Qualcomm may have just shown off the first Lenovo smartbook, but it seems the ambitious manufacturer is also looking to strengthen its grasp on the netbook market.
According to Thinkpadtoday.com, the ‘X100e’ will become the company’s first ‘ThinkPad netbook’ and will sport a large 12.1-in display. Lenovo is said to be shipping the X100e with Windows 7 Home Premium (despite the leaked shot showing XP), which would remove traditional netbook hardware restrictions and see it come with more than 1GB RAM and improve on the 160GB HDD. A configuration with 2GB RAM and a 320GB HDD therefore seems rather logical. At this stage the site also claims Lenovo is undecided whether to ship the X100e with either Intel’s increasingly popular netbook-substitute CULV processor or Q1 2010’s next-generation Atoms.
Now while many would no doubt welcome the chance to get their hands on a ThinkPad netbook – and benefit for its traditionally excellent build quality and keyboards – I have to question such a move. The ThinkPad brand has long held kudos as a premium range and one that Lenovo was desperate to obtain the rights to from IBM when it bought its PCs business back in 2005. Lenovo already has the ‘IdeaPad’ S series netbook in place along with the U Series range of CULV-based machines, so this seemingly would just muddy the product lines.
I could be proved wrong, but more isn’t always better…
Gordon
