article resulting from this endeavour went live on the BusinessWeek website. Steve tells the story much better there than I could ever do. I hope you enjoy the peek behind the curtain into the development of what I believe is the best ThinkPad we have ever made. We are one giant step closer to perfect.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
For those who like the picture in the post, head to our Flickr account and you can find it there in high resolution glory.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
The X300 is truly a great feat of engineering and carries forward the tradition of the Thinkpad series. A 3-lb Thinkpad with the best keyboard ever, multitude of ports and connectivity options, integrated DVD burner - ah, life couldn’t possibly get better! Now, if only it was available with a regular HDD option instead of SSD only
I can’t help but compare this to the MacBook Air, though! As a working professional that spends my time on the road instead of at the neighborhood Starbucks, the X300 is what you want by your side!
David, kudos to you and your team in NC and Japan for this wonderful new laptop! Go Team Lenovo!
February 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Bravo With X300. Great Job.
Now to bring the LED back light to the rest of the Thinkpad line.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
You finally officially confirm this thing.
Well it appears as if you put a lot of effort into this one, but the question is…what are you replacing with this, the T line or the X line?
(An 11 inch 1024×768 version would have been ace, but I’m not complaining.)
February 15th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Wow! This looks really promising, Please use HIGH QUALITY screens with (high) resolution and don’t mess up on the actual production…
I will start to save on money for this “one’.
February 15th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
What will be the fastest CPU that the X300 can support?
February 15th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
The new Kodachi aka ThinkPad X300 looks very promising. - I’am glad to see, that David Hill and the whole Lenovo team have put in their efforts and hard work to develop a completely new and possibly more sophisticated ThinkPad model.
I followed the tracks of the Kodachi now for some time…
–> http://www.notebook-foren.de/b.....php?t=9958
…and can’t wait to see it in reality, in order to give it a serious working tryout.
It will also be interesting to see how the market adapts to it and of course, as Mark Hopkins already said at another place in the Lenovo forum, how the long term impressions with this new X300 will be.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
If it had ThinkLight i would’ve bought it to replace my beloved T61 i guess ill wait for the T62 anyhow Thinkpad X300 is a great notebook i hope it will maintain Thinkpads legendary quality.
February 15th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
You put the stripes back!
Two words: Thank you!
-Jan
February 15th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
It’s nice to see a very thin, light laptop that was actually aimed at the business market about to hit the streets. Thanks for not wasting our time by providing both form and function, unlike the MacBook Air. I believe that the people who buy the X300 will be the people who avoided buying the Air, so I don’t think it matters that the Air came out first.
- Chris
February 15th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
The X300 has the brightest ThinkLight ever made. It works great.
February 15th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I want one.
February 15th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
David,
Can you comment about the 3 cell battery? It seems like the X300 wouldn’t have a very good battery life compared to the current X61 with 8 cell. Was the battery life sacrificed in order to keep the X300 thin?
February 15th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Any ideas on availability of Tablet variants?
Also, is this a X61 replacement or a different product range? Great work btw, this is what the Sony SZ should’ve been over a year ago, but it you guys to finish up on making the best of this form factor. I’m worried about the 1440×900 LCD being perhaps too dense, but hopefully the bright LED display will make up for that. Great work!
February 15th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
X300 looks actually good. But, where is a firewire port, for instance, or an expresscard slot? 3 usb’s quite enough, possibly, for such a slim device; but some your competitors, gents, succeeds in putting more technology in less space much more, imho (sony tz or panasonic w7, for instance)…
February 15th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Of course the stripes are back, I promised this months ago. They look great.
February 15th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I’m wondering what alternative options we have to replace the optical drive module? (If it is modular at all.)
February 15th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Very nice. I, for one, welcome the addition of the solid state drive (even with its hefty price). Now there’s only two questions I have: what’s the fastest processor I can get with it? and when will a bigger SSD be available?
That said, this actually makes me want to buy a new laptop instead of just thinking about it…
February 15th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
While I know that perfection is individual and that there is always something, I drooled when I first saw the Macbook Air, and now there’s a Thinkpad with most of the compromises fixed, starting with the screen. I was considering an X in the summer and gave up in favour of T61p in the end because of the resolution. Well, this one - or its successor - is most likely my next notebook.
Now, if only one could order it without those #%”! Windows and Microsoft keys which make any real keyboard work painful… (I won’t even mention cover over touchpad. Not that that would bother me so much, if only the thing stayed dead after standby or hibernation.)
February 15th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
[...] at least the Lenovo folks have some design sense: the picture at the top of this blog post is worthy of Apple. The hi-res version is on their flickr [...]
February 15th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
It is good to see Lenovo with such a good piece of design.
Funny is that I was chatting later last night with a friend that owns a T61p (we are both new Lenovo users - I converted from an Macbook) and we both agreed that we would buy Lenovo again - even though in the beginning we used to think that the black “lunch box” design was a little strange
.
Personally now I think the black magnesium case “sexy” and would like it even better on a lighter and slimmer package.
Keep the good working going and hope to see the X300 in the shops soon!
February 16th, 2008 at 5:21 am
i need HDMI port
February 16th, 2008 at 6:52 am
I love the design of this Laptop, from what I see in photos, a lot of traditional ThinkPad design details are back (red stripes, less silver parts, etc).
It seems we will not see Z60/Titanium mistakes again, thank God!
Keep up the great work
February 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am