This week Lenovo had their big “Yoga event” in London, where they announced several new “Yoga” branded products (if you don´t know, Yoga is Lenovos brand name for flippable 360° Convertibles and Tablets with kickstand, the first Yoga 13 Convertible was introduced in 2012). Not only did they introduce 5 new Yoga 2 Tablets and the Yoga 3 Pro, the successor of the Haswell Yoga 2 Pro with a really cool hinge design, but also the new ThinkPad Yoga 14. This is not just a refresh of an existing product, but an entirely new product. Not only is it the first 14” seized Yoga, but also the first 14” ThinkPad Convertible. It does not replace the current 12.5” Yoga, it is rather another addition to the product line (the 12.5” Yoga will be refreshed with Broadwell…as well as an rumored new 15.6” TP Yoga). In addition, it is the first ThinkPad Convertible with dedicated graphics.
If we start counting Microsoft’s past Windows operating systems, then we already have 9 generations. Many people seem to forget that Windows 8.1 should be considered to be an independent operating system. I am not going to start a discussion here about leaving out MS-DOS versions. Let us just focus on Windows right now.
Windows & Windows Phone developer accounts now have a one time registration fee instead of the annual registration fee. The registration fee is now on par with Google Play. Will this get you started developing for Windows & Windows Phone?
First, a short history lesson: ThinkPads have had a long history with factory shipped illuminated keyboards. In fact, the first ThinkPad with an illuminated keyboard was the ThinkPad i-Series 1400, a small-business ThinkPad introduced to the market in August of 1999. This was the birth of the ThinkLight. Most of you will know what the ThinkLight is, but for those of you who don’t: The ThinkLight is a small overhead light, either a white LED (T-Series/X-Series/W-Series) or a amber LED (R-Series/Z-Series, both discontinued, and some select other models). It is activated on older ThinkPads by pressing FN + PgUp. The ThinkLight was a useful feature if you were working in the dark, it also could illuminate a pice of paper if you wanted to read something
As the first models of the T/X/W/L/Ex5x generation, E455 and E555 did hit the market not long ago. E455 is already available in China and E555 is already orderable here in Germany (will be available in late October).
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).
Modern ThinkPads come with a vast range of power supplies, gone are the days with the simple division in 65 W - iGPU and 90 W - dGPU. Since the CPUs in ThinkPads seem to become diversivied with every generation (one or two generations ago, the normal 35 W Dual-Core M-CPUs were the absolute standard, and now, Qud-Core CPUs oand ULV CPUs become more and more important and the old standard mormore irrelevant), Lenovo also introduced more power supply sizes, since ”one size fits all” simply does not apply to power supplies.