Aaaand so close. Just needed that display to support HDR like their new high spec laptops do. Please say they just forgot to mention as much in the press release?
Wow, you are a true optimist. HDR support in Windows is in its infancy, and really quite bad. HDR laptop display panels are exceedingly rare, and probably nonexistent below 15". Not to mention that the high brightness requirements of HDR would kill battery life entirely.
I'd say it's at least two years until something like that is feasible.
On the other hand, what are you planning to use it for where HDR would be of any benefit? Content creation? Or are you buying a $1600 ThinkPad for Netflix?
Well, I guess I should have read the news post about the updated X1 line before posting :P But given that those are the only <15"/>7" HDR panels I've ever heard of, it's no surprise that they didn't fit one in here also. For me, 3:2 trumps HDR for any mobile application.
Don't know if it's accurate, but from https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/lenovo-int... : "Like its siblings, the X1 Tablet’s display supports Dolby Vision HDR and extreme brightness, promising incredibly dynamic colors."
9.5 hours? LOL Last year was supposed to be 10 hours and barely lasted 5... And fan noise remains to be tested (the acer 13.5" tablet is fanless with the same CPU)
As a Tablet-PC fanatic, I'm already turned off by the "slim, light!"-pandering profile and deeply suspicious that this is another AES digitizer offering (like 95% of their previous Tablet-PC attempts); nobody wants to build the convertible Tablet-PC users overwhelmingly _want_: the most-capable, most-powerful, most-futureproofed workstation that money can make. When the machine I'm typing this on finally bites the dust (heavens forbid), the nearest I can come is buying the most-unadorned near-desktop-spec-withut-actually-using-desktop-parts 'gaming laptop' for seven or eight grand and supplementing *that* with either a similar-footprint Cintiq or viciously-overpriced and -underspecced Wacom MobileStudio, to the tune of an *additional* $1,500-$3K, and throwing portability all but out the damned window. As things sit, I might be able to deal with the extreme latter, but to have no ability to buy a Tablet-PC both with current-spec Wacom EMR digitiser, anything near a decent monitor, and enough grunt to power everything I might conceivably want to do with it (which I'll admit is asking a lot) out to ~5 years, that's not what anyone's building anymore. They're trying to merely undersell fu████g MacBook Pros that they think 'creative types' show up with at 18 to art schools. And bully for them if they do (which almost anybody's been doing for a decade at least); but woe fu███n' betide them if they think there isn't an entire cadre of professionals and amateurs alike sitting on their hands, using 5-10-year-old hardware hoping someone will allow them to, at damn near whatever cost, upgrade to something that has a chance of lasting them as long. No matter what you come with, you can't do that with the hot-stove passive-cooling cases someone in 2009 told you were "stylish", and you can't sell it to us unless they come with CURRENT-mobile-workstation-grade specs, and the room and thoughtfulness of design to keep it as cool as possible with Mudbox/Painter/ZBrush/MODO, Poser, photo- & vector-editing apps as well as an unseemly amount of browser windows open, or even (gasp) attempting to run recent games thereupon. We need discrete graphics, we need the highest-performance chipsets and latecomer-i7/i9 CPUs, we need wide and fast DRAM accomodation, SB buses and an awful lot more connectors to (through?) it than you typically build into laptops. Nobody gives a good goddamn about how much it weighs or whether it's a couple inches smaller in profile than anything else. In fact, we want the opposite: I'll gladly take a bit of bulk in return for a cooler-/faster-running, more robust, more capable machine, at any juncture, without exception, period. All these companies have to do is a systematic review of the past Windows Tablet-PCs they've sold the past ten, twelve years; I'll wager a good 85% or more were custom-configured and done so in such a way as to maximise capability. I'd also bet a lot of people having ordered those are still using them, as there's no way really to replace them. Take this casual-tablet novelty crap elsewhere and bury it. Give us what we want, need, even, and we'll gladly pay your premiums.
I was told 25 years ago by the then recently former marketing director of a large PC vendor, that the first big job he had was undoing bad statistics caused by failure to record the actions and effects of corporate sales negotiations deals, where the high feature products got over represented because fat margins could make dramatic drop close deals for target hungry sales reps, whilst really basic models were underrepresented because of the warranty costs that corporate customers wouldn't purchase without had become the largest line item in the bill of materials, meaning that the buyer wanted cheaper warranty and more basic SKUs or even for the vendor to increase the minimum spec but pay via immediately deductable services expenses like warranty deals. Finding out what caused each model to really sell was a tough little job, like I reckon getting any well oiled sales division to spill their main advantages of gaining commissions should always be.
HDR displays I expected to be in huge demand by corporate tablet purchasing mandates. I have never seen such enthusiasm for a device as for Surface 4 in daylight noon sun, and the users of usually rugged tablets, who won't much mind lugging around the battery weight are precisely what should be getting this feature standard for all: find me a roadside engineer or Forrester who doesn't want HDR for plain visibility.
Can anyone enlighten me why it's now hard to get a decent portable with full size SD card slot?
Specifically I am suspicious of the desire to eliminate the simplest security feature of all: setting Windows 10 to only load executables the cryptographic hashes of which match those you've got safely stored on a write protected SD card.
The (first gen, not checked 3nd gen) Surface Books go full retard by putting the SD slot on the power base, I guess because I don't want to launch anything in the"book" tablet mode...
I just tried once again searching for any answer how to*enable* write protection on a uSD card, but can't get past results answering the opposite question...
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23 Comments
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meacupla - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
The detachable keyboard cover looks like it uses the same thing as Surface Pro.Is that connector an industry standard now?
nerd1 - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
IMO this one is much better than surface devices as it is user serviceable.londedoganet - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
Where did you see that this model was user-serviceable?nerd1 - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Last year's one is user serviceable and I will be surprised if the new one isn't.arsjum - Monday, January 8, 2018 - link
No longer fanless, I'm assuming?Rictorhell - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Really impressive specs, much improved over previous generations. Good work Lenovo engineers and designers.yeeeeman - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Why no Ryzen?Frenetic Pony - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Aaaand so close. Just needed that display to support HDR like their new high spec laptops do. Please say they just forgot to mention as much in the press release?Valantar - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Wow, you are a true optimist. HDR support in Windows is in its infancy, and really quite bad. HDR laptop display panels are exceedingly rare, and probably nonexistent below 15". Not to mention that the high brightness requirements of HDR would kill battery life entirely.I'd say it's at least two years until something like that is feasible.
On the other hand, what are you planning to use it for where HDR would be of any benefit? Content creation? Or are you buying a $1600 ThinkPad for Netflix?
Valantar - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Well, I guess I should have read the news post about the updated X1 line before posting :P But given that those are the only <15"/>7" HDR panels I've ever heard of, it's no surprise that they didn't fit one in here also. For me, 3:2 trumps HDR for any mobile application.digiguy - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Man my 2017 Notebook 9 13.3° has hdr....HuShifang - Friday, January 12, 2018 - link
Don't know if it's accurate, but from https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/lenovo-int... : "Like its siblings, the X1 Tablet’s display supports Dolby Vision HDR and extreme brightness, promising incredibly dynamic colors."JoJ - Wednesday, January 31, 2018 - link
Thanks for that link!I now just need a battery expansion rugged case.
piroroadkill - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Now put that panel in a solidly built laptop.Valantar - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Seconded. My suggestion: ThinkPad X1 Yoga update. With the same 25W cooling capacity as before, a beefy battery, and preferably a Ryzen option.Valantar - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
This looks really sweet, but I for one would want a Ryzen mobile chip in there. Would be good for Photshop, Lightroom and other GPU-accelerated apps.digiguy - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
9.5 hours? LOL Last year was supposed to be 10 hours and barely lasted 5... And fan noise remains to be tested (the acer 13.5" tablet is fanless with the same CPU)mooninite - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - link
We are never going to see Iris graphics in a laptop again after Haswell are we? Disappointing.DSGT_Crockett - Thursday, January 18, 2018 - link
As a Tablet-PC fanatic, I'm already turned off by the "slim, light!"-pandering profile and deeply suspicious that this is another AES digitizer offering (like 95% of their previous Tablet-PC attempts); nobody wants to build the convertible Tablet-PC users overwhelmingly _want_: the most-capable, most-powerful, most-futureproofed workstation that money can make. When the machine I'm typing this on finally bites the dust (heavens forbid), the nearest I can come is buying the most-unadorned near-desktop-spec-withut-actually-using-desktop-parts 'gaming laptop' for seven or eight grand and supplementing *that* with either a similar-footprint Cintiq or viciously-overpriced and -underspecced Wacom MobileStudio, to the tune of an *additional* $1,500-$3K, and throwing portability all but out the damned window. As things sit, I might be able to deal with the extreme latter, but to have no ability to buy a Tablet-PC both with current-spec Wacom EMR digitiser, anything near a decent monitor, and enough grunt to power everything I might conceivably want to do with it (which I'll admit is asking a lot) out to ~5 years, that's not what anyone's building anymore. They're trying to merely undersell fu████g MacBook Pros that they think 'creative types' show up with at 18 to art schools. And bully for them if they do (which almost anybody's been doing for a decade at least); but woe fu███n' betide them if they think there isn't an entire cadre of professionals and amateurs alike sitting on their hands, using 5-10-year-old hardware hoping someone will allow them to, at damn near whatever cost, upgrade to something that has a chance of lasting them as long. No matter what you come with, you can't do that with the hot-stove passive-cooling cases someone in 2009 told you were "stylish", and you can't sell it to us unless they come with CURRENT-mobile-workstation-grade specs, and the room and thoughtfulness of design to keep it as cool as possible with Mudbox/Painter/ZBrush/MODO, Poser, photo- & vector-editing apps as well as an unseemly amount of browser windows open, or even (gasp) attempting to run recent games thereupon. We need discrete graphics, we need the highest-performance chipsets and latecomer-i7/i9 CPUs, we need wide and fast DRAM accomodation, SB buses and an awful lot more connectors to (through?) it than you typically build into laptops. Nobody gives a good goddamn about how much it weighs or whether it's a couple inches smaller in profile than anything else. In fact, we want the opposite: I'll gladly take a bit of bulk in return for a cooler-/faster-running, more robust, more capable machine, at any juncture, without exception, period. All these companies have to do is a systematic review of the past Windows Tablet-PCs they've sold the past ten, twelve years; I'll wager a good 85% or more were custom-configured and done so in such a way as to maximise capability. I'd also bet a lot of people having ordered those are still using them, as there's no way really to replace them. Take this casual-tablet novelty crap elsewhere and bury it. Give us what we want, need, even, and we'll gladly pay your premiums.JoJ - Wednesday, January 31, 2018 - link
I was told 25 years ago by the then recently former marketing director of a large PC vendor, that the first big job he had was undoing bad statistics caused by failure to record the actions and effects of corporate sales negotiations deals, where the high feature products got over represented because fat margins could make dramatic drop close deals for target hungry sales reps, whilst really basic models were underrepresented because of the warranty costs that corporate customers wouldn't purchase without had become the largest line item in the bill of materials, meaning that the buyer wanted cheaper warranty and more basic SKUs or even for the vendor to increase the minimum spec but pay via immediately deductable services expenses like warranty deals. Finding out what caused each model to really sell was a tough little job, like I reckon getting any well oiled sales division to spill their main advantages of gaining commissions should always be.HDR displays I expected to be in huge demand by corporate tablet purchasing mandates. I have never seen such enthusiasm for a device as for Surface 4 in daylight noon sun, and the users of usually rugged tablets, who won't much mind lugging around the battery weight are precisely what should be getting this feature standard for all: find me a roadside engineer or Forrester who doesn't want HDR for plain visibility.
T2k - Thursday, January 25, 2018 - link
Nice, 2x TB3 - they are both 40Gb, right? If so, any reason why one cannot use an eGPU, eg Lenovo's own new, 4GB GTX1050-packing TB3 Graphics Dock? https://www.anandtech.com/show/12289/lenovo-reveal...JoJ - Wednesday, January 31, 2018 - link
Can anyone enlighten me why it's now hard to get a decent portable with full size SD card slot?Specifically I am suspicious of the desire to eliminate the simplest security feature of all: setting Windows 10 to only load executables the cryptographic hashes of which match those you've got safely stored on a write protected SD card.
The (first gen, not checked 3nd gen) Surface Books go full retard by putting the SD slot on the power base, I guess because I don't want to launch anything in the"book" tablet mode...
I just tried once again searching for any answer how to*enable* write protection on a uSD card, but can't get past results answering the opposite question...
JerseyJames - Monday, April 2, 2018 - link
Does anyone know the best estimate for a release date yet? ... or where I'd be better off looking?