IBM’s new ThinkPad

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Clear the passing lane, there’s a new speed demon on the road — IBM’s new ThinkPad T20, a lean, mean computing machine with Intel’s latest mobile CPU, the 700MHz Pentium III SpeedStep. Set to replace IBM’s ThinkPad 600 series, the T20 line sports a new case and more features for busy travellers.

The 700MHz SpeedStep CPU led a pre-production T20 to a PC WorldBench 2000 score of 138, the best ever for a Windows 98 laptop and nearly 7% higher than the average of five PIII-650 notebooks we’ve tested in the past. Like Intel’s other SpeedStep CPUs, the new chip will step down to a battery-saving clock speed (550MHz) when it’s not plugged in. Unless you do CPU-intensive tasks, however, disable this option and enjoy the performance — you won’t lose more than a few minutes of battery like IBM 02K6651 Battery, IBM 02K6928 Battery, IBM 02K6620 Battery, IBM 02K7039 Battery, IBM ThinkPad X60 Battery, IBM FRU 92P1167 Battery, IBM ThinkPad Z60t Battery, IBM ThinkPad Z61t Battery, IBM 40Y6793 Battery, IBM FRU 92P1125 Battery, IBM FRU 92P1121 Battery life. With Speed-Step enabled, the unit lasted a respectable 3 hours, 21 minutes on our battery test.

Right off the bat, you’ll see a new Blue-tooth-ready UltraPort connector on the T20’s screen lid. Bluetooth is a wireless protocol that lets PCs and cell- phones, for example, talk to each other; you’ll need a card (the PC Card version is due out this month) to use the functionality. Currently, you can use the port to attach a $233 digital camera that takes stills and video. (The camera also connects via the USB port.) With the bundled software, you can take snapshots and send video e-mail. I found the package intuitive and had the camera running in minutes.

Other advances include a built-in ethernet port and a new place for the on switch: it’s above the keyboard rather than on the side, so it’s less likely to get switched by accident. You also get a programmable ThinkPad button. By default, it launches an easy-to-use program called Access ThinkPad, which holds system information and links to a quartet of IBM portals, including one with a small-business focus. S3’s Savage IX8 AGP graphics chip set with 8MB of RAM drives the brilliant 14.1-inch LCD. Our unit also had a good-sized 12GB hard disk and 128MB of RAM.

Though not backward-compatible, the media bay modules (including a second battery, a hard disk, and CD-RW and LS-120 drives) are interchangeable with those in the new ThinkPad A20 series of portables (which replaces the ThinkPad 700 and 390 lines). Most modules are also hot-swappable. Our system didn’t come with DVD player software, so we didn’t test DVD playback. Unlike the 600 series, the T20 needs a $113 cable with a parallel connection to use the floppy drive externally.

The $8611 T20 is pricier than many high-end units, but it offers a richer feature set in a 2.4kg package — right on target for a performance-hungry business traveller.