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thinkpad posts

Lenovo and RIM's Constant Connect now available

by Darren Murph posted Apr 28th 2009 @ 1:23PM

We know you've been literally hanging on the edge of your seat waiting for this day to come, so it's our honor and privilege to announce that Lenovo and RIM's Constant Connect solution is now available. For those who managed to sleep right through February, the technology enables select ThinkPads to automatically pull down BlackBerry emails whenever it's within range, even if the laptop is completely off. There's no word on what it'll cost to have this added into your next corporate machine, but you can head past the break for a quick demonstration vid if you think you're interested.

Update: It's a $149 option from select business partners and through Lenovo.com.

Continue reading Lenovo and RIM's Constant Connect now available

Lenovo Constant Connect brings BlackBerry email to ThinkPads automatically

by Darren Murph posted Feb 16th 2009 @ 12:01AM

After two years in development, Lenovo Constant Connect is finally here. A groundbreaking new tie-up between Lenovo and RIM has led to the creation of a $150 54mm ExpressCard -- which slots into any ThinkPad from around Summer '08 onward -- and automatically pulls down any email sent to your BlackBerry via Bluetooth, even if the laptop is completely powered down. The idea here is to always have your most recent inbox available within eight seconds of opening your machine, and thanks to the card's dedicated Bluetooth radio and 500MB of inbuilt storage, it can pull down and send out emails so long as the card and your 'Berry are within 30 feet or so from one another. Aside from needing an ExpressCard slot, you'll also need a handset with OS 4.2 or higher. It's designed to work with Exchange, Outlook, POP and Gmail, with Lotus Notes support coming in 2H 2009; as for availability, the card will be available through Lenovo and its partners in early Q2 here in America, while those elsewhere in the world will have to wait until the latter half of the year. Full release and demo video is after the break.

Continue reading Lenovo Constant Connect brings BlackBerry email to ThinkPads automatically

Lenovo serves up ThinkPad-inspired phone for China

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 9th 2007 @ 4:40PM

We hear nary a peep out of Lenovo's handset division in these parts -- but in China, they do a fairly brisk business, offering the full range from commodity candybars all the way up through Windows Mobile-based powerhouses. You'd think, then, that if the company chose to grace a phone with its treasured ThinkPad branding, it would be one of those higher end pieces, yeah? Apparently not. This here P768 is the first Lenovo we've seen to evoke the storied laptop marque, lacking any sort of smartphone operating system (as far as we can tell) but offering up a metallic shell, 2 megapixel cam, 64MB of storage with microSD expansion, and an FM radio with a thumbstick that looks vaguely like a real ThinkPad's track stick. Grab it in Lenovo's domestic market for 999 yuan, or about $132 -- a far cry from even the cheapest Lenovo lappie, we reckon.

Cingular 3G option appears on Lenovo's ThinkPad page

by Ryan Block posted Jun 21st 2006 @ 4:33AM

We're still not really sure what's taken Lenovo so long to make good on pushing out Cingular 3G options in their beloved ThinkPad line (well, yes we are -- could be anything from hardware to network optimization to Verizon exclusivity -- but is simply most likely the lack of HSDPA rollout), but from the looks of things Lenovo's finally about to launch some laptops with Cingular BroadbandConnect. If it's anything like their Verizon option it'll cost you a bit of cash (about $250 for EV-DO, anyway), but all we know for now is that there's at least one page on Lenovo's site advertising a ThinkPad T60 for a cool $1,900 (not counting the $200 mail-in rebate they're serving up). Hey, these laptops aren't for mere amateurs, so consider yourself warned; you didn't exactly expect the baseline model to come in real cheap, now did you?

[Thanks, Dale]