Lenovos with Centrino Pro

Michelle Thatcher | Apr 25, 2007

Editors' note:

Lenovo Singapore declined to comment on this report. We will have more details and confirmation come May 15 when the Santa Rosa platform is officially launched.

NotebookReview pointed us to spec lists for the refreshed ThinkPad T61 and ThinkPad R61, both of which will be built on the platform formerly known as Santa Rosa. The announcement is limited to new configurations for the Asia-Pacific region, but we don't think it much of a stretch to assume we'll see similar Centrino Pro ThinkPads in the US.

One of the most intriguing features listed on the Lenovo page is the "Intel Turbo Memory 1GB hard drive for faster performance". We assume this is the official name for the Robson caching technology Intel demoed in 2005. Essentially a quantity of NAND flash memory that's incorporated into the motherboard, Robson stores a cache of commonly accessed information, such as the operating system and software, so you can boot the computer or launch applications without spinning the hard drive. Some of the other specs on the list include:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7100, T7300, T7500, and T7700 processors up to 2.4GHz, with 800MHz front-side bus and up to 4MB L2 cache

Intel GM/PM 965 chipset

Intel GMA X3100 or Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M graphics

802.11n WLAN and WWAN options

Choice of Windows Vista or Windows XP Professional

Roll cage and hard drive encryption.

The release lists May 2007 as the availability date, which falls nicely in the middle of Intel's window for releasing its new platform.

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