With the release of the new ThinkPad Helix 2, Lenovo has finally revealed its first Broadwell based ThinkPad - but you might have expected more of IFA, like T450 or something like that. But fret not - as they are definitely coming, just a little later than originally expected. The reasons is Intel - you may not know this, but originally, Broadwell full scale production was expected for mid 2014 or the end of Q2 2014, as were the new ThinkPads (ThinkPad model update follows Intel CPU tick tock cycle). However, Intel had major problems with the yield rate of the Broadwell CPUs due to the new 14 nm manufacturing process, which resulted in several delays. The good news is that the new Broadwell chipset has arrived, but only in the Core M ultra-ultra low powered CPU format (this new cpu chipset has allowed the Helix 2 to be fanless).

The rest of the Broadwell goodness (also known as “5th generation Intel Core CPU”) will arrive in early 2015 - look out for it at CES. ;-)

Until then, lets just look at a list of machines that has being already confirmed through different tech news sites (Lenovo’s webpage also listed them on driver/software support page) - only model numbers though:

  • ThinkPad T450

  • ThinkPad X250

  • ThinkPad S1 Yoga 12

  • ThinkPad S3 Yoga 14

  • ThinkPad S5 Yoga 15

  • ThinkPad T540s

  • ThinkPad L450 Tx / Rx (no idea whats the difference)

  • ThinkPad E450

However, we haven’t got any official confirmations from Lenovo regarding their release dates - but at the past Lenovo product cycles, and their launch dates, predict with some certainties that these new machines will be out in Q1 of 2015 (based on the assumption that they all come with Broadwell U). So i guess you should watch out for these machines during the CES events in 2015. Machines like T540p and W540 might get replaced later in the product cycles, as the Broadwell Quad-Core CPUs appear to be postponed until Q2 of 2015, based on the rumors floating around on the net.

In addition to these Intel ThinkPads, there are also the (Edge) E models E455 and E555, which are lower end AMD ThinkPads - many information are already available on these and they should be available in October of 2014.

Broadwell should be an exciting development for the Intel Core CPU chipset family, as it is the first time where single stick 16 gigs SODIMM is supported (if not more), so a quad core CPU with four SODIMM slots can be upgraded to at least 64 gigs of RAM. Apparently companies like Samsung and Micron are already into the production stage for these RAM modules.