Lenovo has announced updates to its most popular ThinkPad Series notebooks– putting Intel’s new Haswell processors and Nvidia graphics chips in its ThinkPad W, T, L, and E Series.
ThinkPad W540
Lenovo is taking on Apple’s MacBook Pro with its new ThinkPad W540, a 15.5-inch powerhouse Windows 8 notebook with an IPS display resolution of 2880 x 1620-pixels — way more than the 1920 x 1080 resolution on the current Thinkpad W530. The new W540 packs Intel’s latest quad-core Core i7 processor, Nvidia Quadro graphics with Optimus 2D and 3D, a very generous 32GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of storage.
The new ThinkPad W540 is fairly thin, too: it measures just over an inch and weighs 5.45 pounds. The notebook includes a Thunderbolt port, integrated X-Rite color calibrator, and the usual array of I/O ports, and optional 4G LTE connectivity.
Lenovo hasn’t announced pricing for the ThinkPad W540, but for a notebook with such high specs, expect a high price. We’ll know more we get closer to its November launch date.
Updated ThinkPad T and L laptops
Lenovo also updated its ThinkPad L Series and moderately high-end, business-focused ThinkPad T Series Windows 8 notebooks with improved battery life, better performance including Intel’s latest Haswell processors and Nividia GeForce GT730M graphics chip, and a thinner, more durable design. Each of the systems also now includes full-size click-pads, a 180-degree hinge, and latchless lid.
The new 14-inch ThinkPad T440p and the 15.6-inch ThinkPad T540p notebooks come with your choice of up to a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, up to of 16GB of RAM, and your choice of a solid-state or hard-disk storage drive. The laptops will also be available in November with optional 4G LTE connectivity.
ThinkPad E Series gets Haswell, too
Finally, Lenovo refreshed its line of E Series business notebooks’ internals with new Intel Haswell processors and optional Nvidia discrete graphics. The previous E431 and 531 ThinkPads were powered by Intel’s previous generation Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge processors, and Intel HD 4000 graphics rather than Nvidia discrete graphics. In the new E440 and E540 models, you get Intel’s fourth generation Haswell processor with up to four cores and can upgrade the graphics chip to Nvidia. You can also opt for as much as 16GB of RAM and 1 terabyte of storage.
Both the E440 and E540 also feature antiglare and touch screen configurations.
The Lenovo ThinkPad E440 and E540 will hit stores in October for about $860 and $834 respectively. Those prices put the ThinkPad E on top of competitors in that price range, such as Acer’s $850 Aspire V7, which comes with dual-core processing power, 12GB of memory and 500GB of storage.
