So, Lenovo just released the T61, it’s second incarnation of the T6x series.

And i must say i’m at least slightly pleased and a little surprised with what i’m seeing.

When the ThinkPad brand got handed over to Lenovo i was a bit sceptical, to say the least…and the first couple of models that came out of the new home didn’t impress me much. But now, here’s something different…Lenovo seems to be able to focus on sensible features rather than tech specs. So what have we got…

First of all, the T61 comes with a so called Magnesium roll cage.
T61 magnesium roll cage
Ain’t it beautiful. This almost makes my good old T41p look cheap.

The other nice innovation is the optional 1GB of “Turbo Memory”. Ohh these marketing buzz words. However, what this is is the idea of a hybrid harddisk made independent of the harddisk. Huh? Well…it is 1GB of Flash memory that caches harddisk access and can hence speed up harddisk operations significantly. The advantage over a hybrid harddisk solution, obviously is that you can exchange the harddisk without loosing the flash caching.

Lastly, the T61 features a standard firewire port, now. Good.

So, Lenovo, i’m impressed. Though, this get’s deminished by quite a few little glitches in the new models design:

  • the Turbo Memory occupies one of the two express card slots (it should have been internal)
  • all usb ports are vertical, whereas horizontal would be the preferred layout
  • the audio plugs have been moved to the front (which is nonsense, side is perfect for them)
  • the vga port is still in the middle of the left side (the back of either side or on the back side would be better
  • apparently, all models are widescreen now (as long as there’s a UXGA+ option, that’s fine)
  • the large left display border on the 14″ models is ugly